China building its own Windows

[allenb1963]

Yep, it looks like the Peoples Republic of China is ready to give Bill & co. the boot big time. Can they build an OS that makes them independent from Microsoft without reverse engineering Windows? Only time will tell, but I wish them luck all the same.

Read all about it at: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992573

[alittlebitnumb]

I have question: Why are so many *trying* to mimmic Windows98 to run MSOffice when there are MSOffice clones up the wazoo?

China and anybody else in the world has a chance to break ties with MS by going away from MS and looking elsewhere, be it *NIX, Mac,OS/2, or whatever. I mean, if you wanna use WIndows, use Windows. It does not make much sense to make a clone of WIn98 to let an already proprietary program to run on it... can they just switch over to OpenOffice, KOffice or other alternatives? It's silly...

Or am I missing something?

[chefer]

I think the idea is wonderful. How quickly can they have it available to the market w/ the kind of media and marketing M$ has been able to muster? They claim the OS would be ready in about a year. Unfornuately I would fear that in the end the abilities of M$ as a marketer would all empowering in the market. Would the developers of the new OS be able to match the marketing ploys of M$ in a pretty cornered market? I hope so for the benefit of all end users.

Cool article.

Regards.


[edit]
seems kind of remniscent of the ideology behind Lindows when it was first conceived.
[/edit]

[cwk9]

All I want to know is if the welcome message will be changed to "Welcome comrade".

[allenb1963]

Chefer: Given that it's being developed from open source code, I would venture to guess it will be priced below Win9x, if not free, at least in China. That feature alone would be a factor MS would have a tough time burying marketing-wise.

To alittlenumb: The reason they are all aiming for a 'windows-like' product is because of the interoperability it would offer. Because MS dominates 95% of the desktop market, it makes sense to make a product that is windows-friendly. There are plenty of well-proven apps already written for windows, which means less dependence on developers after the OS is released. Using existing products with the new OS will significantly shorten and flatten the learning curve for the entire country while it is being weaned from its MS dependency. It actually looks like a well thought out direction IMHO.

[khakisrule]

Linux runs on the same hardware as Windows and offers similar functionality

Um, since when. The hardware part is fine, but as for functionality, I would have to disagree. For one, if sun does follow through with it's plan to chareg for staroffice, (i don't know if they did yet, did they?) then the 2 main options for word processing for linux cost money. Kind of goes against the whole open source/free thing.

[allenb1963]

Sun started charging when they released 6.0...April 1 this year, if I remember correctly.

[Terr]

China is more communist in name than in reality. It's more of a large oligarchy China is 'communist' in the sense that it is a historical connection to the past, largely ignored and fading quickly. The main party is the 'communist' party, but it isn't as if capitalism doesn't happen.

I wish the DOJ would just break up MS or force release of Win98 code and be done with it

[zepherin]

I guess I need to start brushing up on my mandolin.

[rcgreen]

I guess I need to start brushing up on my mandolin.

Uh, didn't you mean "banjo"?