Ideally for improving security, they should invest on supporting open source software, hardware and standards. Open Design Principle is much better long term strategy than Security by Obscurity. But for developers in China, there are a lot of obstacles with contributing to open source communities worldwide, so I can see that probably not going to happen.<p>End of the day, policymakers are more educated with economics than cybersecurity and computer science. They probably still gonna use Microsoft products.
If they don't use Linux, I wonder how long it will take them to have something productive for the average worker.<p>I mean, Android took a decade to be usable, was built by one of the most talented and rich company on earth. Yet it is still limited in what it allows you to do: no office suite, limited driver support, weak multi-monitor, can use few FS formats, no RAID, etc. And that is despite Android actually wrapping a Linux Kernel.<p>Not to mentions they'll need to get so many basic tools ported.<p>No matter the high competence of the Chinese tech scene, their ability to brutally push an agenda and the number they can throw at it, I can't imagine a scenario where those resources wouldn't be better spent validating and customizing an existing distro.<p>However, I can imagine many reasons they would choose the harder road. And as a geek, I find it sane to remind myself that technical efficiency is not the goal of all entities.
I'm surprised that "security by obscurity" is touted as a way reduce attacks. This is almost guaranteed to lead to less diligence in the code — and more risks.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity</a>
Food for thought...<p>I strongly suspect that this new OS will be coming from Huawei.<p>It makes sense that a Chinese company develops an OS for their own government. We are in the spyware era, afterall.<p>I wouldn't be surprised to hear, years later, that Huawei's "backup" effort was never to replace Android on consumer devices but to fork it for Chinese government use. It's too convenient an excuse to have so much work done on so many <i>doomsday</i> scenarios. Huawei, I think, was already tasked for the new OS(es) by China.<p>Similarly, their efforts to replace Windows[0] was to provide their government with a "homegrown" OS solution. Not unlike Sailfish in Russia[1].<p>As much as I like the idea of a new OS competing on the world stage, preferably based on Open Source... it's simply not going to happen coming from either Huawei or China. Control of data is the the overriding motivator among nearly every tech firm and government. When these transitions take place (gov and Huawei consumer), I might as well be running RedStar OS or a US-based commercial alternative.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3011660/microsoft-said-stop-accepting-new-orders-huawei-it-moves-comply-us" rel="nofollow">https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3011660/microsoft...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://nokiamob.net/2019/02/09/sailfish-os-is-now-aurora-os-in-russia/" rel="nofollow">https://nokiamob.net/2019/02/09/sailfish-os-is-now-aurora-os...</a>
I would not be suprised if it is an offshoot of FreeBSD. That way they could get away from the GPL license altogether and wont violate any licensing agreements.<p>If they based it off Linux, unless it was avalible to download online, it would probably infringe on the GPL somewhere. Assuming they care about those things.
I read somewhere that Soviet Union fell because it spent all its funds on projects like this. I wonder if this is beginning of the end or if they will be able to pull this off?<p>It might be a good sales pitch for “US-hardened equipment”.
I am surprised that some comments state that it "has to be linux". Since they can't magically reduce the time it would take to develop something that complex nowhere near their time constraints, it obviously has to start with something that already exists. But Linux is not the only open source OS out there, folks. If I were charged with this task, i'd start with OpenBSD, given its focus on security. The fact that most of base is BSD licensed also helps because no changes would be legally required to be opensourced. It also can run modern web browsers and libreoffice, which is a significant part of what goes for "desktop" computing these days.
Lot of the comments seem to miss the point.<p>It's for the military, not consumers. It won't need driver support or features like a consumer OS.<p>The more foreign the layout probably the better as you can train new habits more easily when the environment for old ones doesn't exist.<p>Have a feeling the end result will be the same, "We built it!"<p><i>spy leaks code</i>
<i>hacked</i>
> Beijing officials have decided to develop a custom operating system that will replace the Windows OS on computers used by the Chinese military.<p>Okay. Good luck with that.