In June, Beijing launched its latest attempt to come up with an indigenous rival to Microsoft Windows. Can it work?
Credit: openKylin's official Weibo
Microsoft Windows has long enjoyed dominance in the desktop operating system market in China — and Beijing has long wanted that to change.
Now after years of attempting to develop an alternative, the Chinese government is shifting tack. Its latest effort to come up with a viable indigenous rival to Windows — announced officially in June and known as the openKylin project — is looking to draw on expertise from a so-called “root community” of both state and non-state backed companies, individual developers, and research institutions.
By encouraging an open-source development approach for the Kylin operating system and soliciting help from a wide range of participants, the Chinese authorities are hoping to improve their homegrown product, and to foster the sort of ecosystem around it that makes Windows such an attractive and essential system for companies and individuals around the world.
The idea of eventually replacing Windows in China also dovetails with
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