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Former Second Largest Linux Distributor Red Flag Software Has Shut Down

Posted by Unknown on from the linux-defeats-linux dept.

cold fjord writes with news that Red Flag Software, makers of China's Red Hat derivative Red Flag Linux, has halted operations. From the article: "Once the world's second-largest Linux distributor, Red Flag Software has shuttered reportedly due to mismanagement and after owing employees months in unpaid wages. China's state-funded answer to global software giants like Microsoft ... filed for liquidation over the weekend and terminated all employee contracts. Set up in late-1999 amid the dot-com boom, Red Flag was touted as an alternative to Windows ... It thrived in the early days, inking deals with partners such as Oracle and Dell which products were certified to support and shipped with Red Flag Software. The Beijing-based vendor was primarily funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Software Research, and later received additional funding from state-owned Shanghai NewMargin Venture Capital and the Ministry of Information Industry's VC arm ... 'A lack of brand awareness and sustained investments, coupled with the rise of rivals including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise, led to its downfall,' Eric Peng, Beijing-based research manager with IDC, said ... Peng noted that, during its hey days, Red Flag had enjoyed high adoption among government agencies, state-owned organizations, and schools.""

92 comments

  1. They switched to FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Red Devil will be released in Q3 2014.

    1. Re:They switched to FreeBSD by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Red Devil will be released in Q3 2014.

      ...and sold right next to the tile grout.

    2. Re:They switched to FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Red Devil will be released in Q3 2014.

      Yes, moved to B-S-Lee !

  2. Linux or China bankruptcy ? by denisbergeron · · Score: 2

    I will bet on China bankruptcy. It's sad for the Linux branding, but all other big name in the Linux world are well.

    The question, is how much this is a lead to other China gouvernment owned business that are going that route in the near future, and how much these will affect the economics partner of the China gvtm ?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
    1. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by Lisias · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily China bankruptcy.

      You see, State funded companies are funded while it's interesting for the State that that company exists, and sorely abandoned in the exact millisecond that it's not interesting anymore.

      States have a almost infinite source of resources, and just don't mind prosaic little things as lost of revenue, financial losses or any other "capitalistic buzz words".

      Something happened that made a Linux based company less attractive that some other solution.

      --
      Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
    2. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily China bankruptcy.

      China isn't bankrupt, but it is appears to be heading for economic trouble. It has been building for some time, and there are multiple areas of concern.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by cavreader · · Score: 1

      The problem was it didn't generate enough cash flow to pay off the Party Members. They probably figured out it was cheaper to just pirate MS software.

    4. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by RogueyWon · · Score: 2

      Yes... in so far as we can get any real idea of what's going on in China's economy, they appear to be heading for a crash at least on the kind of scale of what the West went through in 2008.

      And the really interesting questions that will raise aren't primarily economic, but rather social and political. A few decades of the one-child policy combined with improving life-expectancy has meant that they have an aging population crisis in the pipeline (and starting to materialize) which makes Japan's look tame. They have a policy of turning a blind eye to gender selective abortion which means they have a very, very large number of frustrated, single young men. Said cohort of young men has been brought up with a combination of radical political ideology and ever-rising living standards. What happens when those living standards stop rising could get extremely unpleasant.

      China's history would suggest that if it turns violent, it will likely take the form of civil rather than overseas war (China may be generally xenophobic, but over the last few millenia, it has very rarely gone to war outside of its borders). But that's certainly not guaranteed, particularly with the political leadership's attempts to deliberately direct their youth towards hatred of Japan in particular (but also other Asian neighbours).

    5. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      Considering that they are the largest holder of US Treasury's, a meltdown like you describe would impact the US and most of Europe.

    6. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by RogueyWon · · Score: 1

      The financial shocks would be felt in every corner of the world. The impacts on Europe and the US would be significant, but are tricky to predict. What's much easier to predict are the impacts of those areas of Africa and South America where China is now the main overseas investor.

      Total collapse.

    7. Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      The financial shocks would be felt in every corner of the world. The impacts on Europe and the US would be significant, but are tricky to predict. What's much easier to predict are the impacts of those areas of Africa and South America where China is now the main overseas investor.

      Total collapse.

      China is the main investor for the US, too. They hold the majority of US Treasuries and could cripple the US without ever firing a shot. All they have to do is unload their Treasuries they've been purchasing. If they did that all at once, the US dollar would be worth about $0.22 compared to its current value. If they did that, gas would cost $17/gallon, eggs around $8/dozen and a loaf of bread about $10. Even if the dollar only deflated to $0.50 that would be $7 for gas, $4 for eggs and $5 for bread.

      Such a shock would cause another depression.

  3. post-beta slashdot alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    http://www.soylentnews.org/

    also, technocrat is coming soon according to the main page!:

    http://technocrat.net/

    See you all there!

  4. Red Flag? by georgeaperkins · · Score: 1

    Wow, I've never even heard of it!

    1. Re:Red Flag? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      Wow, I've never even heard of it!

      It's been mentioned on Slashdot before, although not real often.

      IBM's Interest in Red Flag Linux
      Red Flag Linux Distributor Joins OSDL

      I would think the language barrier would tend to limit info going each way.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. But RED HAT lives on by bobbied · · Score: 2

    All is well with the world.

    In other news, Russian investors take over SCO Unix, and Microsoft *still* has no comment.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:But RED HAT lives on by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Actually, China could easily have bought SCO/UnXIS/Xinuos/whatever it is they're calling it these days, and SVRV would have been theirs. Remove all English, put in all Mandarin, add Linux VMs to it, and then call it COS and run it.

    2. Re:But RED HAT lives on by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Why bother with SCO? In China you just compile Linux and distribute it in binary form calling it your own. = PROFIT

      If you are smart you remove all the license references, but that actually involves reading English (and other languages) so why bother?

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  6. Corruption by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 1

    Corrupt company in a corrupt country succumbs to the free market. I'm shocked...just shocked, I say.

    Slow news week?

    1. Re:Corruption by phoebe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd like a technical post mortem and a list of contributions that Red Flag Linux has made to the community. There is surprise that a company running so long with state sponsorship has relatively few staff compared with Red Hat in a country of lower wages, and similarly has produced less original content than its neighbour Sun Wah Linux.

    2. Re:Corruption by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 1

      "has produced less original content than its neighbour Sun Wah Linux"

      I always preferred "Wang Chung Linux" but to each their own ...

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    3. Re:Corruption by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      I'd like a technical post mortem and a list of contributions that Red Flag Linux has made to the community.

      That is a very interesting question. I wonder if they hesitated to contribute out of security concerns, or the language barrier, or maybe they considered their distribution as a key hub that other people should have been looking to.

      I wonder if they had publicly accessible sources? I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't - security through state secrets and all.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    4. Re:Corruption by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      ... has produced less original content than its neighbour Sun Wah Linux.

      That's no surprise since he was very likely the most-recorded artist of the 20th Century.

      And if you play Pleiades backwards on your PC, it'll offer to install Yggdrasil.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    5. Re:Corruption by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I wonder if they had publicly accessible sources? I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't - security through state secrets and all.

      They still do. (Sorry to disappoint you.)

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  7. What a Joke by diakka · · Score: 0

    Red Flag always seemed to be a joke to me. I am not aware of anyone in my social circle that has used their products, much less put any Red Flag systems into production. Were any major software projects or code contributions even driven by Red Flag? Even the name Red Flag just sucks, it sounds like a Chinese nationalistic shanzhai version of Redhat. The marketing genius who came up with that one should just go jump off a building. Maybe black hole software would have been a better name, because that's where all their funding went.

    --
    -- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
    1. Re:What a Joke by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My guess is that neither you nor anyone in your circle uses Baidu either. There's lots of tools, services, programs and OSs that are quite popular in China and virtually unknown outside of it.

