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A New Homegrown OS For China Could Arrive By October
According to a Reuters report, China could have a new homegrown operating system by October to take on imported rivals such as Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Apple Inc, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday. Computer technology became an area of tension between China and the United States after a number of run-ins over cyber security. China is now looking to help its domestic industry catch up with imported systems such as Microsoft's Windows and Google's mobile operating system Android. The operating system would first appear on desktop devices and later extend to smartphone and other mobile devices, Xinhua said, citing Ni Guangnan who heads an official OS development alliance established in March. It would make sense for even a "homegrown" operating system to be based on existing ones, in the way Red Flag Linux is. Conceptually related: Earlier this year, Chinese company Coship Electronics announced (and demonstrated) a mobile OS called 960 OS.
that'll be abandoned in 2-3 years.
Just what we need, more fragmentation. And zero innovation.
Right.
Probably not, stealing new technologies and contract information is very lucrative business.
New OS will become a hacking target of US agencies.
Haven't they heard? The desktop computer is dead. This OS will be obsolete before it is even released.
You will be surprised to know how many new OS are being brewed in East Asian Nations such as Japan, Korea and China
Some of them are based on Linux, yes, but there are others which are not based on Linux
In Korea and in Japan there are separate efforts to upgrade and extend the Plan-9 OS, for example
To every commercial OS, programming language compiler, DBMS, application server, CAD system, ERP etc. thanks to their hackers and ex-pats.
I wonder who's got the fun task of reading all that shit.
When they come up with the first Chinese programming language, they'll either leave the west in the dust or tangle themselves up for good. Say what you will about unicode domains, but without a common language, the world will always descend into us vs. them.
Even if this is based on Linux, it isn't a win despite what some people on here will say. China wants ownership and control of the operating system, so it won't be a benefit back to the community. Also, the GPL among other licenses are not (mostly) enforceable in China due to weak intellectual property laws and enforcement.
Heh heh. Another crusty Linux distro coming up. When they discover how buggy the desktop is, they will ultimately bite the bullet and buy the damn Windows licenses.
Wonder how that will play out?
Information Warfare: Running For Linux January 9, 2011
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I've heard variations of this story come up on slashdot since I started reading back in 2000. It seems like China is always starting some government mandated homegrown operating system... None of them ever seem to become successful. Here is what I could find just on the first page of a google search:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/01/17/194245/chinas-government-unveils-china-operating-system-to-great-skepticism
http://linux-beta.slashdot.org/story/99/11/10/1457205/linux-to-be-official-os-of-peoples-republic-of-china
http://beta.slashdot.org/submission/3273261/china-gets-government-backed-operating-system-cos
http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/submission/1010903/china-chooses-freebsd-as-basis-for-secure-os
http://beta.slashdot.org/submission/3279227/china-shows-off-its-own-smartphone-operating-system
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/08/12/03/2033243/red-flag-linux-forced-on-chinese-internet-cafes
The GFW is throttling VPNs more and more. As a foreigner here, it's getting harder to deal with daily tasks because even gmail is getting tough to access. China is doing everything to show that they don't need the rest of the world. China is trying to do everything to show that it doesn't need the outside world, so I think maybe it's time we should oblige and GTFO.
LoL, the other possibility is that they'll just reskin a pirated copy of windows.
No, the Chinese government would probably WELCOME piracy of their O.S. because it would mean that their backdoored (it that a word?) O.S. was spreading even beyond what they hoped for.
The problem is that very few software companies like Microsoft would write applications for it knowing that the number of actual PAYING customers in China will be few. I think I read somewhere that a Microsoft exec. said they made more money in the Netherlands than in all of China because of piracy. The simple business analysis would be that they wouldn't be able to recoup their development costs for another platform, especially if it was pirated even more. Maybe if China told every software company that wanted to sell its products in China that they HAD to develop for their O.S. then they would actually get some native applications; I think it would be equally likely that since these software companies weren't getting a lot of revenues anyway (because of piracy), they might pack up and leave. That's not to mention what using the Chinese O.S. would leak (more like gush like a firehose!) to the Chinese industrial complex about their products.
I'm assuming that if the O.S. was "compatible" in the sense that it could run Windows programs using some sort of similar API or emulation that people wouldn't tolerate the poor performance/bugginess. I figure they'd just buy a computer with the Chinese O.S., wipe the drive and install their (pirated) copy of Windows for the best computing experience (if you can call Windows "best"!). Also, as bad as the NSA is, perhaps the average Chinese citizen would prefer some faraway American govt. agency snooping on their computer than the jack-booted thugs who would kick down your door in a moments notice which is basically the Chinese State Security apparatus.
In no way Is this a home grown operating system
It's not enough to simply put out a distribution. We need useful code that runs on it, new features (or better yet- improvements on the code itself, ie bugs fixes, etc).
However the problem isn't entirely the OS, but a lack of auditing. While insanely expensive every piece of non-complex code aught to have two eyes on it at all times and more complex code should have dozens.
Then we need good solid default security policies for different audiences that are easy to apply and separation of concerns. If we're concluding that a small group of users needs access to macros (lets make a huge category called business), then you can apply that security policy which will enable macros, but in the mean time everybody else is going to get a 'home' security policy by default. Then those users who have that 'business' security policy applied will still have the application restricted and separated such that a vulnerability doesn't automatically impact the whole system – or provide an intruder access to every file on the system.
Then we need hardware and software where the code is available. Nothing should be held back, not the 3d accelerated graphics firmware, not the BIOS, not the hard drive controller firmware, or keyboard micro code. Everything including the CPU micro code should be published under a free software license.
Then you have to worry about the hardware itself. The design of hardware today is scary. We shouldn't be using USB flash drives for instance. In an ideal world plugging in a standard device like this shouldn't be able to compromise my machine. We need a complete redesign to reduce the surface area of attack. Computers don't need built-in microphones or webcams, etc.
Red Flag Linux was effectively a duplicate of Red Hat.
A Chinese-quality, rigged OS with backdoors
I can already see it. A cheap rip of C language, symbols replaced with Chinese characters, and the language is called ming, coming with a book that is a complete rip off the white book.
Why begs the question who is going to use it? The Government won't use it. The people certainly wont.
Anyone use Inspur K-UX? If they got it certified UNIX, did they develop it from an existing UNIX? It looks like they ship on their own Itanium systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspur_K-UX
When looking into video game consoles, I was stunned to realize that Xbox and PS3/4 are _not_ even close to being the most popular video game consoles in the world. The top three are all Chinese consoles you've never heard of. Population-wise, the US is to China as VietNam is to the US and I suspect the Chinese worry about Americans about as much as we Americans worry about the Vietnamese.
Our economic might blinds us to the realities of the actual world and that perhaps is the most dangerous flaw in American culture. Remember the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks (both civilizations), the Romans, the Ottomans? (There is a similar litany for homegrown emperors in China, also, but no one talks about it.)
they shut down business several months ago.
China has been controlled from the center for millennia; this is China's fatal flaw. Attempts to control population in a wired world is going to limit exposure to social and intellectual capital. Long run, it's a dead-end strategy. China should be most famous for wasting more social and intellectual capital than any culture in the history of humanity, entirely due to closing off possibility via control from the center.
Starting an OS is all very well. But until the first release and a usable, we have commonly about ten years, required to finish the OS. This was with linux, with windows... So Chinese programmers may make a new OS. In ten years I might consider it.
I can believe that one motivated guy, or a small team of guys could write a workable operating system kernel from scratch in the time span of 2-3 years. And the Chinese government could require that applications be written for it.
The GUI layer is tougher, but maybe they could adapt Qt for it.
But what about device drivers? Unless they're using one of the existing standards, i.e. Windows, Linux, or BSD/OS X, then it's going to be a bear convincing vendors to write drivers for their new OS. Not good enough to have a few on board - they need pretty much a complete sweep.
From the lead article:
"In May, China banned government use of Windows 8, Microsoft's latest operating system"
It seems to be a needless gesture. Even in the US, no one uses Windows 8.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
KDE German. Linux Finn. The PC ancient rubbish that killed invention. They used to be so many different computer systems and operating systems government departments used to have custom-built OS systems for custom-built computer systems. My first job when I left school was custom-built computer systems and today 2014 Windows still runs like it is running on a 286 The Asians, the Europeans, the Africans the Americans should have dumped that PC geriatric a long time ago. Son of a bricklayer Tommy Flowers died 1998 aged 92 Flowers was born at 160 Abbot Road, Poplar in London’s East End. Flowers designed Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer all the way back in history and when he died people were still using old U.S. shit PCs. We need a new computer system not a new OS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Hey wisebabo, didn't you say you were in China? Or did you come back to the West?
If you are still in China, it appears that they're pretty liberal with free speech, criticism of the state...on the internet.
Also, as bad as the NSA is, perhaps the average Chinese citizen would prefer some faraway American govt. agency snooping on their computer than the jack-booted thugs who would kick down your door in a moments notice which is basically the Chinese State Security apparatus.
Maybe you've been in China too long, there are plenty of videos on the evening news with SWAT teams dropping in on suspect Muslim extremists, grow houses, meth labs...
No jack boots usually, just plenty of firepower.
Unless the government enforces its usage by law for people.
Nope, I'm in another "Communist" country. Otherwise I'd be a lot more careful of my criticisms of China!
