Free/Libre and Open Source Software in China

China: emerging FOSS dragon, with a lot to gain from, and share with, the world

Report compiled by Frederick Noronha

China is recognised as an important country that will determine the growth and potential of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), not just in Asia but beyond. FOSS in China draws support from the government, and is also gaining from local initiatives, and some ventures to promote it are helping build bridges with China's neighbours.

The China-Japan-Korea cooperation has been working on issues like GNU/Linux Standardization, FOSS Education and Training Research and Development. 

Some of the challenges seen to be facing FOSS's growth in China include its standardisation, its possibility to build alliances (such as the China Open Source Software Promotion Union), and the need to spur on the deployment of FOSS in crucial sectors like education and training.

Currently, FOSS is being deployed in major products in fields such as embedded systems, the server and at the OS (operating system) level. Reports emerging out of China suggest that projects have been launched to research on the Linux standards architecture, and for Linux application programming interface specifications, apart from a project for technical requirements, and another for Linux System User Interface Requirements. The Chinese government has been undergoing technological programs such as the 863 program and the 973 program, Also being looked at are FOSS's relevance for the small business.

DR Lin GAO of the China Electronics Standarization Institute lists some issues facing FOSS in China -- at http://www.asia-oss.org a useful site for links to FOSS in different parts of China. He says that from 1999, GNU/Linux grew rapidly in the Chinese markets, with both the operating system and GNU/Linux-based applications prospering greatly. But he lists some of the problems encountered as (i) different interfaces provided by different GNU/Linux products (ii) large differences in functionality and performance among different GNU/Linux products (iii) different usage habits for different products. This results in difficulties in the development of applications, poor compatibility and poor usability, he noted.

Work is underway on standardisation of GNU/Linux, under the Ministry of Information Industry, the SAC (Standardization Administration of China) and the CESI, Gao said. Research work was begun in 2001, and a Linux Standardisation Working Group (CLINUX-WG) was set up.

Below is a listing of FOSS software products from China, a listing of user groups, other resources, important players and links to them within the country, and FOSS distros from China, apart from other details.

There are a growing number of globally-visible products emerging from China. It is quite likely this these are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, with a number more being aimed primarily at the domestic market, and not so visible outside the Chinese language.

Below is a listing of some China-related FOSS products. There would obviously be many more that deserve to be included, but aren't; mainly because of language barriers and communication gaps. One of the major needs for FOSS to grow in China might be a better showcasing of the achievements of that country, at the global level

Some links to China-related FOSS products:

ThizOffice

An OpenOffice-based suite specially designed for the Greater China region. http://freshmeat.net/projects/thizoffice/ Author: Thiz Technology Group Limited

guanxiCRM

A comprehensive CRM solution for doing business in Asia. http://freshmeat.net/projects/guanxcrm/ Author: wjue

JFox - J2EE Application Server

JFox is an Open Source, standards-compliant, J2EE based application server implemented in 100% Pure Java, It comes from China Enterprise Open Source Community. http://www.huihoo.org http://sourceforge.net/projects/jfox/

ERP5 from China

ERP54CN is a software internalization project mainly for using the ERP5 project in China. Quote: "We will do the hard work of translation, experimenting, and customizing the well designed projects into Simplified Chinese." http://sourceforge.net/projects/erp54cn/

freepy

A GNU Chinese character input method. It is based on win32 system, provide more choice for people in China to make a ime by themselves. It compiles under microsoft visual c++, mainly on win2k/xp platform. http://sourceforge.net/projects/freepy/

hicmpp

A java based CMPP implement: A java based CMPP (China Mobile Peer to Peer) compatible implement http://sourceforge.net/projects/hicmpp/

Xoops

China Development and Documentation for the Xoops Project dedicated to the Xoops China Community. http://sourceforge.net/projects/xoopschina/

qqbdc

QQBDC is a software to recite word for Chinese Tencent users. Tencent is a peer to peer Chating software and broad-wide in China. QQBDC has 20 books of word such as Toefl or GRE and CET4 or CET6. http://sourceforge.net/projects/qqbdc/

YelTapan Messenger System

YelTapan is a messaging system aimed to be similar to Yahoo Messenger in functionality. It is primarily developed for Uyghur (an ethnic Turkic nationality living in north-western China) users for lack of such messaging software available in Uyghur lang http://sourceforge.net/projects/yeltapan/