      For example, did you ever hear about Tencent QQ. I have to admit, I have not until just recently, and it's apparently the second largest "virtual community" right behind Facebook.

      It's just an East Asia "thing", apparently. Not very popular over here in the West. So I wouldn't quite yet dump an OS just 'cause I never heard about it, it might be very popular elsewhere.

      And China is one hell of a big market!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:What a Joke by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      The problem for Red Flag Linux is that the chinese market prefers Windows XP.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    3. Re:What a Joke by diakka · · Score: 2

      Well, not to be rude, but you're guess couldn't be more wrong. I never said that I hadn't heard of them, in fact, I have been aware of their existence for many years, but as far as I know, Red Flag never saw success anywhere near that of QQ or Baidu, and I almost never heard it mentioned among my Chinese Linux using associates, of which I have quite a few. Granted, none of them work in government, but still, unless I'm a statistical anomaly, it's pretty good evidence that my assessment of Red Flag as a joke is spot on.

      But if I am wrong, I'd love to hear about any major deployments of Red Flag or any awesome contributions to FLOSS that could be attributed to them.

      --
      -- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
    4. Re:What a Joke by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      They love XP so much the Chinese have been trying to persuade Microsoft to continue supporting it.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re:What a Joke by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 2

      Yes, I have heard of QQ, in fact, it is running on my computer right now. I use it for daily chat with, and to pass files to, co-workers. However, I only ever saw red flag linux once. I was in a shop in Xian and I happened to see ti. i was looking at it because I was so surprised to actually see red flag.

      A salesman came over and the first thing he said was "If you buy it we will put windows on it for you." In over eight years in China, that was the only time I ever saw red flag. Everyone uses pirated copies of XP other then the people with Apple. Apple is well liked because of the reality that the Apple has a, near assured, minimum level of quality; whereas the XP boxes are often several generations behind and any part that could be swapped out for something cheaper has been. However, i am not going to pretend that Apple is even near common; but it is seen, unlike red flag.

    6. Re:What a Joke by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 1

      Oh, I forgot to mention, qq doesn't work on Linux.

    7. Re:What a Joke by someone1234 · · Score: 1

      That's funny. Which Chinese? The ones who produced Red Flag (state), or the ones who pirated XP (people).

      --
      Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
    8. Re:What a Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, once upon a time there had been a beta but I think it's not supported anymore... but if you really want to use it, you can use webqq.com.
      Anyway, if I have to compare my country (France) with China, I can say that in France, quite a lot of non-tech people have heard of linux - it'll probably never cross their mind to install it, but they've heard of it. In China, it seems only a tiny minority have heard of it, and can't really understand what the point is. Of course I'm only speaking of my own experience, but I really think Red Flag was a total failure...

    9. Re:What a Joke by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      I have been in China ten years and had a QQ account shortly after I arrived. I use Baidu regularly. I'm also on Weibo and Weixin (Wechat). I have seen a lot of linux geeks doing their thing.

      I have yet to see a Red Flag installation. Everyone uses the same linuxes as we use in the West. I have also seen people who do not speak a word of English but know how to read enough to install a system. From what I can gather, Red Flag is something that Westerners like to jabber on about because it's the only connection they know, much like how they won't shut up about Tiananmen Square. They just don't know anything else to say.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:What a Joke by fsck-beta · · Score: 1

      s/East Asia/China/

    11. Re:What a Joke by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      And China is one hell of a big market!

      Not only that, but it is far behind the rest of the world, at least first world countries, in computerizing. Many areas are just now getting electricity. Just think what an opportunity it would be to provide an operating system to a market that isn't locked into Microsoft.

      The problem with the West, is they often misunderstand and underestimate the rest of the world until it is too late.

    12. Re:What a Joke by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The problem of the West, and here I can't help but put the biggest blame on the US, maybe because they just have the most opportunities to fuck up, is that they don't give a fuck about some country's culture. We (westies) come into some country and act as if our way of life is the only way people WANT to live, ignoring that the population there already has a culture and, at least as important, values. Values that may not be the same we have.

