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Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system
- jstanley 14y ago"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." 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.
- tankenmate 14y agoBut as a mechanism of state control that can be very flimsy, it is much easier, however probably not cheaper, to control the choke point; the network. If all it took to avoid state control was a re-install of a non-approved version of kylin/ubuntu then everyone would do it.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoThe mechanisms of state control remain unchanged - and none of them are online. The big fears of the (non-activist) population are that someone will physically take them or their children to a dark hole, and that someone they know will inform on them so that happens. IP networks are not involved. East Germany is probably the most obvious example in recent times - and the fear mostly came from knowing someone could inform on you. If you thought a person was going to inform on you, one would avoid them naturally. So, if you think a computer will inform on you, you would naturally avoid it. It seems to me that the chinese state is in a bind similar to that faced by Deng xiaoping - this thing the West does (Capitalism or Internet) is enabling them to charge so economically ahead it is an existential threat not to follow. But if we do follow the party risks losing control. Deng did take the risk and the loss of control seemed to be offset - however this time the rifts in the party are deeper, the gulf between rich and poor wider. I would not like to be making those choices.
- analyst74 14y agoI think you're over-estimating the amount of control the party has or tries to enforce in China. Inside Chinese border, the amount of people who fear the party is probably in line with those who trust it -- not many.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoI will happily defer to those with real knowledge of China, however the basic issue seems true - the vast, "make mockery of all that has gone before" economic growth has been exclusively driven from democratic/free nations. If you want some of that growth, it seems logical you need to allow freedom. How much? How soon? How to stop it descending into anarchy? With a billion + lives on the line ... well I have a lot of sympathy for Presidents who go to China and then don't jump up and down screaming "become a democracy NOW" edit: I would be interested in knowing why the down votes. I tend to delete when I reach minus figures but I am interested with what opposing view to the above others have (if it was just random expressions of dislike I will live with it.)
- stcredzero 14y ago> If you want some of that growth, it seems logical you need to allow freedom. Singapore.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoI think Singapore is not the best example of a totalitarian dictatorship. Its an elected democracy, low coorruption, high standards of living. But yes it is "partly free" according to EIU its ranked with Hong Kong and Banglesh and a long way above Russia. So I would still say yes, freedom does bring economic benefits. One assumes the more freedom the more benefits. We ought to remember that at the polling stations
- stcredzero 14y ago> We ought to remember that at the polling stations The polling stations only represent a small part of the problem. You know what I wish we had? A movement of common-sense intellectually honest discussion groups. Groups that are focused on media distortions and facts. Groups that are predicated on the idea that the media and politics is self-interested in promulgating drama and debate beyond what really makes sense. I would like to be part of a group that likes to look behind those curtains. I think if one looks hard enough at an acrimonious debate, you eventually get to some kind of hard question. Despite what the media often portrays, we're often all just people trying to get to the bottom of some hard question, and we should expect people to come to different conclusions.
- fatjokes 14y agoI think they're referring to potential backdoors installed by the US to spy on China in Microsoft software. (Shocker: the US engages in cyber espionage too).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- esalman 14y agoI hate it when they put advertisements on either side of the main content on a web page. Normally I middle-click in that area to scroll.
- wladimir 14y agoI'm not sure why the register article is the one being most voted up, instead of the official Canonical announcement: http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-standards-body-announce-ubuntu-collaboration http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-stand...
- bane 14y agoWhat happened to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux ?
- trotsky 14y agonew with desktop 6.0 SP3 (the latest version): KDE 3.6
- zirok 14y agoCould have a positive effect on consumer grade hardware support for linux in general?
- wladimir 14y agoYes it could. I suppose especially on ARM/MIPS SoCs (which many consumer devices are based on). Linux is a one of the few valid choices once you stray from x86, especially as China govt has already said they want to reduce dependence on Google/Android. Maybe that's where Ubuntu comes in.
- cs702 14y agoLeaving aside the normal concerns about collaboration with an authoritarian government, this looks like a really big deal: Ubuntu is now the "reference architecture for standard operating systems" in China.[1] 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. In all likelihood, Microsoft now views Ubuntu with Unity as a main competitor on the desktop. -- [1] http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-standards-body-announce-ubuntu-collaboration http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-stand... -- Edits: changed "few years" to "decade," in response to hydrology's comment (thanks hydrology!); and added a reference to Chrome OS and Microsoft.