Super Board

To Setup A Board For Users To Discuss and Exchange Computer Experience, i.e. Software Programming, Web Programming, Hardware Choosing, Boardband Building, etc. It is mainly for users in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan or any other Chinese. http://sourceforge.net/projects/hksboard/

SGIP API

SGIP is a popular SMS transfer protocol between a SMSC and a SP in China, used by a number of major telecom carriers. Intended to make the API to be Win32 / Unix family portable, and easy to use for C/C++ programmers. http://sourceforge.net/projects/sgipapi/

EReport

A report component of Delphi&C++Builder. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ereport/

QQAnywhere

QQ is the most popular chat tool in China. But Tencent Corporation, QQ's provider, only provides the tool on Windows platform. This project's goal is to provide a similar chat tool on all platform for all users work on various platforms. http://sourceforge.net/projects/tsinghua/

The9 Trainer

The9.com is one of the most famous entertainment web sites in China. The9 Trainer is a full featured program that can do a lot of work. The9 Trainer promises a new experience of surfing in The9.com. http://sourceforge.net/projects/t9tr/

China Web Portal

To build a web portal http://www.zhonghua.com that serves the daily lives of mainland and overseas Chinese. http://sourceforge.net/projects/china/

CMPP Java API CMPP

China Mobile Peer-Peer Protocol is an SMPP-like protocol widely used in China to interface with Short Message Entities. The project aims to develop a Java API for CMPP. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cmppapi/

FlapMap

FlapMap a light-weighted web-based topology visualization tool. Developers say they "hope to make it a more user-friendly and flexible visualization tool than previous works". It is developed at NM Group in network research center of Tsinghua Univ, P.R China. http://sourceforge.net/projects/flapmap/

Robocup Agent Framework

A robocup agent framework and the cilent used by the China University of Mining and Technology RoboCup team. http://sourceforge.net/projects/robocupagent/

Webtools

http://www.sw-linux.com/en/scripts/main/catitem.php?catid=webtools&showid=products Webtools is a comprehensive package of systems and applications designed to optimize production and communication efficiencies for all users. Catering to the demands of the market, Webtools provides five types of solutions to meet all needs.

Projects open-sourced from Sun Wah

https://liberate.sw-linux.com/app Below are the projects that open-sourced by this Chinese firm. You need to login prior to going to any project. 

        RAYS installer: The RAYS installer is the
        graphical system installation program for the
        Debian-based RAYS Linux distribution.

        SchoolwareX: SchoolwareX is a management system
        for primary and secondary schools. Teachers and
        the administration office of a school can benefit
        from it. It has cool features such as
        sending notification SMS to parents' mobile phones.

        swGUI: swGUI is a graphical user interface library
        for GNU/Linux-based embedded devices.

        swEAP: swEAP is a suite of applications for embedded
        devices, which includes a web browser, an email
        client, SMS applet and a phone module.

User groups

For the most populous country on the planet, China appears to have a limited number of easy-to-locate Linux User Groups, Free Software User Groups, or GNU/Linux User Groups. This lack of visibility in the outside world could well be because of the predominance of the Chinese language in technical discussions in that part of the globe. Or, as argued below, it could be due to the deployment of other forms of networking among the FOSS community.

Kenneth Wong <kenneth.wong@gmail.com> writes (personal email, Fri May 20 2005): "Formal groupings, especially those that meet in person, are rare. Mailing lists are active though, and bbs extremely popular.... The Beijing LUG is a strange beast -- more than 50% of its members are foreigners who are working or studying in China. Still a good resource. Its president is Michael Iannini <lamigra00@yahoo.com>."

Whatever the case, both China itself and the outside world could gain immensely from a higher profile for such user groups. Listed below are some links, sometimes in Chinese:

China Linux Forum

http://www.linuxforum.net/ http://www.linuxforum.net/ is a forum discussing FOSS in Chinese.

GNU China

http://www.gnuchina.org

Linux Fans

Enthusiasts who built their own Linux, Magic Linux http://www.linuxfans.org/

Nanjing GNU/Linux Users Group

GNU/Linux users group in Nanjing China. http://sourceforge.net/projects/njlug/

GNU/Linux users group in Nanjing China. Says the group "holds weekly meetings". Its intended audience includes developers, end users/desktop, system administrators, customer service personnel, education, information technology. Focuses on all POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes), OS Independent (written in an interpreted language), Linux. Programming Language: C, Perl, PHP, Scheme, Unix Shell Translations: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English. This group seems to have been active around 2001-02.