      One of our big things is "self fulfillment". We want to be a special snowflake, we want to be something out of the ordinary. And one of the things I learned quickly when dealing with the far east is that this is not the same there. The "we" is much stronger there than the "I". Harmony and the group experience are held in quite high esteem in the "moral" chain of values, something you won't really see anywhere around here.

      In my experience, one of the first things you have to do when you try to understand a different culture is learning their language. You will find out that the language of a people usually reflects their thinking (for obvious reasons). Languages that have many different words for people or groups of people are usually from cultures that have a very strong "we" sentiment and group oriented values. If you have many ways to address people, you're usually dealing with a highly hierarchical culture.

      If you want to understand a culture, learn its language!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:What a Joke by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Du Leh Lo Mo.

      I understand enough Cantonese for an American.

      Also Rusky:

      Yob Toyo Mat.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    14. Re:What a Joke by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Android, now.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    15. Re:What a Joke by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Yob Tebya Mat.

      Yeesh, the youth of today. Digging up corpses 'cause they can't get a girlfriend but can't conjugate nor transliterate...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    16. Re:What a Joke by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      So I've been telling people to fuck their dead mothers?

      Even better!

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    17. Re:What a Joke by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Nope, that should be 'tvoyu'---2nd person singular plural possessive, accusative case, feminine.

      Unless you're telling your own mother to fuck off, that is. ('Tyebya' is the 2nd person singular accusative.)

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  8. Red Flag waves white flag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    News at 11.

    1. Re:Red Flag waves white flag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Commie pinko...

    2. Re:Red Flag waves white flag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Are you blue, or possibly browned off, that the yellow peril's pinko company Red Flag is waving the white flag because they don't have enough green coming in to keep them in the black?

  9. Re: white Flag! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ditto, and I run linux as my primary OS.
    You know your marketing sucks if your core audience never heard of you until after you've waved the white flag and given up.

  10. Re: white Flag! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get off my lawn.

  11. Mismanagement, you say... by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    When a government sponsored production with government-aided distribution in a country with a market of over a billion people fails,

    mismanagement might be a smallish understatement.

    I don't like to bandy about terms like inept or corrupt, bit there it is.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah they don't have any managers worth mentioning.... they should have hired Elop...

    2. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In China "mismanagement" = "corruption" elsewhere.

    3. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, like anything produced and promoted by the State, it's seen for what it really is and shunned accordingly.

    4. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Anybody got a list of companies owned outright by the Chinese Communist Party or Chinese Army? Very little control my ass.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 1

      And those State Owned Enterprises create yet another powerful faction in the government that make it even harder to direct the country. The SOEs have their own agendas that often differ from that of the central party leadership.

      Some online sources to make a habit of reading, that will improve your understanding of the real issues in China are, of course, The Economist and China daily; but I would add http://english.caixin.com/ I will add that I have years of China experience that I suspect you lack. I see many efforts to grasp power, such as the current anti-corruption campaign. It looks monolithic form the outside; but, unlike Americans and western Europeans, the Chinese have no culture of being law abiding. They place great value on appearing to be proper. But, appearances and reality are very different, it is a subtle difference that I really did not internalize until several years of China watching..

    6. Re:Mismanagement, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every company with more than three Communist Party members is required to have a party committee. The committee is charged with supervising the company. More than 300,000 companies are under CPC supervision, so it's a long list.

  12. Re: white Flag! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The core audience of Red Flag Linux are the Chinese people living in China. Are you living in China?

  13. This comes as no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chinese are great at "borrowing", lousy at innovating beyond that. It should be noted most Chinese "computer science" is simply aimed at breaking/entering other people's computers or keeping their great firewall up. Very little at actually writing code or the like.

    1. Re:This comes as no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are some companies innovating, for instance pptv's patented mix of peer to peer and client server model for video streams, the performance is the best in the world.

