Leaving aside the normal concerns about collaboration with an authoritarian government, this looks like a really big deal: <i>Ubuntu is now the "reference architecture for standard operating systems" in China.</i>[1]<p>If I understand correctly, this means a flavor of Ubuntu (and Unity, according to the press release) will be used by hundreds of millions of people within the next decade, far surpassing the worldwide market share of Mac OS X, Chrome OS, etc.<p>In all likelihood, Microsoft now views Ubuntu with Unity as a main competitor on the desktop.<p>--<p>[1] <a href="http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-standards-body-announce-ubuntu-collaboration" rel="nofollow">http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-stand...</a><p>--<p>Edits: changed "few years" to "decade," in response to hydrology's comment (thanks hydrology!); and added a reference to Chrome OS and Microsoft.
Seriously? NUDT (National University of Defense Technology) still names it Kylin? How shameless… A little bit of the old story for those who don't know:<p>Around 2001~2002, NUDT, Lenovo Group, and a few other organizations took a government grant of 70 million RMB and claimed to independently created a new operating system with their own copyright/IP for defense use called Galaxy Kylin.<p>In 2006, an analysis [1] of the “new” OS revealed that Kylin was most likely a fork of FreeBSD, which voided the previous independent creation and copyright/IP claims. Worse, they did not follow FreeBSD license when distributing the software.<p>When the scandal was published and went crazy in the media the same year, another interesting incident happened: access to www.freebsd.org was blocked from mainland China. In fact, the term “FreeBSD” became a sensitive keyword that if you mention it anywhere on any page, your connection will be cut-off and subsequently blocked, not just www.freebsd.org [2]. Of course there was no official statement regarding the connection between the two (what do you expect anyway…), given the deep involvement of NUDT and the Great Firewall, one has to wonder…<p>Looks like they learned something from that scandal and this time they acknowledged the adoption of Ubuntu/Linux upfront. Let's see what will happen next.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.dancefire.org/article/Kernel_Similarity_Analysis.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dancefire.org/article/Kernel_Similarity_Analysis....</a> (in Simplified Chinese)<p>[2]: <a href="http://www.williamlong.info/archives/406.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.williamlong.info/archives/406.html</a> (in Simplified Chinese)
"Because the software is open source it's unlikely that any backdoors could be added into the Ubuntu OS without the global Linux community taking notice."<p>Depending on the level of involvement China actually has, I don't think they would have any qualms with distributing binaries with backdoors, but keeping their changes secret.
This is a great idea. Now one and a half billion Chinese can get their free OS'es completely legally instead of using pirated, possibly malware-tainted copies of Windows XP. And Microsoft can stop crying about the hypothetical lost revenue due to piracy when everyone switches to a better, free product.<p>Not that they couldn't switch before, but perhaps the official government endorsement of Ubuntu will jump-start the adoption rate in China.
The Indian govt. introduced BOSS Linux [1] many years ago as the "official" Linux distro, based on Debian. Alas, no one has even heard of it, let alone use it.<p>[1]: <a href="http://bosslinux.in/" rel="nofollow">http://bosslinux.in/</a>
I take offense with the following part of the article:<p>"Other repressive nations that have developed local versions of Linux include North Korea, which built the KDE-based Red Star OS to help wean it as a nation off of an unfortunate dependence on Windows made by the capitalists over at Microsoft."<p>China is a "repressive nation"? Says who? Britain, the leader in colonialist aggressions, mass slavery and blatant interventions to third nations?
It's interesting to see the developing world adopt GNU/Linux. Venezuela created Canaima. [1] Turkey created Pardus. [2] Iran has announced plans for a national distro. [3] Russia has announced plans for its public sector to use free software. [4]<p>I suspect, though, that many of these initiatives are simply exercises by universities or government IT organizations to understand the technology, rather than to advocate for its use.<p>[1] <a href="http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve" rel="nofollow">http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.pardus.org.tr" rel="nofollow">http://www.pardus.org.tr</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/security_fears.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/security_fears...</a>
[4] <a href="http://open.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2010/12/27/421556" rel="nofollow">http://open.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2010/12/27/421556</a>
Why wouldn't they go with Red Flag Linux[1]?<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux</a>
Maybe some of the same American schools that are teaching children Mandarin so they can be competitive in the world of the future will now also teach them Linux.
A month ago I walked through some big computer markets here in China looking for computers pre-installed with Ubuntu, calling out "Have not have Yubentu?", always hearing "Not have!" and only seeing Windows 8 on every screen.<p>It could be next year I do the same, and <i>only</i> see Ubuntu, with Windows 8 nowhere to be seen. Incredible!
<i>The news means Ubuntu-stewards Canonical will work with China's National University of Defense Technology...<p>....to ensure that the platform is relevant for the Chinese market... </i><p>Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Is Canonical enabling repression or military aggression?
I know I'm a cynic/paranoid, but is this in any way tied to the increase in cyber espionage? There's been rumors of the US pushing for backdoors and/or not disclosing exploits in windows and applications, is this China's response to that? Is China looking to do something similar with Linux by using Ubuntu as a trojan to get subtle changes added?<p>I get very concerned anytime any govt entity wants to get involved with a project.
I think for Ubuntu to succeed in China, it will need support from Tencent, whose QQ is the most popular IM application in China, and until now doesn't have a decent, full-fledged Linux version.