Hong Kong Linux User Group

http://www.linux.org.hk/ Site in Chinese, Trad and English versions. Hong Kong Linux User Group (HKLUG) describes itself as "a non-profit organization by some Hong Kong [GNU]Linux lovers". It says it is aimed to gather GNU/Linux users in Hong Kong, providing chances for them to exchange experience on GNU/Linux, helping new users, promoting GNU/Linux in Hong Kong and promoting communication with GNU/Linux users and User Groups in other geographic areas; in order to help the community. HKLUG is Hong Kong Registered Society No. 21299 under Societies Ordinance. Contact: Hong Kong Linux User Group G.P.O. Box No. 11731 Hong Kong History

Says this LUG: "In 1990s, several HKLUG or similar organizations have been established by different groups of people. However, most are stopped due to some problem. In October 1997, some Hong Kong Linux users discussed in StarZine starforum.comp.unix that they want to have a local LUG in Hong Kong. They met on IRC and vote for the EXCO team re-establishing the HKLUG."

HKLUG team (elected in April 2005) includes chairman Roy Hiu-yeung Chan (aka voidoo), secretary Leo Hau (aka ocake), treasurer Element Cheng, exco member Bryan Chiu and exco member Adrian Sai-wah Tam (aka Alienz).

City: Shanghai

Website: http://www.linux.org.cn/ Email: webmaster@linux.org.cn

Guangzhou Linux Consortium

City: Guangzhou Website: http://www.gzlinux.org Email: contact@gzlinux.org

Beijing Linux Club

A site for Chinese users of Linux

GNUCTT.NET

Based on GNU Chinese Translators Team. http://gnuctt.net ( http://www.gnu.org/software/chinese/gnuctt.cn.html )

China Java User Group

Cnjug (China Java User Group) provides some util packages.Includes some latest technology such as Spring,Hibernate ,etc. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cnjug/

FSSG, HUST

FSSG, HUST was founded by Hong Feng on Dec 20, 2004. Currently there are 30+ members in the group. On Dec 20, 2004, Hong Feng gave a speech to the HUST students, on the topic "What is a Hacker?". The students in HUST, as in other most Chinese univerisities today, learn the Windows based tools, which Hong pointed out, it is little helpful to grasp the nature of computing science. Anyone who needs to master computer science, has to hack the source code. Free software, comes out with fully complete source codes, provide the possibility for the students to understand the nature of the computing, thus it is the best choice for the students to become professional software engineers, or hackers. http://groups.google.co.in/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_thread/thread/87c9a41c84e45511/470b2e84c5996cb6?q=China+Linux&rnum=3&hl=en#470b2e84c5996cb6

Other resources

These are initiatives that have the potential to spur on the growth of FOSS in China.

Linuxworldchina.com

http://www.linuxworldchina.com/ For links to LinuxWorld in Shanghai and Beijing. Quote: Linux is going to be one of the main stream operating systems in China. With the objectives to develop a major operating system for the country and to strength the software industry in China through developing Linux, the Chinese government has strong initiatives to promote the development and deployment of Linux and related applications in both the government and commercial sectors. LinuxWorld Shanghai 2005 April 27-28, 2005 / Shanghai JC Mandarin Hotel LinuxWorld Beijing 2005 August 17-19,2005 / The Kerry Center Hotel Beijing

CDhouse.biz

Linux CDs or Distro Provider serving China http://www.cdhouse.biz -- Find and buy cheap computer software cd-roms online including GNU/Linux, Freebsd and various other application softwares

China Based Mirrors of open source software

Apache - http://apache.linuxforum.net/dist/

Hong Kong Based Mirrors of open source software

Apache - http://apache.inframatrix.com/ Apache - http://www.zentek-international.com/mirrors/apache/ FreeBSD - ftp://ftp.cn.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ Red Hat - ftp://ftp.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/pub/redhat/ Red Hat - ftp://sunsite.ust.hk/pub/redhat/

Localization

Obliquid

Provides a search engine for Traditional Chinese KDE translation messages http://dev.obliquid.com/index.php?page=core_msgshow

TUG 2005 International Typesetting Conference

August 23-25, 2005 WuHan, China P.R. http://www.rons.net.cn/tug2005.html TUG 2005, the 26th annual meeting of the TeX Users Group, is being held in China in August 2005. The conference is supported by CTUG (the Chinese TeX User Group, founded in 1999), in the birthplace of ancient typography, and TUG (the TeX Users Group, founded in 1980).

