Based on Linux
So a proper, from the ground up, Chinese OS then 8-).
A home-grown "China operating system" (COS) to challenge rivals such as Microsoft, Google and Apple could be available as soon as October 2014, the country’s state-run Xinhua News Agency has said. According to Xinhua, Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Ni Guangnan told the People's Post and Telecommunications News ( …
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It must of course be called "Kuang Grade" and go through several iterations before being useful.
An OS is nothing without the application support. Applications will not be ported unless there is a big enough use base to make it worthwhile.
While simple maths suggests billions of Chinese and mandated government support will guarantee a large enough userbase, I think in practice they will find it a lot harder to ensure enough applications are available to make the OS viable.
If it's in every Chinese government office, what apps does it really need beyond an office suite and a web browser? They'll need Chinese Language support, and it might end up as yet another open office fork, but the idea they cannot produce a viable alternative Windows rather suggests we're all in trouble. And China does seem to do well with long-term projects. They don't seem to care about satisfying Harvard Business School graduates.
>>As an example what professional solutions do you see for CAD/CAM applications ie AutoDesk, Rhino3D, Solidworks
FreeCAD, QCAD, LibreCAD, OpenSCAD, Salome and more for CAD, for CAM there is HeeksCNC and Inkscape (pyCAM plugin) for CAM. That's not the complete list, only those that are free (open source).
However, this is still some special software most people don't use.
>However, this is still some special software most people don't use.
Cad/Cam is a huge multi Million Dollar industry, and its only one of multiple domains for professional software is sorely lacking.
The point of my comment was/is that there is not enough "professional" software, regardless of the industry. What you mentioned might be suitable for the home but definately not for industry.
Hence the Chinese prefer windows because pirated versions of industry software is available whereas it is not for Linux. Try get a version of Photoshop, Lightroom , Solidworks for Linux and you will see what I mean.
I agree that it also becoming more difficult to find pirated version of Windows software as well.
And before anyone knocks me down as hitting below the belt, I do want to find good software on Linux but sometimes I can't. I love Rhino3D but it just doesn't have an equivalant, same goes for Lightroom.
So I have to run both systems....which is a pain. ( and no Wine is not a solution)
Did you use any of the linked ones? No need to use CAD for myself, however, from what I know about CAS software as well as how much complaining that "no good CAS for Linux is available" is heard, it might just be the matter of habit, or the matter of learning new stuff. We also heard about no alternatives to Outlook and MUA which is just plain ridiculous or disingenuous.
On the side note, it's always more convenient and useful to deal with free software on free system, where it's just one click or one apt-cache/apt-get commands before you can try that out.
As for LaTeX (at least, no lesser popular than CAD) Windows had always been more trouble and pain to install, set up and use on, than Linux, *BSD or even Mac OSX.
And it doesn't even include all those viruses/trojans, anti-viruses and disk overfill/fragmentation problems.
Yes, I tried Freecad for about 10 days as it was listed as being one of the most complete/best rated. It is a parametric modelling tool so is similaire in approach to Rhino3D. Unfortunately it was far from being stable or complete enough to allow me to replace Rhino.
I also briefly tried QCad but it just didn't appeal to me. (Solidworks doesn't appeal to me either in comparison - too heavy for simple projects.)
I also tried another program but I cant remember it's name and it's not on the list, but it obviously in the Beta stage....looked promising but I don't want promising.
I know that there are other paid-for solutions but that is what I want to get away from and CAD/CAM tends to be very expensive.
I also had a look at Draftsight by Dassault but it is a 2D drafting rather a 3D modelling program which is unfortunate as it is free.
I don't really understand why China is promoting this 'Chinese OS' alternative, other than as a 'vanity project' - I mean, it's not like the commercial Western Software (OS/Apps) cost them anything since they pretty much pirate everything. And that is really the problem, China is 'producing' many physical goods but Why persevere in the effort to write a new OS and develop the application environment to support it since their potential users will just pirate it when the West will do it for them for free... ...it's just not commercially viable.
