After concerns about U.S. surveillance and a monopoly probe of Microsoft, there is some good news for China's home-grown operating system. A desktop version may be ready in October.
Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering told the People's Post and Telecommunications News that the OS will be first seen on desktop devices and later expanded to smartphones and other mobile devices.
An article from The Register also covers Chinese hopes for a home-grown operating system.
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The Inquirer reports
The Red State, which earlier this year denounced Microsoft Windows 8 as a spyware tool on the lunchtime news, has been developing its own flavour of Linux, based in part on an earlier attempt based on Ubuntu, called Kylin.
'NeoKylin', as the OS is understood to be called, is already due to appear on a range of Dell machines manufactured for the Chinese market.
It has now been confirmed that Professor Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering has designed a rollout programme that has been passed by the government and will see [the operating system on] all government servers, mainframes, and individual machines being replaced.
The plan is to replace Windows-powered machines at a rate of 15 percent per year, give or take 10 percent, over five years.
"We call this a de-Windowsifying movement," Ni told Chinese site Ecns.cn[1] [Google cache]
[1] That page is a 500 for me.
Related:
Chinese OS Expected to Debut in October
China Bans Windows 8 From Government PCs?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by JNCF on Monday August 25 2014, @03:36PM
Adoption expected to be mandatory by November.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MrGuy on Monday August 25 2014, @03:42PM
Yes, I get that US companies are potentially vulnerable to NSL's, and other secret court orders that in theory could (though to my knowledge it's never been proven) order them to turn over signing keys to sign targeted malware, or introduce weaknesses into things like disk encryption. Building a new OS by companies that the NSA, CIA, etc. has no jurisdiction over does obviate that potential weakness.
But "evil government mandate" has never really been the primary threat to desktop security. The threat is security weaknesses in the OS's design. Viruses have been around a long time, and their continued viability is indicative of the complexity of a problem of building an OS that's secure from remote threats. If it's on the internet, it's vulnerable.
And a brand-new OS, without the "shakeout" of all the years of experience that (say) Microsoft has of making mistakes and learning "what not to do" is a potential minefield. Especially if it's being built (as TFA implies) by a somewhat fractous coalition of writers without a common vision and goal. Security is HARD. Especially in the beginning, the number of "yet to be discovered" zero-day exploits will dwarf the ability to protect against them. At best, they can aspire to be (several years from now) at the level of security a Microsoft is at today.
The NSA doesn't need to secretly come in through the front door when the back door is open. There are many, many ways to compromise a machine that don't require a National Security Letter.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 25 2014, @04:19PM
My guess is that the Chinese are trying to solve the problem of their companies being vulnerable to NSA backdoors they think have been added to Windows and possibly Linux. They can't use the secret stuff that their military uses, but they can use something that the NSA might not have access to while it's being created.
I agree the front door might not be secured, but the back door is often easier to get into.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25 2014, @04:51PM
While they certainly want to make sure that the NSA does not have a back door, I'd not be surprised if at the same time they make sure the Chinese equivalent does have a back door.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 25 2014, @05:31PM
My guess it that it will be yet another Linux or BSD clone, rather than a ground-up new development.
In fact the vagueness of these announcements and the time frame in which it was developed virtually guarantees it will be derived from open source code.
China has done this before, although not all that successfully. That fact is simply more evidence that an entirely home spun OS is not in the cards. If you can't clone a system when well maintained source is hand to you on a platter, the chances of developing one completely on your own is nil.
These days Linux or BSD has far better support for multiple forms of double byte character sets (even quad byte), and the task of handling the Chinese language would be greatly simplified, since many distros have it built in already.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Monday August 25 2014, @08:36PM
I'm pretty sure you're correct. From this article [yahoo.com]:
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 25 2014, @11:17PM
"And a brand-new OS, without the "shakeout" of all the years of experience that (say) Microsoft has of making mistakes and learning "what not to do" is a potential minefield."
Microsoft may have the experience. But they are a slow learner or even amnesic learner. Most free Unix alternatives learn and implement WAY FASTER. And with a much higher quality.
(Score: 2) by WillAdams on Monday August 25 2014, @03:57PM
I've always been curious about why their Ministry of Information and Technology bought up the rights to Go Corp.'s PenPoint (which I always found to be a very nice system) --- was it just to beat up Microsoft over Windows licensing?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday August 25 2014, @03:58PM
As much as I would like to see another good alternative desktop OS I doubt this will amount to much more then the previous Red Flag Linux. Sure they have a potential userbase of billions, they could probably enforce it be mandatory even tho Microsoft, Apple and Google would cry their hearts out about it. But still it's hard to make something totally new, everyone seems to want what everyone else has to that they can run the same software and do the same things. So if it's not some kinda of Linux derivative or Windows x86/64 clone then it's probably doooooooooooooomed.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday August 25 2014, @04:22PM
That's what I was thinking too. RedFlag Linux wasn't half bad, actually - basically RedHat with some customizations, if I recall.
Can't blame them for being frustrated that 90% of their people's computers run an OS that is probably rooted six ways to Sunday. I think they have a huge market for cracked versions of WinXP etc.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Monday August 25 2014, @04:59PM
It'd be a hoot (and a real game-changer) if it were a customized version of ReactOS, esp. if they released the source / patches.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday August 25 2014, @08:08PM
Maybe they've gone and bought the source code to OS/2 Warp Edition. Let's roll back time and fight the good fight, baby!
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 25 2014, @11:20PM
Make ReactOS with an Win-XP compatible API. Then let the Chinese government protect it from any infringement claims. Then they would likely solved many problems in one go..
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday August 25 2014, @11:38PM
Whoohooo. Finally, the Year of the Linux on Desktop...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford