Chinese government plans to use Linux...

[furtherfield]

Reuters
November 05, 2003, 15:05 GMT

The Chinese government plans to throw its financial weight behind
Linux-based computer systems that could rival Microsoft's Windows, in one of
the world's fastest-growing technology markets, a government official said
Wednesday.

China would build a domestic software industry around Linux -- a open-source
software standard that can be copied and modified freely -- said Gou
Zhongwen, a vice minister at the Ministry of Information Industry. "Linux is
an opportunity for us to make a breakthrough in developing software," he was
quoted as saying on the ministry's Web site. "But the market cannot be
developed on a large scale without government support," he said.

Gou did not give details on the amount of planned government investment in
Linux. China's information technology market is growing at 20 percent a
year, with software sales expected to reach $30.5bn in 2005, according to
researcher IDC. The domestic industry is dominated by Microsoft, Oracle,
IBM, Sybase, UFSoft and Kingsoft. Japan, China and South Korea agreed in
September to collaborate on building a new computer operating system as an
alternative to Windows. Japanese media reported that they would probably
build an open-source system such as Linux.

Chinese officials have said they preferred to use software with open-source
codes to ensure that software guarding sensitive state information and
networks could not be easily tampered with. The government has been pushing
the development of a homegrown software industry and a national standard for
Linux to counter the dominance of Windows.