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China to Develop Windows Clone 401

Posted by michael from the they-don't-like-software-assurance-either dept.
jimmu writes "According to both The Register and The People's Daily China is set to develop a windows workalike equivalent to Win 98, with full compatibility with Office 200 and Word. Apparently, 18 companies and universities have been working on the 2 initiatives, with a 1.0 version supposedly already released to certain government offices."
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China to Develop Windows Clone More

China to Develop Windows Clone

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  • WINE (Score:3, Informative)

    by steveeq2 ( 148816 ) <steveeq1@earthlink.net> on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:00PM (#3920502) Homepage
    Uhhhh, what's wrong with WINE?

    • Re:WINE (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kwikymart ( 90332 )
      Well, i think part of their objective is to eliminate North American dependence and security risks. I bet you five bucks that there really is an NSA security backdoor in Windows.

      • Re:WINE (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Random Bystander ( 548230 )
        Something like the debate back in '99?

        Some links about the alleged backdoor in Windows allowing the NSA access to your computer are here [itworld.com], here [cnn.com] and here [pcworld.com].
  • Is this an independent development, or an offshoot based on WIME or other, similar existing work?

  • The real question on everyone's mind... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wraithlyn ( 133796 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:00PM (#3920506)
    Will they have a red screen of death, or blue?

    --
    They said FUD was bad, so I started spreading DUF.

  • microsoft (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    how is microsoft going to react to this?
    could they sue based on the fact its "BASED" on win98?

  • kudos to them (Score:5, Funny)

    by macsox ( 236590 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:01PM (#3920512) Journal
    this is the most ambitious copyright infringement scheme ever to come out of eastern asia, and that's saying something!

    (and by the way, if there were ever a perfect time to use the bill-gates-as-borg icon, it's now.)

    • Re:kudos to them (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Com2Kid ( 142006 ) <com2kidSPAMLESS@gmail.com> on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:19PM (#3920615) Homepage Journal
      this is the most ambitious copyright infringement scheme ever to come out of eastern asia, and that's saying something!


      Only infringement under overzealous laws. Making something compatible is hardly against the law.


      (and by the way, if there were ever a perfect time to use the bill-gates-as-borg icon, it's now.)

      Err, wouldn't this be kind of like Borg VS Borg or something? Or Dominion VS Borg? Hmmm

  • Also in New Scientist (Score:4, Informative)

    by onby2000 ( 593621 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:01PM (#3920514)
    New Scientist [newscientist.com] is also running a story about this.
  • And even more importantly, will they modify that funny Windows flag screensaver so that it's a nice shade of commie red?

    Will it still bluescreen, or will they change that as well?

  • very interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maserati ( 8679 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:05PM (#3920541) Homepage Journal
    If you must clone a Windows OS, then Win98 is a pretty good target. Microsoft et al will have a serious hissy fit. But what can they really do ? It's entirely possible that they could do a clean room implementation that would hold up in US courts (but they might not). The APIs are pretty well understood by this point, and they aren't even "competing" with Microsoft since '98 is three generations obsolete.

    If it supports DirectX 8.1a well I might get a copy.

    • Re:very interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You might get a copy eh ?? Well I wonder if it'll even have english language support or just chinese.
    • Why bother doing a "clean room implementation." When you _are_ the government and can make any danm rules you like, remember china != usa, china does not have to obey usa law
    • Um, US Courts have no jurisdiction over China. It's a foreign country.
      • I failed to make my point on that topic clear. If it is US legal, then they could localize it, and sell it here. If they could sell PCs with that pre-loaded then we could have a competitor to Microsoft by this time next year. Since there is still a lot of continued support for Win98SE by hardware and game manufacturers, this would make support for the Chinese version very easy for a lot of companies. You have to run it through QA again (some might even do it), but the existing Win98 knowledge base in the user community is very large. I'd give this a shot for a pure gaming rig.

        It'd be very tempting to get Microsoft off of my PC. I am concerned about the security implications. It would be so tempting to build backdoors into this, it would almost have to happen. But it will be examined very closely by a lot of very concerned and very talented hackers. SO if there is a hole in it, it will eventually eb found. Many eyes and all that.

