Former Second Largest Linux Distributor Red Flag Software Has Shut Down

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.""

Comments

Linux or China bankruptcy ?

[denisbergeron]

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 ?

Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ?

[RogueyWon]

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).

But RED HAT lives on

[bobbied]

All is well with the world.

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

Re:Corruption

[phoebe]

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.

Re:What a Joke

[Opportunist]

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!

Re:What a Joke

[Gavagai80]

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

Re:What a Joke

[diakka]

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.

China Operating System (COS) killed it?

[manu0601]

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

Re:Red Flag?

[cold fjord]

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.

Re:What a Joke

[RobertinXinyang]

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.

Lies, lies, and more lies..

[Anonymous Coward]

" 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.

@Lisias - Re:Linux or China bankruptcy ?

[nukenerd]

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".

Re:What a Joke

[DNS-and-BIND]

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.