- hydrology 14y agoAs a Chinese, I guess that this probably won't happen at least for the next decade. Non-IT professionals in China aren't even aware that Linux system exist.
- cheapsteak 14y agoApple is incredibly popular among Chinese international university students, but the first thing everyone does when they get a new Macbook is to install bootcamp and never boot into OSX again. If even the brightest and more malleable of the people don't want to use anything except Windows, I don't see the average person switching to Ubuntu at all.
- thomaslutz 14y agoQuotation needed.
- w1ntermute 14y agoIt has nothing to do with the Chinese international students being bright (which they generally are) or malleable (which they're not - they're just studying machines). It has to do with the fact that there are a ton of Chinese websites that only work in IE.
- davidroberts 14y agoThe news means Ubuntu-stewards Canonical will work with China's National University of Defense Technology... ....to ensure that the platform is relevant for the Chinese market... Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Is Canonical enabling repression or military aggression?
- laumars 14y agoCanonical aren't enabling anything. They just repackage open source software (bar their custom themes and Unity). If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations.
- jff 14y ago> If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations. If the repos are accessible.
- laumars 14y agoIndeed. I did consider that when I made my post but came to the conclusion that China would have an impossible job blocking every PPA and tar-ball mirror. And even if they do manage that, then people will just redistribute it offline once one guy has downloaded the content via his proxy / VPN.
- YokoZar 14y agoIf you don't think building a usable linux distro is an enormous amount of work you've never actually tried to do it. Canonical (and the Ubuntu project) is an awful lot more than a few Canonical-originated upstreams.
- laumars 14y agoI have built my own distro before. But that's not the point of what I said. I was saying the Canonical didn't write the software in question and that said software could be installed on any distro. Which means it's a bit of a stretch to blame Canonical for enabling censorship in China. It's a bit like when people blame ISPs when customers use their services for piracy. The difficulty of setting up an ISP (or distro) is completely irrelevant in this discussion.
- vorg 14y agoA 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. It could be next year I do the same, and only see Ubuntu, with Windows 8 nowhere to be seen. Incredible!
- waterlesscloud 14y agoMaybe 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.
- macco 14y agoInteresting agreement. But at the end, the market will decide what it wants to buy. I hope it will be Ubuntu, but that it another story.
- salmanapk 14y ago> PUT for update (and PATCH too). PUT for update and PATCH for partial update.
- kyllo 14y agoThis 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. Not that they couldn't switch before, but perhaps the official government endorsement of Ubuntu will jump-start the adoption rate in China.
- blisterpeanuts 14y agoThis assumes that the new OS will be better than WinXP/Win7/Win8. (Well, let's just not talk about Win8.) If "better" means more compatible with existing apps, more stable, easier to use, more standard... not sure you can make an argument for that. Maybe in a few years when the desktop is just a portal for web apps. Plus... China's currently only 1.34 billion. They've got a ways to go to get to 1.5B.
- kyllo 14y agoI was rounding off, but in reality they might never reach 1.5 billion thanks to their falling birth rate. In order for an OS to get adopted by Chinese users, it has to easily run the applications that Chinese users use. Period. That is exactly what they are trying to make happen. The article says they are going to bundle versions of popular Chinese applications (think QQ, Weibo clients) with the distro. This is why OS X doesn't work for China--it doesn't run enough Chinese applications. Canonical is apparently working with some Chinese government ministry to fix that issue ahead of time. A potential issue, though, will be the thousands of Chinese websites that use ActiveX plugins and therefore cannot run on anything other than IE in Windows. South Korea has the same problem of browser lock-in, only much worse because they actually passed a law saying that all online monetary transactions in the country have to use a specific ActiveX encryption plugin. Microsoft already killed ActiveX (and Silverlight) but its legacy is that web developers all over East Asia have an enormous technical debt, and users remain locked in until they settle it.
- stcredzero 14y ago> If "better" means more compatible with existing apps, more stable, easier to use, more standard... not sure you can make an argument for that. Maybe in a few years when the desktop is just a portal for web apps. WINE has made some big strides. If the Chinese government properly got behind it, a properly outfitted Ubuntu with really well integrated WINE might be a defacto Windows replacement in China.
- tomrod 14y agoI thought Linux avoids malware by both unpopularity and security features? If it suddenly has a global market share of 20%, what then?
- javis 14y agoI asume the majority of people currently using Ubuntu are smart enough to avoid malware.