Good point though because I travel there every now and then. Maybe I should be a little less strident in my views. :) (Or post as an A/C and hope that Slashdot doesn't get hacked!)
A search on China daily says otherwise:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-05/05/content_17484594_6.htm
All the usual suspects there.
I am a Chinese working as a China analyst at a think tank. It is becoming more and more apparent to many people, that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows it is on its last straw of survival.
The party is facing severe and increasing systematic stress on all fronts:
1. Increasing external oppositions from all other countries in the world including all of China's neighbours. They are forming more and more alliances and becoming more outspoken with rising strengths against China, in addition to increasing anti-China sentiment from people in all other countries. Many countries including Canada and Australia have tightened their immigration policy to prevent Chinese from entering their countries. Even on these casual internet message boards, when you look past the paid Chinese propaganda professional commenters, you notice rising general anti-China feelings from all over the world.
2. Increasing internal severe and massive violent social unrest and anti-CCP mutiny from people of all Chinese living places e.g. mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Macau etc. To beat down internal dissent, the CCP every year is forced to spend even more money than on its massive military budget. This is continuously worsened by the free flow of information, with Chinese people knowing more and more from travelling abroad and learning about truths from jumping beyond the "Great Fire Wall" on the internet.
3. Its own economy and social condition never able to develop to higher level beyond mass skill-less manufacturing, due to complete absence of law and common morals. High technology and innovations and scientific development all require many citizens working together voluntarily contributing long term in a system they trust, with things like rule of law, no censorship on knowledge, no restrictions on speech and expression, copyrights, patents, common morals when collaborating and trading with each other etc. These qualities are all destroyed in modern China by the CCP. When was the last time you heard an announcement of technology development or innovations or scientific breakthrough coming from a Chinese organization / company / university? You haven't because there ain't any. The only way modern China gets these things is from stealing and spying from all other countries, but that has become much more difficult since the whole world has caught on to their act.
This systematic fatal weakness is why you do not see even one Chinese brand or company that can compete in the international market in any industry of the human race. No rule of law in China also means no people or businesses, both Chinese and foreign, ever invest in China long-term or on a large scale because everything frequently change on a whim along with the political climate. No one trusts any contract or agreement in China because they are always broken by the Chinese and there is no legal protection whatsoever, meaning China can never advance to a knowledge economy or service economy. No rule of law also ensures Shanghai fail to become a financial city despite the CCP dumping huge resources into it for 30 years.
4. China's mass skill-less manufacturing itself is going away to other countries due to increasing costs and openly hostile and unfair business environment full of frauds and sanctioned protectionism and government robberies. The labor force is endlessly more demanding both in wages and benefits expectations and working conditions, especially since all of today's Chinese workers are single child used to coddling and indulgement by their families. It is further worsened by the rise of robotic automatic manufacturing and 3D printing. This situation is a death knock to the "growth-based legitimacy" of the CCP, which is the only thing CCP can rely on for continuing ruling power. For sure Chinese people tolerate the CCP when the economy seemingly explodes, but when one day it crashes and the country's hopeless bad shape hit them in the face the people's "support" for the CCP will turn on a dime.
Since six m
Old story long told though, If China is determined to utilize Linux-based OS in public domains, there are more investment on Linux, both developers, maintainers, and technical support technicians. More investment surely help the development of technologies. To name an example, high-speed trains in China is actually boost a lot of projects that increase common welfare and live level for major populations in China. Let's hope that China take this serious and the bureaucracy don't boil it at all this time.
I use Windows 8 for couple of weeks when I can't use Linux and it's better than windows 7 and windows XP
Definitely true...
Oh good. Noob hackers need a new platform to practice on. Windows exploits are SO 20th century. If their knock-off OS is anything like their knock-off lunar rover, it should be as stable and secure as the first release of Win95, providing no end of fun for wannabe malware authors.
By the way, does anybody know how to use QQ/WeiXin on Linux?
You're all flaming enthusiasm, aren't you? You mention compatibility problems as the main reason why we should expect this to fail - but, as someone who has worked with cross platform development, I know that this is only a small problem. It is perfectly possible - easy, even - to write portable code, certainly on the back-end of an application; I have done so across all UNIXes, Linuxes, Windows, and even z/OS, VMS and MPE/iX. The only problems arise at the front-end, but with proper engineering, it is not even all that hard - just look at things like application servers and cloud: they mostly run Linux at the back-end, but you, the user, couldn't care less.
The only reason why we haven't seen companies make their applications in versions for both Windows, Linux and OSX is that somebody has put a lot of effort into stopping it from happening; I won't mention names. However, with Windows becoming obsolete (even Microsoft themselves seem to have lost the spirit), it is not unreasonable to expect that this may change, and China are well positioned to be the main driver of this, so I wouldn't write this new OS just like that.