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Red Flag Linux Distributor Joins OSDL
segphault writes "Ars Technica reports that Red Flag Linux has joined the OSDL." From the article: "Founded in 2000 through the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Red Flag's Linux software line includes desktop, server, and embedded Linux distributions. Red Flag's products are extremely popular in China, where their desktop Linux distribution is favored by many developers. Red Flag frequently collaborates with other Linux distributors in the region, like Korea's Haansoft and Japan's Miracle Linux."
If by "popular" you mean the government attempts to force people to use their state-sponsored Linux distro to reduce dependence on American software, only to find that people respond by formatting their hard disks and installing pirate copies of Windows.
Nope, they don't mean popular by that - noone forces anyone to use it. Frankly i'm astounded that you think the Chinese peole would not want to use a local distro with better support for Chinese Characters & popular applications.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the Chinese Government - no need to go round making up new ones.
It's kinda fitting really. I probably wouldn't want to use Linux anymore if the government were trying to force it on me. Especially if it were the Chinese government.
Well thanks for sharuing your thoughts with us. Care to let us know why you believe people are being forced to use Red Flag?
I'm sure its not because of some sort of irrational anti-chinese bias you have, so please provide links.
My pics.
That is the big question isn't it? I'm quite leary of Red Flag because while they are eager to take Red Hat and build some very nice improvements and tools upon it, they are rather reluctant to share the code. Red Flag has a history of not releasing the source and although they are less bad about it, they still don't release the source.
Case in point, Red Flag is presently shipping version 5 of their product. They offer several different version 5 servers for sale but there is not source to be found. In their download area you can download some trial versions and release candidates of their products but notice the lack of recent versions. If you probe their site, you can find this unlinked page that allows you to download Chinese versions of some of the newer server products but, again, no source.
Considering Red Flag's track record I'm very disappointed that OSDL let Red Flag in but, I guess money talks and since Red Flag is government backed, they have lots of money. Regardless of their OSDL membership, I still regard Red Flag as hostile to and the GPL.