      • Yes, you can sue China in US courts. (Score:5, Informative)

        by ArsSineArtificio ( 150115 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @10:58PM (#3921043) Homepage
        Um, US Courts have no jurisdiction over China. It's a foreign country.

        Yes, that's the obvious answer, and yes, the "the US is just big and mean and stupid and thinks it rules the world" opinions expressed in other responses are terribly fashionable. But no, it's not correct, and no, nobody's stupid enough to think that we're going to send the federal marshals to Shanghai.

        You can sue foreign governments in United States courts. A cursory search reveals, for example, this case from a few months ago: Stethem v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 201 F.Supp. 2d 78 (D.D.C., 2002).

        Put very simply, a party (say, Microsoft, or in the above case a U.S. citizen killed as a result of actions of the defendant nation) can get a judgment, or a court order, against a foreign country.

        If it's a monetary judgment, it can be collected from whatever assets the country has in the United States - bank accounts, foreign currency reserves, real estate, whatever. If it's a court order, then, say, Microsoft could get an injunction forbidding the Chinese government (or whatever state-owned enterprise) from distributing "Windows PRC" within the United States.

        This happens all the time. It's really not that exciting. Suing China, of course, would be a little pointless - China's not likely to try to undertake any action within the jurisdiction of the US courts - namely, within the United States.

        • Well, actually it wouldn't be the first time. (See Boxer Rebellion.)
          That's scarry shit for Americans like myself living in China because the local "boxing clubs" wiped out the foreigners big time and it wasn't all that long ago.
          I've got a plot for a video game about the Boxer Rebellion where this one foriegn dude puts up resistance, but if you read the facts it was total slaughter, hence the US troops.
          Let's pray that's all ancient history. Unfortunately, I feel things are getting a little tense on the streets with the US and Japanese financial troubles. When the money runs dry people tend to get ugly and the xenophobia runs high. At least that's what I recall from living in SoCal in the early 80s.

  • why don't they use linux? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it's amazing how much effort is being reduplicated in the OS world. they should put their efforts into WINE or just go with running openoffice on linux.

    to make a truly API compatible clone of windows that is even semi-stable is an enormous amount of work. and of course future versions of ms office will doubtless use new features of future versions of win that will lead to a never-ending catch up game.

    imagine on the other hand, if they put all this effort into openoffice itself. now that would be great.
    • Of course any such effort will be based on Linux. No company is going to start from scratch when Linux/Wine/OpenOffice already provides most of their requirements of 'compatability with Office'.
      Microsoft will not need to sue anyone. What is more likely is that any government-sponsored package based on open source software will end-up breaking the GPL.
      Will the US government, through the WTO, oblige China to respect the GPL? Imagine the lobbying... this is going to be hilarious.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:07PM (#3920550)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Hint: CONTROL (was Re:Interesting but..) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nzadrozny ( 555073 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:16PM (#3920596) Homepage
      This thread's parent raises an interesting question of who you trust more.

      My immediate first impression was that the Chinese government is undertaking the creation of a new operating system in order to exert more direct control over the spread of information. They already have quite a track record in that department...
      • While China Government utilize technologies to control the spread of information....

        U.S. Government utilize technologies to spy [msnbc.com] on [fbi.gov] their [slashdot.org] citizens [slashdot.org].

        I don't know which one should we love. :)

      • Control (of money) (Score:3, Insightful)

        by iamacat ( 583406 )
        Come on, how are they going to control spread of the source developed by 18 universities? It's far more likely that they just don't want billions of dollars to flow out of the country and into the hands of Microsoft. Or make warez an offical policy. I bet students will mostly do the work for free and anyway they'll start on top of Linux and don't have to pay developers even a fraction of US salaries. It's a good idea for any country, even US. I doubt that the number of jobs Microsoft creates justifies all the cash they pocket away.
    • That ripping sound you hear is the fabric of space time tearing itself apart. :)
    • Good question. Microsoft never killed anybody, but then again, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
    • The real question is: Who do you trust more, the chinese government or microsoft?
      In the immortal words [216.239.35.100] of the fictitious Soviet Ambassador DeSadeski, "Thank you, no. I do not support the work of imperialist stooges."

