IT-Director.com: China Backs Red Flag Linux, It’s Unofficial

“This year the level of Linux usage in China is expected to
double and it will be the home grown Red Flag Linux that prospers.
In a very Chinese manner, the Chinese government is encouraging the
use of Linux, while at the same time pretending not to. For years
the Chinese unofficially supported software theft, but in any event
the emergent Chinese economy could not afford to pay for software
so software theft was inevitable. This was not at all unique to
China, but the Chinese were extremely well organised in their
software piracy. Visitors to Beijing or Hong Kong reported the
pirate sales not only of just about every PC product that ever was
sold, but also a native Chinese application which helped you undo
software protection schemes and which is reportedly now in release
8 (like the Oracle database). In China theft had become an
industry.”

“…Linux then, is a god send because open source can be
audited and can be proven to be secure. (which incidentally is
why the UK government intelligence community are also deeply in
favour of it. The Chinese believe that it can be the basis of a
Chinese software industry over which “the imperialists” have no
control. So the Chinese government is unofficially driving Linux in
and Microsoft out wherever it can. This policy will spread to the
desktop at the same speed that Linux does.”

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