Tom Gordon wrote:
I didn't get the message. Probably only 0.771%* of Americans probably
could.
First, let me apologize, apriori, for being too brazen. It was a
shorthand comment--probably way too short, probably. But I indicated
that I "hope" (not "expect") many of us "will" (involving a time factor,
probably also a learning curve) get the message. It is a tough task to
try to explain the inandouts unless you have been following Linux from
its incipiency, or at least have been seriously pondering the commercial
aspects thereof.
I am not going to waste my time (and yours) trying to do the
impossible. But basically, Red Flag Linux appears to be failing (as
evidenced by comments from the Chinese Linux community) because, among
other things, (1) it was developed in a closed-door environment under a
top-down development model and (2) its owns has been reluctant to
release, if at all, the source code. This shows that the open-source
software business definitely requires a very different business model
that what we used to know, and the experience from the proprietary
business world may become a grave hindrance to success.
The second, and probably more important, message from this is that,
Fedora Core, which is developed primarily for English speakers, is
preferred by Chinese speakers over Red Flag Linux, which is developed
based on the Chinese language. This underscores the multilingual nature
of Linux--a point that should never be lost if anyone is serious about
doing Linux business. The CJK features in Fedora Core, which worked
great in FC1, appear to be totally broken in FC2. However, to me, this
simply means that Red Hat is not afraid to make drastic (but necessary)
changes.
Last year, a venture capital group I know put in $1.6M, plus subsequent
expenses, in China (Jiangsu province), and the provincial government
matched another $2M, to develop an office suite, called Evermore
Office. (I think Slashdot discussed this office suite not too long
ago.) I told some of the officials who were involved in this project
that it would never fly. The reason should be quite obvious: Does
anyone dare to use their product? For me, I might, just might, give it
a spin on an old hardware. But to use it in my business? Not a
chance. (It will have to be either a Microsoft product or some open
source software; I don't think a third party proprietary office suite
has any chance to survive.) 3.6 million US dollars may sound to be
quite a bit, but when it comes to marketing expenditures, this is almost
like 3.5 pennies. One of the advantages of open-source software is that
it has a built-in marketing mechanism--if you are good.
It appears that their money would have been much better invested if they
could develop plug-ins for OpenOffice.org. But this is something they
(and we) all have to learn in this brand new Open-Source world.
I know many, even those who happen to be among my fellow 0.771% of the
Americans, won't have a clue of what I was talking about. For those,
you know where the delete key is. wayne