      I think it's interesting that the "Commie stooges" are troubling themselves to develop their own clone of Windows rather than use Linux, which is freely available.

      Are they hoping to undermine one of the most successful (ethics notwithstanding) examples of capitalism by violating intellectual property laws? Or are they so impressed by Microsoft's ability to force social conformity en masse through Windows that Beijing now looks to Redmond for inspiration?

    • Simple, the Chinese government. They might be a bigger evil than Micorosft but at least they aren't pretending to be saints.
    • Well, China might release the source code...

      Seriously, it wouldn't be that unreasonable an act for them, they aren't likely planning to go commercial with a Win98 clone.

      Or, they could threaten to release the source, and hold up MS for a perpetual payment not to.

      There's probably all sorts of political and economic games I haven't thought of that they could play if they got it really working well.

      And then, of course, once Win98 is stable, they could start working on Win2000. If they thought it was worth it.
  • ...curiouser and curiouser.

    You know they just wanna play BattleZone legally. *nod*
  • So they're going to make a crappy knock off of a crappy OS? I thought they would have more ambition than that.

  • Knockoffs (Score:4, Funny)

    by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:09PM (#3920563) Homepage
    with full compatibility with Office 200 and Word

    Gotta watch closely those Chinese knockoffs with their names just *SLIGHTLY* off.

  • Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SpiffyMarc ( 590301 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:09PM (#3920566)
    I don't know about the rest of the people commenting here, but I think that, if this is true, it's absolutely fantastic. Being a computer technician myself (who is devoted to Win2k when it comes to M$ operating systems), I can't say enough for the power of Windows 98 on low-end client workstations. As the Register article says, give it some halfway-decent memory management and you've got yourself a damn good OS.

    I'm interested to see the specifics on this. Will it be free? Will it be horrifyingly illegal? Did they set this seemingly unmeetable goal because a hacker stole Microsoft source code during one of the much-publicized raids on the Super-Secret Code Vaults buried hundreds of miles below the surface of Redmond?

    The main reason this interested me so much was what, I believe Bill Gates said about Windows in some interview that I'm too lazy to go look up... Windows isn't about the OS itself, it's about the API... give him the API spec, a handful of programmers and a year and he could recreate it in all it's glory, basically. Looks like someone is actually trying.
    • Of course, what the Wine project proves is that there's enough unpublished or incorrect information that 100% compatibility is much more difficult than it seems.

  • Vague, vague, vague. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stonehand ( 71085 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:10PM (#3920569) Homepage
    "Equivalent functionality" --

    A minimalist view would be to merely assemble, say, a general-purpose operating system distribution based on anything free, and then make sure there's a suite of office software (e.g. StarOffice) on it with suitable import and export filters for compatibility with what's coming out from Redmond.

    If they're concerned about the dominance of MS Office, then the above makes far more sense than the far more ambitious task of re-implementing Win9X to the point of software (application-level, not just data import/export) compatibility w/ the very product that's bothering them.

  • Towards a karmic balance? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jack William Bell ( 84469 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:11PM (#3920574) Homepage Journal
    Considering the rather cavalier Chinese attitude towards intellecual property, it wouldn't surprise me to find that this 'workalike' actually contains plenty of Microsoft code in one form or another. Alternatively they could be using Linux + Wine with extensions and having no plans of complying with the GPL. Or both.

    But even if no I.P. violations are happing at all this is still kind of a 'good for the goose, good for the gander' situation eh? The thought of China 'embracing and extending' Windows?

    The really funny thing about this is that Micrsoft has been making nicey-nice with the Peoples Republic lately because all those billions of people ready to buy computers look like such a wonderful market. And besides they were hoping to get China to crack down on all the mainland pirating operations and figured you attract more flies with honey, etc. Either way it tickles me that China has been getting ready to stab Bill Gates in the back all along.

    Maybe there really is something to that karmic balance stuff after all. Now, considering that /. thinks my own karma is 'excellent', I should win the lottery tomorrow...

    Jack William Bell

    • Well then... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DigitalHammer ( 581235 )
      And besides they were hoping to get China to crack down on all the mainland pirating operations and figured you attract more flies with honey, etc. Either way it tickles me that China has been getting ready to stab Bill Gates in the back all along.