The commenter "hammarbtyp" is either completely ignorant about Linux Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), and much modern day proprietary software development or he/she has to be one of the most stupid Microsoft shill to ever comment on technology media.
There are TENS of THOUSANDS of professional class applications that presently run on Linux. Let me provide "only one” perfect example - X-Tuple Postbooks accounting ERP/CRM, that is considered by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) to offer greater features and flexibility, far superior Audit Control, more intuitive and easy-to-use and many other functions than Quickbooks - of any iteration. The icing on the cake is that Postbooks can read/write to QuickBooks file formats perfectly, thus making any transition from Quickbooks or other "US/Western" worshipped software a cake walk. Many other software applications popular on Windows and Apple mac OS X also currently run on Linux, just as Postbooks does.
it was and is predictable that those functional illiterate technology followers, primarily in USA and UK would go off a cliff of sanity, common sense and reason to make every type of asinine comment and statement, with NO basis in "FACT/TRUTH" on software technology that is fast replacing software from/only for Microsoft.
Such is state of idiocy amount the Redmond tech support base.
If they actually invest properly in this, it could do a lot of good to all people wanting to escape the Microsoft ecosystem. China has the sheer size and buying power to force a new entrant into the market. Probably another linux-based OS or something like Android, but that doesn't matter. Even if it flops terribly outside China, it'll still keep Microsoft under some level of pressure.
Even if it flops terribly in China, it's understandable why they would want to try just from a strategic perspective. Right now the US could cripple China by just asking Microsoft to serve up some malware to Chinese IP ranges on windows update - they wouldn't do so for anything less than open war, but China is playing the long game and needs to be ready for whatever the political situation may bring in twenty or fifty years.
a similar, yet a more Calculus oriented joke and English pun goes like this:
What's the limit of of the function sin(x)/n, as n tends to infinity for a fixed real value of x?
(in LaTeX would read $$ \lim\limits_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{\sin x}{n} ?$$)
A pun solution to this is 6.
(Cancel out all n's both in the numerator and denominator. Makes more sense than the Squeeze Theorem for a lot of students, even those with very little sense of humor)
"including a lack of research funds and too many developers pulling in different directions"
If that doesn't PROVE it's met most of the criteria for an IT project, I don't know what will. All it needs to be perfect is it to be is abandoned at the last minute and a new project to take over.
China has more than a dozen mobile OS developers with no independent intellectual property rights because their research is based on Android.
I know that great operating systems are created by small teams, sometimes by individuals, but "more than a dozen" developers dosn't sound very world-changing.
Also, how is this project going to rectify the "no independent intellectual property rights" problem? If they're just building another Linux distro, then their IP will be very, very dependent. If, on the other hand, they are building a new proprietary OS (hello, 1970, nice to see you again) then the copyright in their work will almost certainly belong to their employer.
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There are several GNU/Linux distributions without being encumbered with popular Software Patent/Copyright and Trademark restrictions, and many of these are going away with Internet/WWW standards for technologies like Adobe Flash and proprietary Video Streaming formats , etc are being replaced with "Standards based" HTML technologies.
Furthermore, China, like several other countries may not and probably do not accept or honour "software" patents" in operating systems and Internetworking technology considered bogus due to proven and established prior art, are, Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), and/or licensed for Free/Unrestricted use Much of the "Software" intellectual property claims serve only to control and maximize incomes from theuse of technology, mostly by draconian business practices of predominantly Western nations.
I wish them well, but didn't they already try this with Red Flag Linux (failed), Asianux (failed) and Red Star Linux (only available in North Korea)?
I'm curious why they think that this effort would succeed when the Chinese National Academy of Sciences and a hefty dose of diktat from the government didn't.
I'd have thought that a big, technically savvy org like Huawei would be able to crank out a decent localized Linux distro in a few months. Then the Chinese government can throw their weight around where it really matters, in stovepipe applications like AutoCAD and so on, where their market power means something.