[luau] Taiwan's desperate move into Linux

[Joe Linux]

Does the fast computer boot off of a "smart card" like the ones in 
digital cmeras?

W. Wayne Liauh wrote:

> Aloha everyone.  This news came from Linuxtoday:
>
> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/3/55433/41738
>
> There are a bunch of other similar news articles in my archive, but 
> most of them are written in Chinese.
>
> One of the most noteworthy part is that the Taiwanese government is 
> going to immediately train 120,000 Linux users and 9600 Linux experts 
> ("seeds").
>
> I don't think anyone in the US knows the true story behind this (to an 
> insider) relatively surprising development.  ("Surprising", because 
> politicians, those who have the power to make the needed changes, 
> don't really think the same ways as we do.  Yes, Linux has all the 
> advantages--especially for Hawaii's schools, but try to sell those 
> ideas to Cayetano.  Will he really care?  Or to Joe Blanco, he'll 
> think you're an idiot.)
>
> This move is indeed very political, and initially had nothing to do 
> with technology and/or economic reasons whatsoever.  In a nutshell, 
> Chen Shui-Bei, President of Taiwan, is running for his political life 
> now after his government began a Microsoft-sponsored (yes, 
> Microsoft-sponsored) crackdown on software piracy, causing huge public 
> outcries, resentment, and rowdy protests (30,000 in one protest alone) 
> in Taiwan campuses.  Opposition parties have seized this opportunity. 
> And President Chen got the message.
>
> President Chen was a classmate of mine at National Taiwan University. 
> He is a very smart guy, and I knew he will not stop at just slowing 
> down the piracy crack-down (which will show that he had made a 
> mistake, no politician would admit that).  The only way for him to 
> move out of this totally unexpected deep political trouble is to hitch 
> onto Linux and move into it.
>
> Taiwan not controls hardware manufacturing, it now also controls 
> hardware design.  With AMD now moving the manufacturing of Athlon XPs 
> into Taiwan (UMC), (I am sure Warren knows this story better than I 
> do) they can make and design everything in a PC except harddrive.  But 
> I always consider harddrive a nuisance for desktop PCs.  There will be 
> more exciting developments.
>
> A client of mine showed me a fully blown Linux PC which can be booted 
> up and ready to work in less than 10 seconds.  Can Windows do that?
>
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