China to Develop Windows Clone

jimmu writes "According to both The Register and The People's Daily China is set to develop a windows workalike equivalent to Win 98, with full compatibility with Office 200 and Word. Apparently, 18 companies and universities have been working on the 2 initiatives, with a 1.0 version supposedly already released to certain government offices."

Comments

WINE

[steveeq2]

Uhhhh, what's wrong with WINE?

Re:WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

A good judge of emulation is when it can emulate software that was around at the beginning and has been slowly upgraded to recent APIs and such. An example of this would be Paint Shop Pro and WINE don't run it.

(this CLIT thing is like spork, eh?)

Also in New Scientist

[onby2000]

New Scientist is also running a story about this.

Must. Read. Articles. Before. Posting.

[realgone]

China is NOT cloning Win98.

Let me repeat: China is not cloning Win98. All y'all villagers can put those torches and pitchforks away. 'Taint nuthin to see here.

Here's what The People's Daily article had to say (in slightly mangled English):

[T]he Beijing municipal government bought software equivalent to Win 95 from Chinese companies such as CS&S and RedFlag. While the newly started two programs would make updates on this basis to improve the software to a level of Win98 and compatible with Office2000 and Word.

Now, what is RedFlag, you ask? It appears to be a Chinese distro of Linux. Yup. And CS&S? That's the China National Computer Software and Technology Service Corporation. Rght here. And *who* did they enter into a big agreement with at the end of last year? That'd be Sun, to license StarSuite, as mentioned in this release.

So to sum up:
China: Running StarSuite under Linux.
Register: Jumping the gun.... again.
Slashdot readers: Hates Microsoft.

Whew. Looks like everything's back to normal around here. =)

Re:Must. Read. Articles. Before. Posting.

[grammar nazi]

The grammar nazi just *had* to post this Engrish translation from the Red Flag Linux website. The grammar nazi can't help but grimace upon reading this:

Regarding Red Flag Desktop 3.0
Span application obstacle and move to a new easiness-to-use magnitude
Redflag Linux desktop 3.0 unveiled
Recently, CAS Redflag Software Technologies Co., Ltd. unveiled in Beijing its latest desktop operating system (OS), i.e., Redflag Desktop 3.0.
While maintaining the inherent stability and high-performance of Linux system, the product, leveraging the cutting-edge Linux 2.4.7 core, remarkably overcomes the deficiencies of the former versions of Linux in terms of operability and gives prominence to OS' humanization and affinity, pushing the easy-to-use and applicability of desktop OS to a new frontier and moving a solid step forward in the application-oriented evolution road.
In December of 2001, CAS Redflag Software Technologies Co., Ltd. differentiated itself among legions of renowned vendors at home and abroad in the fierce competition for Beijing Government contract for OA software package. Redflag Linux Desktop OS featuring high availability and high performance-price ratio has won recognition from the general users and government users alike. The newly-released Redflag Desktop 3.0, while inheriting advantages from the older versions, made a shining debut with humanization and affinity, demonstrating to people once again the promising future of Chinese software industry.
An important index for the genuine maturation of a desktop OS is that whether the system itself is designed on the basis of user care. In this perspective, Redflag Linux Desktop 3.0 makes significant headway in comparison with the older versions. Redflag Linux moves even closer to the users' operating habits and makes reference to the strong-points of some proven OS' regarding system appearance, structure and operation etc., enabling users accustomed to using other OS' and multi-system users to acquaint it very soon.
Redflag optimizes the hardware drivers supported by Redflag Linux Desktop 3.0, significantly improving its applicability and enabling convenient and quick installation on PCs with different configurations. By leveraging simple and intuitive menu installation wizard, common users are able to finish the whole setup process within half an hour. The powerful control panel available seamlessly combines the easiness-of-use with the functionality. The system re-categorizes KDE setting, enabling compliance with operating habits of Windows users.
A performance-price ratio conforming to China's actual situation has been Redflag offerings' advantage all the time. Likewise, the Redflag Desktop 3.0 affordably priced provides complete system functions with user-friendly graphic interface. Taking users' demands into consideration, the system pays close attention to applicability and easy-to-use features. The installation process of the system is very simple and all components feature plug-and-play. Upon completion of installation, the system is capable of operating under the default mode, consequently, whether experienced users or green hands with Linux can use the system skillfully. According to related marketing personnel of Redflag, the story doesn't end here, Redflag Desktop 3.0 accomplishes high-availability while exhibiting very high performance-price ratio. This OS is designed not only for consumers but also for government offices. While the Linux version of office packages to be released by Kingsoft Software, Sun and Chinese 2000 will without doubt accelerate the time-to-market of Linux desktop. As a result, the principles of stability, reliability and security are given prominence by Redflag when designing this OS. The sending/receiving of official documents and smooth headway of government work are the basis of the steady running of the society as a whole, while introducing homemade OS will provide reliable safeguard for the security of government transactions.

End of quote. Ouch!

also on ..

[josepha48]

the new scientist..http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.j sp?id=ns99992573

It suggests that it is Linux and open source and wine...

Yes, you can sue China in US courts.

[ArsSineArtificio]

Um, US Courts have no jurisdiction over China. It's a foreign country.

Yes, that's the obvious answer, and yes, the "the US is just big and mean and stupid and thinks it rules the world" opinions expressed in other responses are terribly fashionable. But no, it's not correct, and no, nobody's stupid enough to think that we're going to send the federal marshals to Shanghai.

You can sue foreign governments in United States courts. A cursory search reveals, for example, this case from a few months ago: Stethem v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 201 F.Supp. 2d 78 (D.D.C., 2002).

Put very simply, a party (say, Microsoft, or in the above case a U.S. citizen killed as a result of actions of the defendant nation) can get a judgment, or a court order, against a foreign country.

If it's a monetary judgment, it can be collected from whatever assets the country has in the United States - bank accounts, foreign currency reserves, real estate, whatever. If it's a court order, then, say, Microsoft could get an injunction forbidding the Chinese government (or whatever state-owned enterprise) from distributing "Windows PRC" within the United States.

This happens all the time. It's really not that exciting. Suing China, of course, would be a little pointless - China's not likely to try to undertake any action within the jurisdiction of the US courts - namely, within the United States.

Been ther, done that

[sharkey]

Windows PC clone.