      I'd like to expand on that. A popular Chinese business mentality is "get the best deal out of the guy before he can get the best one out of you". It is this mentality that has driven the fast-paced financial world of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Those who can't keep up with the tricks and cunning bartering techniques of Chinese businesspeople and merchants get financially burned in the Chinese markets. "Foreigners" investing in the China that do not know business etiquette also get burned. For example, when Microsoft brought legal action against 3 of the most respected and prosperous computer companies in China (one of them being Legend), public outrage ensued. The public was also angered at Microsoft's pricing policy of setting a standard price for their software worldwide rather than setting the cost according to the local average income of the country which it was selling its products in. Microsoft, in addition to its ruthless pricing policies, happened to be based in Redmond. Seeing Microsoft's "reign of terror" in their computer and software industry, and knowing Microsoft's outsider origins, the Chinese were more than eager to despise Microsoft. They view the corporate juggernaut as a foreign oppressor attempting to humiliate and exploit their population for its "high potential of profits", mirroring the situation of the Opium Wars. For reasons which are rooted in its 5,000 year-old past, many Chinese hate being humiliated by non-Chinese more than being humiliated by their own. The Chinese belief of "keeping one's face" (preventing humiliation of one's pride or paying retribution to the humiliator) combined with MS's business tactics further worsened it's reputation in China. As a result, most Chinese wouldn't care for potential legal problems that may be involved in the creation of their MS-Software-compatible OS, even as their country tries to enter the WTO.

      If Cyborg Bill doesn't move fast enough, he'll get burned by a kind of Boxer Rebellion of the digital age--China's push against a foreign company's domination of it's software market utilizing (legal) cost-free alternatives. (A la RedFlagLinuix and development of an MS-Software-compatible OS).

    • Considering the rather cavalier Chinese attitude towards intellecual property...

      Consider instead your rather cavalier attitude towards the intellectual hoarding that consitiutes "copyright". Western IP laws are completely counter to the (original) spirit of communism. .</devilsadvocate>

      Of course what is practiced in China these days is not really communism (was it ever?), but China's "violation" of Western IP laws is only a suprise to those who don't consider their political underpinning and heritage.

  • Thats the big question! A GPL WinClone and OfficeClone woudl be cool.
  • "1.0 version supposedly already released " Obviously it's not going to be a good clone, if it's already out of Beta -- how can it be a good clone if it's worthy of a 1.0? I've never seen Windows software like that!
  • Although I can't speak on Office 200, M$'s Office 2000 installs and works just fine with the Crossover plugin thing from Code Weavers. But why even bother (unless you REALLY need to run an Exchange server and thus need Outlook) when OpenOffice does the job just fine?

    /me doesn't get it.

  • I'll take the word of the Windows users around here who say XP is a good OS. But I don't think *anyone* except Microsoft themselves would claim win98 to be anything other than a hacked-up piece of crap with some horribly broken-as-designed misfeatures.

    Wouldn't it be quicker, easier, more secure (which I'd imagine is kinda important to the Chinese government) and cheaper to just add the features they want to openoffice or some of the other free office apps, and mandate their use? Yes, they don't run all that well on old hardware, but neither does Office :)

    • Wouldn't it be quicker, easier, more secure ...to just add the features they want to openoffice or some of the other free office apps ...

      From the Beijing article: the Beijing municipal government bought software equivalent to Win 95 from Chinese companies such as CS&S and RedFlag.

      Yup, that's right, our good buddies at RedFlag. If they think that RedFlag = Win95 then this is probably about Linux, Wine, and/or OpenOffice.

      Mandarin Lindows anyone?
  • .. and starts construction of a great wall around Seattle.

    Rain delays may push back the expected 2005 completion of the Great Wall of Ballmer.
    • .. and starts construction of a great wall around Seattle.

      Two Canadians, a Quebecker and an Ontarian, find an old oil lamp, and in the process of dusting it off awake the genie inside it.

      The genie thanks them profusely for allowing him to escape the lamp in which he had been imprisoned for the last God-only-knows-how-long, and offers them each one wish.

