[LINK] China Software Industry Association on open source

[Jim Birch]

Brendan Scott wrote:

>> In any case, for various historical/cultural reasons, the Chinese 
>> would regard would regard paying royalties  to Microsoft (etc) as 
>> shameful.  
>
>
> I would be interested to know why you say this. Can you give me some 
> details?
>
The Chinese are a very nationalistic and proud people, albeit in a 
somewhat quiet way by western standards.  They regard themselves as the 
oldest continuous civilization on earth.  The recent period of say the 
last couple of hundred or so years when the country has been relatively 
weak and backward are regarded as a temporary aberration which needs to 
be fixed by whoever is running things as a matter of priority.  This is 
a kind of (largely) unspoken truth in modern China.

On top of this, the history of foreign dominance where European powers 
forced the Qing government to sign a series of treaties opening up 
ports, ceding lands, requiring reparation payments and other 
concessions.  These are now known as the "Unequal Treaties".   One of 
the most iniquitous aspects of this process was the British effort to 
produce large numbers of Chinese opium addicts so opium produced in 
India could be imported to China and used for trade.  Attempts by the 
Chinese to stop this trade got their nose rubbed it it, aka, "The Opium 
Wars".

This period of national impotence is still strong in the Chinese psyche 
and being beholden to foreign powers is felt as loss of face.  The 
Chinese are happy to trade and are doing pretty well out of it at 
present but paying open-ended royalties on an intangible product just 
doesn't sit well.  It's national pride as much as economics.  There's a 
bit of similar feeling about that kind of thing in Australia but we just 
don't have the history to make it a national mission.


Jim Birch

ps. For more less-simplified Chinese history, Google: Opium War, Qing 
Dynasty, Unequal Treaties.