Free Software Magazine

http://www.free-soft.org/FSM/english/issue03/ An international magazine published from China. Site suggest the latest issue, its third, was due in March 2002. FREE SOFTWARE magazine (FSM for short) is a free (the free in "freedom") monthly periodical devoted to the global free software community. It is published in on-line electronic form on the world wide web -- http://www.rons.net.cn/english/FSM/online -- and in printed paper copies by RON's Datacom Co., Ltd., with the direct support of Free Software Foundation, and FSF, China Academy.

GNOME Hong Kong

For Chinese people who are mainly using Traditonal Chinese. GNOME HK aims to maintain the Traditional Chinese translation for the GNOME desktop. With help, Gnome HK hopes to implement usability testing on Chinese GNOME desktops. http://www.gnome.hk

Debian

Similarly, there are other institutions for Debian in Hong Kong. http://www.debian.org.hk

Hong Kong Linux Industry Association [HKLIA]

http://www.hklia.org/ Hong Kong Linux Industry Association (HKLIA) is a united initiative among Linux vendors, service providers and companies who want to extend, promote and support the adoption of Linux to companies, organisations and the public sector in Hong Kong and beyond. It was founded voluntarily by enthusiastic Linux vendors, service providers and companies in late 2002 . Its primary goal is to represent the Linux industry in Hong Kong to propagate the new development of Linux to members and the general public as a business opportunity.

It argues: "The use of Linux thus results in increased productivity, lower total cost of ownership and extended product life cycle of your IT resources. Its open source nature also gives developers the opportunity of obtaining free technical resources and freedom of development. We believe Linux is not just beneficial to developers but also adds value to users and all sectors in the society. In the past, Linux promotion and encouragement was done by voluntary (and often uncoordinated) community effort. The establishment of HKLIA is to consolidate both industry and community effort to promote the adoption of Linux from a more marketing and technical perspective. We are confident that this will benefit the industry and economy as a whole."

Mozilla China

Mozilla China was launched in March 2005. It is hosted by the Institute of Software of Chinese Academy of Science. Co-founding sponsor is Sun (China) Engineering and Research Institute. Its mission is to provide a

using or improving Mozilla Technology in China [Source: Mitchell Baker President, Mozilla Foundation March 2, 2005 in a talk titled The Mozilla Project:A Global Effort]

Important players

General

CoSoft

http://cosoft.org.cn/html/ev/index.php

Its full-name is Co-Create Software Branch of Chinese Software Industry Association and it is generally called Co-Create Software League. The English abbreviation of this association is CoSoft. Initiated, legally registered and established in February 2000 by institutions and individuals determined to revive Chinese software industry, it is a non-profit software technology league. It is made up of members, the council and executing bodies.

Objectives of this Association (1) to become one of the key R&D means for Chinese foundation software and provide enterprises or users developing application software and systems with low-cost common foundation software and high-quality technical services; (2) to become the incubating environment to optimize open source software (OSS) so as to provide an open environment for innovative software technologies to rapidly develop and grow, provide software developers with an arena to share achievements and a channel to cooperate and exchange information and promote the development environment for OSS technological services; (3) to become a new reference system for software evaluation and participate in shaping related domestic software standards for the purpose of promoting advanced software technologies; (4) to launch international cooperation on OSS and assist in promoting domestic OSS integrated to the world.

Services listed below are projected to be undertaken: Publishing (1) Promote and publish open source foundation software and assist enterprises in promoting related open source foundation software and value-added development and application achievements based on demands from CoSoft member enterprises. (2) Compile teaching materials on OSS and spread OSS-related knowledge.

Following are co-sponsors for CoSoft (arranged in Chinese phonetic alpahbetical order):

Beida Jade Bird Group Computer Department of Beijing University Network Management Research Center of Beijing Jiaotong University Computer Department of Beijing University of Aeronautics. & Astronautics Boshi Fund Management Co., Ltd. Powerise Group NeuSoft Group Computer Department of Fudan University Dept. Of Computer, National University of Defense Technology National Multimedia Software Engineering Center Computer Department of Harbin Industrial University Computer World Jiangsu NANDASOFT COMPANY LIMITED Langchao Group Department of Computer Science and Technology of Nanjing University Computer Department of Tsinghua University Tsinghua Unisplendour Investment Consultation Co. Computer Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Sichuan Top Group Scientific & Technolog Shenyang Neu-Alpine Software Co., Ltd. Wuhan Da Meng Database Ltd. Wuhan University Software Base Wuhan Wuda huaruan(Huoju) Industries Co. Ltd. Hope Group UFsoft Group Computer Department of Zhejiang University CS&S Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Science CASS International Inc., Chinese Academy of Science Software Engineering Center, Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Science