      The Quebecker strokes his beard, then says "I want a wall around all of La Belle Province to keep all the anglos out." Poof! Up goes a wall ten feet thick and a hundred feet high, without even so much as a gate, gap, or crack.

      The Ontarian smiles evilly. "Fill it with water."
  • So there is 1800 years of difference between West World and China calendars?

  • Microsoft vs. China (Score:3, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:32PM (#3920678) Homepage Journal
    Ok, China doesn't care about U.S. copyright laws, and doesn't care about Microsoft. No matter how rich Microsoft is, the Chinese Government still has a lot more money.

    Basically, Microsoft can't MAKE China do anything. The U.S. government isn't going to come down hard on its biggest nuke-carrying neighbor. Thanks to the missile engineers that Clinton sent over to China, their Long March ICBM no longer has a 75% launch pad explosion rate.

    I guess we all knew the apocalypse was coming, but who knew it would all be over SOFTWARE?!?

    I guess China has one last thing to say to Microsoft:
    "ALL YOUR USER BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"

    Bwahahahahahahahahahahah!

  • ha ha... you know how it'll work: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dr. Awktagon ( 233360 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:35PM (#3920699) Homepage

    One lone Chinese programmer enters a room with a laptop, a copy of Windows98, a hex editor, and a blank CDR, and returns 15 minutes later with an amazing Windows98 clone called "China..98". Identical in every way! In fact if it didn't say "China..98" everyplace the old one said "Windows98", you'd swear it was the real thing itself! Total 100% compatibility! He even emulates the bugs exactly!

    It's amazing, the quality of programmers the Chinese education system can create.

  • the most sensible thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:36PM (#3920700)
    The most sensible thing for them would be to contribute to Wine and OpenOffice. It would make no sense for them to start from scratch; we already know how well Windows 98 holds up in the real world, and it's not pretty. Even Microsoft has given up on it and moved to a different architectures.

    It's a tricky question whether they will, or are obligated to, comply with the GPL. China can just declare the GPL invalid, and governments are often exempt from that sort of thing anyway.

    However, I think it would be foolish for them to fork of their own version and not feed back into the open versions: obviously, open source development in the west must do something right, else China would already have produced better software than this. By contributing their efforts to the open source projects, rather than keeping it separate, they would much more easily benefit from the open source developments; without contributing code back, they would face lots of backporting and, probably, eventual divergence.

  • Why re-invent Win98, when they could contribute to Wine?

    Right now, the single biggest thing Wine lacks is Out Of Process COM - that makes many Windows programs fall over and die under Wine.

    But with the kind of programmer resources China could throw at the problem, they could probably add OOP COM to Wine in short order.

    After all, there's nothing like having a billion-node Beowulf cluster of programmers....

  • Must. Read. Articles. Before. Posting. (Score:5, Informative)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:48PM (#3920766)
    China is NOT cloning Win98.

    Let me repeat: China is not cloning Win98. All y'all villagers can put those torches and pitchforks away. 'Taint nuthin to see here.

    Here's what The People's Daily article had to say (in slightly mangled English):

    [T]he Beijing municipal government bought software equivalent to Win 95 from Chinese companies such as CS&S and RedFlag. While the newly started two programs would make updates on this basis to improve the software to a level of Win98 and compatible with Office2000 and Word.

    Now, what is RedFlag, you ask? It appears to be a Chinese distro of Linux. Yup. [redflag-linux.com] And CS&S? That's the China National Computer Software and Technology Service Corporation. Rght here. [css.com.cn] And *who* did they enter into a big agreement with at the end of last year? That'd be Sun, to license StarSuite, as mentioned in this release [sun.com].

    So to sum up:
    China: Running StarSuite under Linux.
    Register: Jumping the gun.... again.
    Slashdot readers: Hates Microsoft.

    Whew. Looks like everything's back to normal around here. =)

    • Couldn't have been said better. Old news. But it does have interesting implications in light of recent news.

      Think about this:

      Microsoft plans Palladium, essentially hardware-locking our boxes and software-locking the code that runs on it. Capitalist company exerting tight control over consumers.

