China’s first root community of desktop operating system, Openkylin, was jointly rolled out by China Electronics Corporation (CEC), National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center and other institutions. 

Experts hail it as a milestone in the development of China’s operating systems. By gathering the strength of the industry, it will boost the development of China’s open source ecosystem, and help realize the independent and innovative development of China’s software industry.

Based on the principles of open source, being voluntary, equality and collaboration, Openkylin will open up the operating system source code to allow more developers to participate in the development of domestic open source operating systems, according to a statement sent to the Global Times by CEC on Thursday.

The root community was primarily developed by Kylin Soft, a subsidiary of CEC, which has accumulated decades of experience in operating system R&D, as well as more than a decade experience in open source community development. 

Currently, Chinese developers have rolled out more than 10 domestic operating systems, such as the UOS and Kylin OS. Yet, Windows and Mac-OS are still own a dominating share of the Chinese market share.

It is said that if the operating systems are the fruit on a tree, the root that feeds them is the developer platform -- otherwise known as the root community. 

OpenKylin, in the form of a community, is expected to foster industrial chain cooperation. It will promote the continuous development of operating system technology, create a richer Linux operating system ecosystem, and provide reliable basic software services for China’s industrial chain and even global IT facilities, said Gui Weihua, an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the launch ceremony.

“It is hard to develop an operating system, but it is even harder to establish an ecosystem, which is the reason why there have been only several industrial giants – Google, Microsoft and Apple, have been dominating the global market for so many years,” Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based veteran market analyst, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Over the recent years, the “PK system” based on domestic chips developed by Phytium Technology and operating system developed by Kylin Soft has been formed. It is crucial to shape up a domestic ecosystem thereafter to involve more developers so as to rapidly extend the service of domestic operating systems from governments and institutions to individual customers, Liu said.

It is in line with the trend of China promoting independent technologies since many critical technologies, including operating systems, are related to national information securities, Liu said.

He added that the setup of the Openkylin will help complete the industrial chain together with operating systems, chips and related software and hardware. The significance of a complete and independent industrial chain is plain for all to see in terms of protecting a country’s information security.

Global Times