Hong Feng, Free Software activist

http://www.rons.net.cn/hongfeng.html

Hong Feng, born in 1968, in HuNan Province, China. Founder of RON's Datacom Co., Ltd. with other two partners in the May 1995. Quote: "Since then, I have been exploring how to build a successful business model on the basis of free software ... Free software is so interesting, I have been enthusiastically promoting it in China for years."

Hong Feng says he has "a baby named 'MNM Project' (MNM's Not a Million), who is four years old now. I am taking care of him to protect my freedom! A large part of the project is Hackerdom Training Program (HTP) going on now."

He is a freelance writer, the author of four books, including "Free Software: New Game Rules". He has also been the publisher of "free SOFTWARE" magazine (fS). It was the only free (the "free" in freedom) monthly periodical devoted to the global free software community in 2002 (when it was first published), coming out with both a web and paper version, both free to copy and redistribute.

To publish the free books in Chinese, Hong Feng says he needs a set of nice free fonts. He has written on his website: "I am designing the high quality, free (as in freedom) Chinese fonts with the wavelet transformation skills. Since Chinese has thousands of interesting characters to design, this project is still undergoing. Because the typesetting is so fun, I founded the Chinese TeX User Group (CTUG) in 2000, which aims to promote Prof. Donald Knuth's TeX system for the community."

As a programmer, he has been working "heavily" with Scheme for hacking and training. Says he: "Scheme is a modern dialect of Lisp created in 1975, quite small yet very powerful indeed (I shall say it is RMS who showed me the power and elegance of Lisp). Maybe you like it too and are interested in joining my MNM Project?"

Postal address listed on site: Suite 3-3, WuZhong Street 200, DongXiHu District, Wuhan, HuBei Province, 430040 China P.R. info@mail.rons.net.cn

== Important players: Commercial ===

Sun Wah Linux Limited

http://www.sw-linux.com/

Sun Wah Linux Limited is a high tech company specializing in the provision of comprehensive and effective high availability open-source platform solutions to corporate clients. Sun Wah Linux offers a complete range of services relating to Linux system consultation, systems integration, network infrastructure; Linux embedded systems, Linux professional training, and software and application development. All of these technologies are dedicated to the delivery of open-source enterprise commerce that enables technology for the enhancement of business performance.

Quote: "As the largest Linux solutions provider in China, Sun Wah Linux has had a long history of helping to bridge the gap between Chinese and Asian open source communities.... Over the past year, Sun Wah Linux became the first Linux distribution in Asia to comply with the global Linux Standard Base (LSB) 2.0. Already this year, Sun Wah Linux has co-sponsored China OSS Week 2005, which included the first Asia Debian Mini-Conf 2005 and Asia CodeFest 2005. This was tremendously successful in connecting open source leaders and developers from all around the world to foster collaboration and exchange knowledge with the local communities. In the near future, Sun Wah Linux will actively continue a series of initiatives to lead the promotion of OSS."

Sun Wah Linux' new community website is https://liberate.sw-linux.com

o Open-Source Alliance (Formed, Aug 2004) "Open-source software alliance formed in China." IDG News Service (11 Ag 2004). <http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/11/HNopensourcechina_1.html> Cited at http://incommunicado.info/node/68 Alliance with IBM, HP, and others aims to promote open-source development and application in China A number of Chinese software companies have joined forces with overseas vendors such as IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp, and Novell Inc. to form the China Open Source Software Promotion Alliance, China's first open-source software organization, several Chinese media reported.

Exoweb

http://www.exoweb.net Exoweb based in Beijing, provides web technology solutions using the FOSS -based Zope application server and framework.

Chinese Based FOSS Distributions

Red Flag

Magic Linux

OpenDesktop

Hiweed Linux

Asianux

Red Flag Linux

A famous GNU/Linux distribution funded by the Chinese Government. http://www.redflag-linux.com/eindex.html

Red flag currently has a look similar to Windows XP.

