China is now on the verge of removing Windows from its government terminals, an effort it has been undertaking for more than two decades.
As The Register reports, the country has been focused on switching to Linux (opens in a new tab) entirely amid a dispute with the United States, but has so far lacked developer support. But now all that could change with the launch of the openKylin project (opens in a new tab).
The goal of the project is to speed up the development of the Kylin Linux distribution, an operating system distribution made entirely in China. Project participants will include developers, but also colleges and universities.
Get away from Windows
So far, more than 20 Chinese companies and institutions have joined the project, he said, including the China Advanced Operating Systems Innovation Center.
At this stage, members will work on launch planning, platform development, and community bylaws. But in the medium and long term, the project members will seek to optimize the operating system for the latest generation of Intel and AMD chips, support for RISC-V processors, develop x86 to RISC-V translation layers, improve the interface. etc.
Kylin was released in 2001 as a kernel for government and military devices, but was based on FreeBSD at the time. A decade later, in 2010, it switched to Linux, and four years later a version of Ubuntu was introduced.
Meanwhile, relations between China and the United States have become increasingly tense. The US government has accused China of ongoing cyber attacks against its institutions, as well as numerous cyber espionage campaigns. He also accused Chinese manufacturers, such as Huawei, of building backdoors into their products, creating a national security threat.
China, on the other hand, has repeatedly dismissed the accusations as baseless and continues to try to reduce its reliance on Western-made software, hardware and services.
Western intelligence agencies are also warning that China may be preparing for a major invasion of Taiwan, its neighbor to the east, which it says is nothing more than a breakaway province.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world's largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturer, and if China were to engage in an internal war, it could seriously disrupt the global tech industry.
Via The Register (Opens in a new tab)