- josteink 14y agoI'm not even sure that is true now, but if everyone currently running XP in China moves over to Ubuntu, that's guaranteed to not to be true very, very quickly.
- tomrod 14y agoI'm not, and I use Ubuntu. I'd love a good tutorial to start learning about it.
- deno 14y ago1) Don’t install anything other than via official channels/Ubuntu store or whatever else you trust, like Steam. More importantly, don’t add random PPAs from some guy on the Internet. 2) Boycott Firefox until they get their sandboxing act together. Use Chromium/Webkit2 browsers. Disable Java applets/WS. Alternatively, go full Stallman[1]. [1] http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
- jimmaswell 14y agoYou really don't need to boycott Firefox like the other commenter suggested. Just disable java and set plugins to click_to_play in about:config.
- Zigurd 14y agoThere is a serious concern in that. Spy agencies buy and commission zero-day exploits. Compared to the cost of satellites, they can easily spend so lavishly that exploit authors have an incentive to worm their way into open source projects. That quite a bit less direct than buying or commanding a back door in a proprietary product, but it's going to be difficult to defend against. It will be interesting to see if such shenanigans are ever uncovered due to the "many eyes" approach.
- outside1234 14y agois it really named Kylin such that it would be pronounced "Killin'"? That's awesome.
- kyllo 14y agoI'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to be pronounced, but it's the romanized Cantonese name for this mythical beast (pronounced more like "chee-leen" in Mandarin): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilin
- whaevr 14y agoFrom the wikipedia page; "The Qilin... is said to appear with the imminent arrival or passing of a wise sage or an illustrious ruler." and by doing this, Canicol is bringing Linux to the masses of a country. Ironic.
- irmbrady 14y agoI imagine this resulting in a mass amount of spyware/viruses/exploits appearing on Linux systems.
- deelowe 14y agoI 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? I get very concerned anytime any govt entity wants to get involved with a project.
- coldtea 14y agoI take offense with the following part of the article: "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." China is a "repressive nation"? Says who? Britain, the leader in colonialist aggressions, mass slavery and blatant interventions to third nations?
- Strang 14y agoYes, China is a "repressive nation." Especially when it comes to technology, e.g., "The Great Firewall." No, Britain is not a "repressive nation." The British government surely takes some repressive actions, but not to such a degree as to be labeled a repressive nation.
- kevincrane 14y agoYeah, Britain hasn't been repressive in this sense for at least the last ~250 years.
- pekk 14y agoHow long ago was African independence? (As in, independence in a large number of countries formed by the colonial powers in Africa)
- amac 14y agoBut in absolute terms, has been a far more repressive nation than China. Among the world's larger nations in world history, China's probably been among the least repressive. Read about the Opium Wars for some context.
- coldtea 14y ago>Yeah, Britain hasn't been repressive in this sense for at least the last ~250 years 250 years? They had colonies all over the world until merely 50 years ago. Doing stuff from direct slavery to mass executions, to fighting natives asking for freedom with submachine guns. And they still interfere in their ex-colonies politics (not to mention being the US lackeys and partners in all kinds of invasions). They even cheered when their "prince" did his first killings of their "enemies" in Afghanistan, like they had any reason for being there in the first place.
- shared4you 14y agoThe 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. [1]: http://bosslinux.in/ http://bosslinux.in/
- mindcrime 14y agoWhy wouldn't they go with Red Flag Linux[1]? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
- riobard 14y agoSeriously? 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: 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. 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. 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… 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. [1]: http://www.dancefire.org/article/Kernel_Similarity_Analysis.html http://www.dancefire.org/article/Kernel_Similarity_Analysis.... (in Simplified Chinese) [2]: http://www.williamlong.info/archives/406.html http://www.williamlong.info/archives/406.html (in Simplified Chinese)
- JamesArgo 14y agoBut if this takes off, I'll lose all my security by obscurity. I guess I'll have to go back to BeOS
- peripetylabs 14y agoIt'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] 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. [1] http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve [2] http://www.pardus.org.tr http://www.pardus.org.tr [3] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/security_fears.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/security_fears... [4] http://open.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2010/12/27/421556 http://open.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2010/12/27/421556
- pm90 14y agoand bosslinux in India http://bosslinux.in/ http://bosslinux.in/ In this case, I think they're trying to make an operating system that uses Indian languages, so that its easier for those in rural areas to operate it
- kercker 14y agoI 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.