“When it comes to taking the Linux Rorshach test, few responses
have been quite so revealing — or thought provoking — as the
recent quote that leaked its way onto the pages of the Yangcheng
Evening News last week.”
“Maintaining independence and keeping the initiative over our
own operating system will be the ‘Two Bombs and a Satellite’ of the
new era,” stated an unnamed Chinese government official, referring
to the domestically developed Red Flag Linux, a distribution that
had previously only surfaced in news releases by Compaq Inc., a
U.S. co-sponsor….”
“As a country, you really have to be in control of your own
destiny,” Keller says. “They don’t want a sole source situation,
especially when that sole source is coming from another country.
They want to localize the product. And of course, there are
issues of security. If you don’t have control of the source code,
there are security issues to be concerned about. It’s a very
important decision for them. Linux allows them the freedom to
address all those issues.“