And many people that don't care about "using their old programs or data" because they never owned a computer before.
They will care about being able to use existing Chinese apps and games, which are pretty much all Windows-only. I don't know if you've actually been in China, but Windows is even more entrenched there than it is in the West.
For them Linux is perfect (they won't have to pirate MS Office.)
For them Windows is much better, because all the Chinese software that everybody around them is already using will work, and they don't give a hoot about piracy. In fact, lots of them don't even have a concept of "software piracy". Software is just something you copy from someone else, or buy from the street vendor for a dollar.
I think Americans - and many urban Chinese, too - tend to see the factory workers as passive victims, motivated by poverty and desperation. Spending time with these young women taught me the opposite: They are resourceful and ambitious, full of plans to improve their lot and change their fates, willing to challenge their bosses and quit their jobs for better ones, and willing to take night classes to improve themselves. When you ask these migrant workers why they came to the city, they will tell you that their families are poor, but they also talk about the opportunity and adventure of urban life. They may have very little power in our eyes, but in their own they are the leading actors in their own dramas and not victims of circumstance.
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian
