你们所有的基地都属于我们 !
Would me a more appropriate title (All your bases are belong to us) :-)
China is backing a mobile operating system designed to offer a state-approved alternative to foreign platforms. Dubbed China Operating System (COS), the platform is set to launch first on handheld devices, with a possible expansion to other platforms. According to reports from tech blog Engadget China, COS was designed by …
Anyway, the question is: Will it be gloriously open?
Exactly right. Personally, I don't think there will be any other way to get this to market, otherwise it'll be buried in claims of "containing spyware" from those very trustworthy entities in the US (NSA, Google et al).
(note: for the humour impaired, that was sarcasm),
Maybe not to our market, but I doubt the entity making this is targetting our market. This product is clearly for their home market, and I don't know if Chinese users have yet grasped the importance of Open Source.
And if their product is user-friendly and useful, then the question may be moot. Besides, we all know that, if the Chinese government wants integrated surveillance, there will be no one (alive) to oppose it.
The kernel isn't very important. What's more important is whether there is a common hardware platform to enable easy vendor-independent updates. Another important issue is the software distribution model. Will there be a healthy model like the one most Linux distributions use, or an App-Store?
Just saying "It's based on Linux" is more or less a null-statement. It's the default kernel for new projects. Few are insane enough to build something new on VxWorks or Nucleus.
That is based on the amount of crapware, malware and spyware installed alongside other famous Chinese language software packages.
Strangely, the international (English), versions of these packages are only a fraction of the size.
Dont believe me?? Go compare the Chinese language and International versions of QQ, the Chinese version of Skype/IM.
(Go Compare! Go Compare!!# argh!!, now I have visions of that nasty bloke with the twisty moustache stuck in my head).
PS, hasnt anyone told G.C. that Blakey was an INSPECTOR, not a driver yet??
That could be due to the fact that there is a gazillion Chinese characters instead of the paltry few hundreds most of the rest of the world uses. Text input methods are also a nightmare to program, and things like a simple text-to-speech converter are hideously complex for Chinese. And a Siri equivalent would probably need several times more computing power than that available to all the NSA. ;-)
And on top of all that, 'Chinese' is not a single language, but dozens of dialects, many of which are mutually unintelligible.
Actually, they only have ONE written language; and I speak from experience on how much spyware, malware and crapware they install by default on the "local" version, I cleaned it all out of my (Chinese) wifes computer and got the final install down to nearly the same size as the international version.
PS. Text input is done in "PinYin" which uses English characters that convert on-screen in Chinese ideograms.
PPS I have also had experience of the Chinese "360" Internet browser and Security suite, which is basically a rip off of Internet Explorer and also chock full of malware, spyware et al; so much so it actually shows as malware on most Western AV and AM packages (and breaks underpowered PCs with its payload demands).
Well, TWO written languages, Traditional (used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other places) and Simplified (used in the Mainland). And dozens of input methods, PinYin being the most popular phonetic one on the Mainland, but shape-based methods, such are Cangjie and CKC are also popular. There's also the handwriting-input methods.
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The definition of "Enough work to exempt it from the GPL" is "Enough for it to constitute an entirely new work in its own right, aot a derivative work based on an existing copyrighted work".
Funnily enough, nobody seems to have any problem with this concept when dealing with old-fashioned, closed copyrights (the kind which the GPL specifically forbids you to apply to derivative works of GPLed works).
If you start with the original work, and replace every single line of it, it is still a derivative work of the original.
If you start with one guy in a room somewhere reading the original work and telling you in his own words what the module should do, whilst you sit in another room without the original work reimplementing it, it is not a derivative work.
"The definition of "Enough work to exempt it from the GPL" is "Enough for it to constitute an entirely new work in its own right, aot a derivative work based on an existing copyrighted work".
Funnily enough, nobody seems to have any problem with this concept when dealing with old-fashioned, closed copyrights (the kind which the GPL specifically forbids you to apply to derivative works of GPLed works)."
A headache that's yet to be resolved....
Cos after all, when a GPL project discovers they're carrying code that ísn't GPL compatible, they "rewrite" the code -- no cleanroom, just "delete code and add something that does exactly the same thing" -- and then they tell us that it's not a derivative work of the very same code that they were directly recreating....
Only thing funny about this is your total ignorance of the relative security of current versions of operating systems. Windows Server 2008 R2 was very secure and WS 2012 is leaps and bounds ahead of any flavor of Linux in that regard. Either you don't work in the industry or if you do I feel sorry for the folks who are writing your check as they should really invest in someone who keeps up with current tech.
they should really invest in someone who keeps up with current tech
Errm, small tip: Linux moves on too. The issue is not how easily a platform can be secured and be kept stable, it's how much effort it takes. With Linux you spend less time planning for the bandwidth involved in updates.
...this is a) the Chinese state trying to increase its control over the population, 2) is designed and run by the secret service, and iii) will mean that the state harasses and punishes manufacturers who stick with Android (or Windows Phone, if there are any).
Oh, and that design and probably some of the code will be straight-up stolen from the competitors. Plus of course that it will very rapidly become wildly successful in China.
design and probably some of the code will be straight-up stolen from the competitors
You mean, do it the American way? That's how they started, you know (and some have had trouble shaking that habit ever since, like Microsoft vs Stacker).
Personally, I don't think so. A large percentage of that market lies abroad, and every US actor in this game would start screeching about "spyware" etc because it would threaten their own schemes, so the worst China can do to those state actors is to make it totally open. Not only would that encourage uptake, it would also put any attempt NOT to be open in a bad light.
It's quite an impressive move on a geopolitical level.