  14. Re: white Flag! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They weren't marketing to Americans. Unfortunately, Chinese businesses are still pirating Windows XP, wholesale, which is why you can't sell Linux with a prybar there, It doesn't run real, honest-betsy-ross pirated MS Office.

  15. China Operating System (COS) killed it? by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    Perhaps Red Flag Linux steps down because China Operating System (COS) aims to replace it?

    1. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      That's for mobile devices. I'm not sure that would be suitable for all uses.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    2. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      That's [China Operating System] for mobile devices. I'm not sure that would be suitable for all uses.

      Like Windows 8 you mean?

      I had also assumed that COS was the way China was going. I didn't realise that Red Flag Linux was still around, it suprised me.

    3. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      That's the point, nobody cares about PC operating systems any more, now it's all about the compute power you can hold in your hand.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Desktops and servers won't be going away anytime soon. The power and utility differential is too great. Handheld devices are gaining, but they are a long way from being a universal replacement for desktops let alone servers.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Desktops and servers won't be going away anytime soon.

      True, but desktops are becoming more like typewriters and servers are becoming more like delivery trucks. Consumers tend not to own either.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    6. Re:China Operating System (COS) killed it? by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      But the same OS can run handhelds, desktop and servers. NetBSD or Linux fits all.

  16. Zero brand awareness by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 1

    I have been using Linux since an early Slackware dist and have probably tried 8-10 variants in the years since. I never heard of Red Flag Linux; not once; not even a tiny once.

    They needed more cowbell or something. All CS courses should have an MBA in a weekend course. Generally I rail at the MBA mentality but there are a few useful takeaways in a business course (just shouldn't be the 4 years of psychopathic indoctrination).

    1. Re:Zero brand awareness by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      I'd heard of it, but hadn't seen much about it in the news, and I admit I probably never spent much time looking for info.

      It turns out that Slashdot has had a couple of stories on it before, and it has been mentioned in some others. Examples (one posted by CdrTaco even):

      IBM's Interest in Red Flag Linux
      Red Flag Linux Distributor Joins OSDL

      China has a home grown MIPs type CPU that they planned to use in some systems, and Red Flag was supposed to be one of the key OS suppliers.

      I wonder what will happen to the current codebase?

      Does China have its own Linux magazines? I would think so.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    2. Re:Zero brand awareness by Dynedain · · Score: 1

      Then you weren't paying attention. It was all over Slashdot when they launched.

      Granted, it's marketed to users *inside* the Great Firewall, so you at least have that excuse.

      --
      I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
    3. Re:Zero brand awareness by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Oh, I first heard of it years ago, and even have some ISOs lurking around on a spare drive somewhere.

      Never have had a spare machine to try it out on at the same time I had time and inclination, and I never could get it to install in a VM (I tried Qemu and VirtualBox).

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  17. Red Flag? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Set up in late-1999 amid the dot-com boom, Red Flag was touted as an alternative to Windows ... It thrived in the early days, inking deals with partners such as Oracle and Dell which products were certified to support and shipped with Red Flag Software.

    Strange, considering I never heard of it. I guess it was an AP thing.

  18. Redflag had billions invested by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess that all eventually went back to the party. I remember meeting one of their executives about 10 years ago at a conference and he mentioned over a billion then and his handler told him to shut up. They spent a godly amount of money translating Linux and source code comments to Chinese. I doubt they ever upstreamed any fixes if they even fixed anything. It was mostly a direct copy of Redhat 'Chinesified' for political reasons. An attempt to steal Linux really.

    1. Re:Redflag had billions invested by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      That's a pity. The Chinese have enough local talent to do far more than that.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    2. Re:Redflag had billions invested by cavreader · · Score: 1

      I have worked with quite a few Chinese IT professionals over the years and they were very good at their jobs.

    3. Re:Redflag had billions invested by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I have a number of Chinese colleagues. They tend to do excellent work.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  19. Lies, lies, and more lies.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    " Peng noted that, during its hey days, Red Flag had enjoyed high adoption among government agencies, state-owned organizations, and schools.""