Red Flag Linux is seen as being able to boast of significant sales. However, Red Flag in March 2003 was made to look as close as possible to Windows XP, so it's clear that the effort is getting Microsoft users to migrate. Source: http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/China.html

Redflag says the tenet of the training program offered by Redflag lies in setting up its own certification and education system, with the aim of offering excellent training services to large numbers of users of Redflag Linux. Redflag, driven by the goal of providing user-oriented services of top-notch quality, will dedicate great efforts to offering training on application skills as well as comprehensive follow-up technical support, rendering as a result little efforts to be made by users to get command of Redflag products with high efficiency after going through the said training. While basing itself upon the requirements of users, Redflag will bend over backward to register remarkable achievements on the strength of its well-developed teaching management system, professional and meticulous teaching style, a high-profile trainer team, uniform and authoritative training materials and a substantive evaluation system as well as a team of technical agents boasting many years of field experience. http://www.redflag-linux.com/peixun/eindex.html

Redflag is currently in the middle of promoting franchised Redflag training program in China and in neighboring Chinese-spoken areas in the Asian-Pacific Region, in the hope of bringing about training programs of international standard both at home and abroad and consequently galvanizing to a large measure the development of Chinese software industry.

Contacts: Red Flag Software Co.,Ltd Add: 6/F. Zijin Building, 68 Wanquanhe Rd., Haidian Dist., Beijing 100086, P.R.China Tel: (8610) 82656655 Fax: (8610) 82658096 Email: Website related: webmaster@redflag-linux.com Operation Cooperate: partner@redflag-linux.com Sales: sales@redflag-linux.com Cooperate Embedded: emb@redflag-linux.com ISV Operation: isv@redflag-linux.com Education&Publish: edu@redflag-linux.com Hardware Test: test@redflag-linux.com Support: support@redflag-linux.com

Magic Linux

From http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/Magic_Linux.html

Magic Linux is a Chinese based GNU/Linux distribution, built by enthusiasts. It features a KDE desktop and used the RPM package system. It is based on Red Hat Linux. Magic Linux 1.1 is the fourth version of this non-commercial distribution. It is totally free and open. It offers: CD1, Installation. CD2, Source. CD3, Tools. Magic Linux says it "is designed to be the best distribution to support Chinese, from input and display to printing. It is an easy-to-use desktop and it contains the latest version of KDE and GNOME. Fcitx (Free Chinese Input Toy for X, see fcitx.org) is used as the input method." Source : http://www.gudanglinux.com Home Page http://www.magiclinux.org Also see the portal http://www.linuxfans.org

=== Asianux ===

On March 2, 2005, Miracle Linux Corporation (Tokyo Japan, President: Takeshi Sato), Red Flag Software Co., Ltd. (Beijing China, Executive President: Chris Zhao) and Haansoft, Inc. (Seoul South Korea, CEO: Jong Jin Baek) jointly announced that Asianux 2.0 to be generally available at the end of July 2005.

Asianux 2.0 will deliver enhanced Kernel 2.6 with dramatically improved performance, scalability and more powerful RAS functions which are required to establish enterprise and mission-critical infrastructures and easily migrate from enterprise UNIX to Linux. In addition, the graphical-user-interface (GUI), management and configuration tools have been enhanced for reducing operation and maintenance cost.

In particular, OSDL (Open Source Development Labs, Inc.) Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) Requirements Definition will be implemented to improve reliability and availability.

Takeshi Sato, President of MIRACLE LINUX said that, "In Japan, Linux is being introduced in various industries including financial, manufacturing, distribution service sectors, and in governmental and public offices. We are aiming for Asianux to be the common and standard OS platform in Asia, and are developing it that enhances the various functional requirements in Japan, China and South Korea. The concept of Asianux 2.0 is to enhance the function regarding Reliability, Availability and Serviceability. We really expect that Asianux will be introduced into mission-critical systems, the scope of Linux will increase dramatically in the future."

Chris Zhao, Executive President of Red Flag, said, "Now, Asianux is the only one Asia local unified Linux distribution across China, Japan and South Korea. The enterprise customers can get instant and highly qualified local technical support from Red Flag, MIRACLE LINUX and Haansoft. For ISV/IHV partners, Asianux can reduce the certification and support cost greatly. They can just certify Asianux once and 'Red Flag DC Server 5.0, MIRACLE LINUX V4.0 and Haansoft Linux 2005 will all get certification because these products are all based on Asianux and 100% compatible. We believe Asianux will become the most important Linux distribution in Asia soon"