      Chinese government has invested in Linux and open source - even if they won't embrace the GPL. If they keep to standard hardware, then we'll be assured of a cheap source of Linux boxen. Communist government producing "free" (as in freedom) boxen, leaving control in the hands of consumers.

      Even if their distro is rife with spyware (who thinks it isn't?) you can simply bleem the box and start fresh.

      It would be ironic, no?

    • The grammar nazi just *had* to post this Engrish translation [redflag-linux.com] from the Red Flag Linux website. The grammar nazi can't help but grimace upon reading this:

      Regarding Red Flag Desktop 3.0
      Span application obstacle and move to a new easiness-to-use magnitude
      Redflag Linux desktop 3.0 unveiled
      Recently, CAS Redflag Software Technologies Co., Ltd. unveiled in Beijing its latest desktop operating system (OS), i.e., Redflag Desktop 3.0.
      While maintaining the inherent stability and high-performance of Linux system, the product, leveraging the cutting-edge Linux 2.4.7 core, remarkably overcomes the deficiencies of the former versions of Linux in terms of operability and gives prominence to OS' humanization and affinity, pushing the easy-to-use and applicability of desktop OS to a new frontier and moving a solid step forward in the application-oriented evolution road.
      In December of 2001, CAS Redflag Software Technologies Co., Ltd. differentiated itself among legions of renowned vendors at home and abroad in the fierce competition for Beijing Government contract for OA software package. Redflag Linux Desktop OS featuring high availability and high performance-price ratio has won recognition from the general users and government users alike. The newly-released Redflag Desktop 3.0, while inheriting advantages from the older versions, made a shining debut with humanization and affinity, demonstrating to people once again the promising future of Chinese software industry.
      An important index for the genuine maturation of a desktop OS is that whether the system itself is designed on the basis of user care. In this perspective, Redflag Linux Desktop 3.0 makes significant headway in comparison with the older versions. Redflag Linux moves even closer to the users' operating habits and makes reference to the strong-points of some proven OS' regarding system appearance, structure and operation etc., enabling users accustomed to using other OS' and multi-system users to acquaint it very soon.
      Redflag optimizes the hardware drivers supported by Redflag Linux Desktop 3.0, significantly improving its applicability and enabling convenient and quick installation on PCs with different configurations. By leveraging simple and intuitive menu installation wizard, common users are able to finish the whole setup process within half an hour. The powerful control panel available seamlessly combines the easiness-of-use with the functionality. The system re-categorizes KDE setting, enabling compliance with operating habits of Windows users.
      A performance-price ratio conforming to China's actual situation has been Redflag offerings' advantage all the time. Likewise, the Redflag Desktop 3.0 affordably priced provides complete system functions with user-friendly graphic interface. Taking users' demands into consideration, the system pays close attention to applicability and easy-to-use features. The installation process of the system is very simple and all components feature plug-and-play. Upon completion of installation, the system is capable of operating under the default mode, consequently, whether experienced users or green hands with Linux can use the system skillfully. According to related marketing personnel of Redflag, the story doesn't end here, Redflag Desktop 3.0 accomplishes high-availability while exhibiting very high performance-price ratio. This OS is designed not only for consumers but also for government offices. While the Linux version of office packages to be released by Kingsoft Software, Sun and Chinese 2000 will without doubt accelerate the time-to-market of Linux desktop. As a result, the principles of stability, reliability and security are given prominence by Redflag when designing this OS. The sending/receiving of official documents and smooth headway of government work are the basis of the steady running of the society as a whole, while introducing homemade OS will provide reliable safeguard for the security of government transactions.

      End of quote. Ouch!

    • While the newly started two programs would make updates on this basis to improve the software to a level of Win98 and compatible with Office2000 and Word.

      Your post: China: Running StarSuite under Linux

      The article didn't say they were runnign StarSuite. I'd have thought the article was talkign about China makign something like Crossover Office. It doesn't matter what kernel, APIs, and windowing system it uses. If it runs MS Office, for many people, its a Windows clone (it obviously has many of the same APIs).

      So yes. Something to see here.
    • I think this post should be at +10 Insightfull. And by the way, it also obsoletes most of the other posts here. If China mandated the adoption of Linux, well, that may put linux user at an advantage and in some years, there'll be more Linuxes arround the world than Windows boxes.