    As someone who has lived in China for 8 years I can tell you that's complete bullshit. They may have been told to use such software, but nobody actually used it. I have never seen it used anywhere in China. 99% of computers in China are pirated Windows XP or Windows 7... end of story.

    1. Re:Lies, lies, and more lies.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " Peng noted that, during its hey days, Red Flag had enjoyed high adoption among government agencies, state-owned organizations, and schools.""

      As someone who has lived in China for 8 years I can tell you that's complete bullshit. They may have been told to use such software, but nobody actually used it. I have never seen it used anywhere in China. 99% of computers in China are pirated Windows XP or Windows 7... end of story.

      Did you ever access the servers? WinXP and Win7 don't do very well as servers.

  20. @Lisias - Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ? by nukenerd · · Score: 2
    Lisias wrote :-

    State funded companies are funded while it's interesting for the State that that company exists, and sorely abandoned in the exact millisecond that it's not interesting anymore.

    Funny, I have always heard that as an "advantage" of capitalism - that investors would move their money elsewhere the moment it was no longer in their interest to keep it with a losing company. It is usually phrased in terms like "private capital is quick on its feet / nimble / flexible".

  21. Groupthink class by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The prevailing groupthink is something like this:

    If it's done by the governmnet, it is universally bad. If it's done by the private sector it is god or bad but at least it is inherently efficient because there is no waste in there. All waste, corruption and mismanagement are artefacts of the government.

    This, incidentally, is why you are in the state you are in.

  22. Lots of unpatched systems by gtirloni · · Score: 1

    Peng noted that, during its hey days, Red Flag had enjoyed high adoption among government agencies, state-owned organizations, and schools.

    Lots and lots of unpatched servers waiting to be exploited from now on (unless they migrate to a supported platform).

    --
    none
  23. Does Red Flag even honor the Open Source license? by nhat11 · · Score: 1

    Like GPL?

  24. Re:Never even heard of 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Been using Linux since 1995 and never even heard of Red Flag until this article. Zero brand recognition.

  25. Government OS by phorm · · Score: 1

    Red Flag was tied to the Chinese government. Other than others tied to said government, who would want to run an "Open" OS from a government with policies of censorship (not to mention spying etc)?

  26. Everything is copied.... by sentiblue · · Score: 1

    So I understand that lots of stuffs are being copied and developed upon by many Chinese companies.... They copied these things BMW 7-series car: http://www.chilloutpoint.com/s... Boeing aircraft: http://gizmodo.com/boing-474-t... and many more... But they didn't even have the decency to come up with a name? They have to derive Red Flag from RedHat... WTF???

    1. Re:Everything is copied.... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      You've not looked at a Chinese flag lately, I'm guessing?

      The Chinese word for "red" (hóng ) also means "favourite", "popular", "bonus", and "revolutionary". The colour itself is associated with expansion, coming into bloom, energy, and good fortune.

      It's also traditional in China to give people presents of money in red envelopes on occasions such as birthdays and weddings.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  27. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have never heard a person bring up Tiananmen Square unless it was a topic relevant to the conversation at hand. Maybe I'm around more cultured people? I highly doubt it. I know about Baidu, QQ, Weibo, knew about Red Flag but assumed it wasn't used much, some Chinese history, have literally just re-read Sun-Tzu(which is a legitimate fad I've seen going around), Watched a Chinese language video on the history of Confucious, and had an in depth conversation with a brilliant young woman from China who works in my company about the differences in the sociopolitical and economic nature of our countries. I'd say that while I'm not the norm, I don't think I'm abnormal. I'd say your comment shows that there's a vast amount of stereotyping of people no matter what side of the Pacific your continent lies on.

  28. Re:not so by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Amateurs. Housewives are the people who maximize that revenue.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  29. Red Star Linux by unixisc · · Score: 1

    North Korea too has a distro - called Red Star Linux. Wonder how they are doing?