Jong Jin Baek, CEO of Haansoft, said, "South Korea has a very unique market situation such that Unix is dominant platform for public sector and Windows for private sector. Haansoft will change this unusual market structure by various Linux solutions and Asianux. Asianux project, which is formed by major Linux companies from South Korea, China, and Japan, have made fast development and valuable outputs so far. Asianux will be an unprecedented collaborative model for common and standard operating system development. Haansoft will also try its best for the success of Asianux 2.0 project"

Asianux 2.0 delivers the following key technical benefits :

1 Enhanced RAS (Reliability/Availability/ Serviceability) Asianux 2.0, which is designed to work under the most demanding enterprise environments, offers high level of Reliability/Availability/ Serviceability. In particular, stability under high loads has been dramatically improved. Further, as a part of RAS enhancements, Asianux 2.0 conforms to CGL, and most features defined in CGL2.0 priority 1 are implemented to deliver reliable support to carrier grade applications. In addition, a wide range of diagnostic tools is provided for analyzing problems.

2 Enhanced localization Asianux 2.0 supports Japanese, Chinese simplified and traditional, Korean and English, and provides the optimum environment for using these languages. UTF8/EUC/SJIS/GB18030 locales are supported.

3 Enhanced usability ReFineD is a KDE (K Desktop Environment)-based desktop environment that has been used in Red Flag client OS. Asianux 2.0 can enjoy the benefit of GUI-based usability delivered by ReFineD, which has been acknowledged by 1.5 million users worldwide. Moreover, a wide selection of GUI management and configuration tools is provided to meet demands of the market.

4 Supported platform

Asianux 2.0 will be marketed and commercialized under the brand name of each Asianux participant -- Haansoft Linux 2005 Asianux Inside by Haansoft in South Korea, Red Flag DC Server 5.0 Asianux Inside by Red Flag in China, and Miracle Linux V4.0 Asianux Inside by Miracle Linux in Japan. All three companies will use the Asianux Inside mark in their product names.

http://www.iosn.net/country/hong-kong/ Hong Kong Linux Industry Association (HKLIA) is a united initiative among Linux vendors, service providers and companies who want to extend, promote and support the adoption of Linux to companies, organisations and the public sector in Hong Kong and beyond. Hong Kong, China Debian GNU/Linux Hong Kong Debain community resource for Hong Kong Hong Kong, China Open Standard Support Organization A community organization that evangelizes the use of Open Source software Hong Kong, China Gnome HK Association

Timeline of FOSS growth in China

July 1999 - The OSS concept was officially brought into China by the Ministry of Information Industry(MII) of China

June 2000 A a number of Chinese software vendors together to form the Co-create Open Source League [http://cosoft.org.cn/html/ev/index.php ]

2001 - the 863 Project

2002 - the Set Sail and Sailing pproject to promote Linux research and development

2003 The Linux Public Development Platform project and LLinux 1+1+1 education project to recruit and train Linux talents

2004 - Beijing Software Testing Centre (BSTC) becomes the member of OSDL April 2004 - China-Japan-Korea (CJK) OSS Promotion Forum

Quotes: China uses [GNU]Linux to form an independent and open development system for its software industry.

"A major beneficiary of these technologies is the less developed economies, whose national development depends on the awailability of low-cost computing devices on which [F]OSS are able to function very well." -- The Fifth Asia Open Source Software Symposium cited at http://www.asia-oss.org/march2005/overview.html

China is a market of opportunity and it has given indications that it is Linux-friendly. -- Steve O'Grady of the research firm Red Monk

When China announced that it would migrate government departments to Linux, many expected a Linux boom. But the country still lacks a sufficient number of technicians who can work on open-source systems. The money is in maintaining Windows-based systems, and in China, you go where the money is. That Red Hat waited until late 2004 to open their China office should tell us a lot about Linux's progress in China. http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=149424

NEWS FROM MACAU: From Rui Alves domus_pt at yahoo.com, "We used to have a website for some time, but it has been down. We even lost the internet name (http://www.macaulinux.org). The coordination of efforts is quite hard even in such a microscopic place as Macau. As far as I know, some of my colleagues are working on restoring the site (and related activities) but honestly it has been a while without any news from them. I hope we won't let macaulinux die. Check my site -- http://zodiak.f2o.org -- for any eventual development."

LINKS FROM TAIWAN: Kuo-Wei kwu at wu-city.com writes, "Please try http://www.slat.org.tw and http://www.cosa.org.tw besides http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw I wish it help."

tcliou at iis.sinica.edu.tw offered these pointers: "I can introduce you to some of our country's open source developers, could you give me more information about you and your organization/community?"

