Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#21

Post by thomaslutz » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 1:48 PM UTC

cheapsteak wrote: post #18

cs702 wrote: post #11

Leaving 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 s…

Apple 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.

Quotation needed.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#22

Post by kyllo » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

This 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.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#23

Post by tomrod » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

I thought Linux avoids malware by both unpopularity and security features? If it suddenly has a global market share of 20%, what then?

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#24

Post by kps » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

davidroberts wrote: post #12

The 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?

It's a one-line fix: send searches to them rather than Amazon.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#25

Post by outside1234 » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:26 PM UTC

is it really named Kylin such that it would be pronounced "Killin'"? That's awesome.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#26

Post by javis » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:30 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #23

I thought Linux avoids malware by both unpopularity and security features? If it suddenly has a global market share of 20%, what then?

I asume the majority of people currently using Ubuntu are smart enough to avoid malware.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#27

Post by Zigurd » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #23

I thought Linux avoids malware by both unpopularity and security features? If it suddenly has a global market share of 20%, what then?

There 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.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#28

Post by w1ntermute » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:42 PM UTC

cheapsteak wrote: post #18

cs702 wrote: post #11

Leaving 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 s…

Apple 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.

It 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.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#29

Post by irmbrady » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

I imagine this resulting in a mass amount of spyware/viruses/exploits appearing on Linux systems.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#30

Post by josteink » Fri, Mar 22, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

javis wrote: post #26

tomrod wrote: post #23

I thought Linux avoids malware by both unpopularity and security features? If it suddenly has a global market share of 20%, what then?

I asume the majority of people currently using Ubuntu are smart enough to avoid malware.

I'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.