      I 'd love to see some "Man, your word processor is really crappy. Can't it read OpenOffice 3 files? (Openoffice 3.0 implementing some kind of GPLed decoder which can only have a single implementation :-)"

  • Gotta call it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by pensano ( 168570 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @09:52PM (#3920783) Homepage
    Chindows!

  • also on .. (Score:3, Informative)

    by josepha48 ( 13953 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @10:05PM (#3920840) Journal
    the new scientist..http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.j sp?id=ns99992573

    It suggests that it is Linux and open source and wine...

  • Yang = aflutter
    Fan = jib or foresail
    Thus, Yangfan = driving sail

    Qi = start
    Hang = a route, a sail

    Thus, QiHang = sailing, or start sailing

    The article said both mean 'set sail'...well, figuratively they are.

  • Office 200? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Grip3n ( 470031 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @10:24PM (#3920918) Homepage
    Listen, China is trying it's hardest to come into the modern age. Let's not insult them by saying they're still in the 200's rather than the 2000's when you say they're going to support Office 200, capice?

  • The Humor In This... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by diggyb ( 594493 )
    Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced that they are putting $750M into the tech sector in China. I wonder how they are feeling about that decision now? Whether it's a re-implementation of Windows, or a Linux solution (as it seems to be), the bottom line is that this is a hard slap in the face for Microsoft. If the Chinese are willing to do this after Microsoft gives them $750M, what are they going to do when they read the licensing agreements on anything they get from M$?

  • Been ther, done that (Score:3, Informative)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Friday July 19, 2002 @11:06PM (#3921074)
    Windows PC clone. [themut.com]
  • Instead of a mouse, will it use chopsticks?

    Could make interactive porno more interesting, I suppose.

  • It's quite strange that they set out to build a full-functional OS just to run Office 2000 and Word on it. Anyone with the least common sense would prefer to go Top-Down , i.e. , write its own Word Processor before go to OS, not to mention there are many OS available.

  • There is a reason people don't develop new all-purpose operating systems from scratch today. It's an extraordinarily expensive and time consuming undertaking. We're talking about 10 years of development for talented, well organized groups, with constant feedback, review, testing, and some degree of industry support.

    There's no way China developed this from scratch, this fast, with their resources, unless it supports only a tiny insignificant fraction of Microsoft Windows functionality. Cloning Windows 98 of all things doesn't make sense either. Windows 2000 is more stable, extensible, powerful.

    It's either Linux + WINE + custom hacks, or they probably got their hands on Windows 98 source code and did some global search and replaces.

  • Spell-checker (Score:3, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Saturday July 20, 2002 @12:54AM (#3921335)
    I hear their spell-checker auto-corrects "Republic of China" to "Province of Taiwan".
  • Unix and Unix like OS have had protected memory for yonks, NT has it for years (and now W2K), Apple has moved to this more stable design by embracing BSD, so what do the Chinese do?

    Choose to copy one of the most unstable OS' that the World has ever been burdened with!?!?

    I think there is a *MUCH* simpler solution. Embrace a free Unix with an excellent stability and hardware support history (FreeBSD) and then standardize on something like OpenOffice.

    Any huge efforts like recreating a crap OS could have been put into improving OpenOffice and perhaps writing some decent groupware.

    Crazy crazy stuff.

  • Beijing municipal government bought software equivalent to Win 95 from Chinese companies such as CS&S and RedFlag. (Read Linux) While the newly started two programs would make updates on this basis to improve the software to a level of Win98 and compatible with Office2000 and Word. (Read Linux)

  • Huh.. (Score:2)

    by Junta ( 36770 )
    A Windows 98 'workalike'? Windows 98 doesn't really 'work' per say, so to workalike seems to be a apardox...

    But Seriously, why name a 9x system as a goal rather than an NT based one as a goal, 9x's core is very flawed, and since they would be starting from scratch anyway...
  • What's up with Wine?
    Crossover Office is coming along very nicely.
    Why not throw a few million dollars at Codeweavers to bring Crossover Office up to Office XP compatibility? That's what I'd do anyway...

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