CHINESE LINUX EXTENSION(cle): Chinese Linux Extension(CLE) is also a very important milestone project and popular application (patch) in Taiwan, most distros use this project's achievement for traditional-chinese localization. They also host CLDP (Chinese Linux Documentation Project) project which help many developers. http://cle.linux.org.tw/ [Source: Tzu-Chiang Liou, Project Manager, Open Source Software Foundry http://www.openfoundry.org Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, E-mail: tcliou at iis.sinica.edu.tw TEL:+886-2-2788-3799 ext.1404 FAX:+886-2-2651-8660 Mobile: +886-937835052

MOST POPULAR FOSS APPLICATION: Kang-min Liu <gugod@gugod.org> wrote, "I think xcin (http://xcin.linux.org.tw/) is a very representative projects in Taiwan. It is a XIM server under X window environment. Plus it re-implemented lots of legacy input methods in old DOS-age chinese systems, therefore hackers do not have to change their using customs. Further deritvated projects like chewing, iiimf-xcin and OpenVanilla, actually re-use the result of xcin project." --Kang-min "Gugod" Liu

OTHER CHINA DISTROS: SOURCE http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=China&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active

1. CDlinux CDlinux is a CD based mini Linux distribution, which runs from a CD-ROM. It aims to be an administration/rescue tool for East Asian (CJK) users. CDlinux is also highly user configurable, and supports a wide range of hardware (PCMCIA, SCSI, USB, etc). At present time, only simplified Chinese is fully supported.

2. Co-CreateLinux Co-CreateLinux is a product of OpenDesktop.net, an open source developer community of Chinese developers. The project is sponsored by several large software companies, universities and research centres from around China. The Co-CreateLinux distribution is designed for business and home desktop market and its main features are simplified installation procedure, high compatibility with Windows and ease of use. It is based on Fedora Core and released under GPL.

3. Cosix Linux Cosix Linux is an RPM-based Linux distribution developed by Chinasoft Network Technology Company in Beijing, China.

4. Hiweed Linux Hiweed-Debian GNU/Linux is a Chinese Linux distribution, based on Debian GNU/Linux. Its features include preconfigured Chinese applications, such as Chinese (simplified) input method, Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries, and Chinese (simplified) true-type fonts.

5. iBox iBox is a highly customised and flexible live CD based on Gentoo Linux. Thanks to glc (the Chinese branch of gentoo portage), iBox provides an all-round Chinese (simplified) desktop environment using GNOME with almost all pre-configured popular software. The main feature of iBox is the auto-detection and auto-configuration of hardware, especially with the mkxorgconf script to help create the configuration file for Xorg. Last but not least, iBox can rebuild itself through ibox-builder from a Gentoo box.

6. Magic Linux Magic Linux is a new distribution, which is specifically designed for Chinese users. Magic Linux is a non-commercial production completely developed by Linux enthusiasts with a simple motive in mind: say farewell to endless Chinese localisations from one Linux distribution to another and bring the native Chinese support to your desktop.

7. Rays Linux RAYS Linux, developed by Sun Wah Hi-tech (Nanjing) System Software Limited, is the first commercial operating system in China that is based on Debian GNU/Linux and utilises Debian package management tools. RAYS Linux provides users with a simple and stylish user interface by adopting the GNOME desktop environment. A variety of applications in RAYS Linux helps users fulfilling their demands for Linux migration.

8. Red Flag Linux Red Flag Software Co., Ltd. (Red Flag Software) was founded by Software Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and NewMargin Venture Capital. We are focused on the development and marketing of Linux-based operating systems and application software on multiple platforms for the constantly growing base of Chinese technology users. Our goal is "Creating Incentives for Networking Life." The company will continue to develop a modern management pattern we call the "Red Flag Way." This is client driven customization based on our business model involving free software.

9. Xteam Linux Xteam Software (China) Co. Ltd. was founded in 1999 as the first specialized Linux Company in China. It provides individual users and business customers with advanced high-tech Linux OS products and corresponding services. Our Linux workstation - XteamLinux targets individual users who are familiar with computer technology including newbies, enthusiasts and developers. It contains an intelligent GUI installer, easy-to-configure tools and a variety of applications, and it is also optimized for various application environments to be a high performance PC workstation, advanced development platform, and even a private network server.

FLOSSAsiaChina (zuletzt geändert am 2007-11-01 17:25:13 durch localhost)