China is working on a homegrown OS to replace current US solutions
The government of China could launch its own PC desktop operating system sometime in October which could later be extended to smartphones and tablets, in a bid to compete with rival overseas systems from Microsoft, Google and Apple.
The government controlled Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted Ni Guangnan, the leader of China's official OS development alliance, as saying, "We hope to launch a Chinese-made desktop operating system by October supporting app stores." He added that their domestic OS could replace current desktop systems in one to two years, and could do the same for the mobile market in three to five years.
Details of how this Chinese OS will differ from the many Western operating systems are not known at this point. However, China clearly doesn't want to rely on operating systems that are coming from the US. A few months ago, the government announced it would not use Microsoft's current Windows 8 operating system on its PCs due to both security and energy use concerns.
What do you think of China's plans to create its own operating system and could it eventually lock out Western-made software?
Source: Reuters
Reader comments
China is working on a homegrown OS to replace current US solutions
Could be interesting. Their reasoning is purely a crock, though, whining about American companies maybe helping the NSA, when their own stuff is made BY THE GOVERNMENT which practically has an obligation to itself to act like a turd.
As for the idea of a major non-US effort to build an entire set of system software, that's pretty interesting. Even Linux - being designed as a MINIX and UNIX clone - is still not different enough. If China is building something new from the ground up, then that would be very interesting indeed! It's not Windows, it's not *nix, it's ChinOS!
Not quite from the ground up. As I recall, it's being built on a Linux kernel.
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Then it's not about security, it's about creating a global standard using China's market as leverage. We'll see if anyone adopts it or if it stays limited to China.
Other than North Korea, what country would be dumb enough to install a Chinese Government produced operating system?
Believe it or not. In the rest of the world Chinese and US reputation in this area is about the same.
I figure they will just take OSX, add spyware, and rebrand it. Since when has china had a problem with stealing software and making copies?
It will probably be like every other piece of junk that was every developed over there.
Sweet! Hopefully they've learned from Microsoft that enterprise solutions are key, but shoddy design including a mess of settings and files is not the way to go. What they need to do is OSX with better enterprise management.
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They are already rolling out in the government a version of Ubuntu made just for China, so old news on the desktop side of things. It will be interesting to see how that rolls down to mobile. Ubuntu phone anyone ;-)
It comes complete with government snooping spyware
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This also happens in business and trade. They will always prefer and push their home-grown stuff. They have one of the largest overall populations and THE largest growing economy. That's where the money is. The problem is, they still want YOUR money too.
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Yeah, Just what China needs, a government run... Anything else. Oddly enough this somehow makes me feel a little more free. Imagine all computers having to have government owned software on it. Oh yeah and the protectionism isn't helping things either. However, I don't think American companies will pull out of the cheap labor market in China. It will be interesting to see how big companies react to this shift if it happens. Truffle popcorn at the ready.
They already tried this and it didn't work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
Maybe they are trying something different this time, but it seems a little silly to use it anywhere beyond Chinese government computers until they get popular application support.
Yeah right! What's China KGB called? If anyone there uses it, it will be because they were forced to. Duh?
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On the surfice I like the idea. By now I'm completely weary of the Dueling Megatron scenario we've been stuck in since personal computing began. On the desktop it's Mac versus Windows, and now in the hand it's Anroid versus iOS. Don't get me wrong, Apple's stuff is awesome in my book, but the primary reason I have always used it is because it's the only other thing out there. And yeah, I know, BeOS, Linux in various flavors, but where are they, really? It's a no brainier going with Apple, they're not only the only ones that think different, from all appearances, they're the only ones that think. So yes, PLEASE, somebody develop a competing OS with brains engaged.