China DOS Union

Desktop Linux Is Usable

　　As everyone knows, desktop computing is Linux's weak point. After the Beijing municipal bidding adopted Linux, the “Yangfan” and “Qihang” projects improved Linux in areas such as Chinese support, the interface, ease of use, device drivers, and so on. Through optimization, the performance and ease of use of the Yangfan Linux desktop have reached about 70% of Windows 98.

　　Desktop Linux has also improved in key applications, such as browsers and Office software. Especially for Office on the Linux platform, performance has improved faster and better, such as Yongzhong Office developed by Wuxi Yongzhong Technology, which has data integration functions and uses Java across OS platforms, the Linux versions of Red Office/Star Office based on the open-source Open Office, and the Linux version of WPS Office. Although these Office programs still have some problems, such as compatibility with Microsoft Office, to a certain extent this is caused by Microsoft's file formats not being made public.

　　Government procurement supports domestic software

　　Government procurement is a huge market. Our country's government procurement will reach 100 billion yuan in 2002 (data source: Ministry of Finance); government procurement in the countries of the European Community accounts for about 14% of their GDP; U.S. government procurement accounts for 26%–27% of its GDP. The share of government procurement in our country's GDP is still very small, and there will be great growth in the future.

　　Government procurement bidding provides equal competition opportunities. In the face of government procurement, domestic software has advantages: good information security, good support services, and low prices. We can support domestic software by formulating standards, regulations, and so on. In Beijing municipal government procurement, the Linux distributions from Red Flag and CS&S won the bid. This has played a demonstrative role for government procurement in supporting domestic software.

　　It is international practice for government procurement to support domestic industry. Some people think that after China joined the WTO, it should not give special consideration to domestic software, but should act according to the relevant WTO rules. These understandings of the WTO are mistaken. China's joining the WTO does not mean joining the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). The GPA is a so-called “plurilateral trade agreement,” effective only for signatory members. Our country will not negotiate whether to join the GPA until two years later, and before joining it is not bound by it.

　　After our country joined the WTO, government departments took the lead in using genuine software. As a result, in government procurement, the proportion of software purchases increased rapidly. In 2001 our country's government software procurement amounted to 4 billion yuan, accounting for 14.1% of our country's total software market, while in developed countries government software procurement generally accounts for one third of the total software market.

　　Government procurement should impose requirements on software, such as source code filing and review, open protocols and file formats, and cross-platform support for multiple OSes such as Linux and Windows.

　　Implementing source code filing and review can ensure that software has no “back doors,” safeguarding information security and being accountable to the public. When carrying out source code filing and review, an intermediary organization may be entrusted to sign a confidentiality agreement and then conduct the filing and review.

　　Keeping protocols and file formats closed is unfavorable to security; “macro viruses” spread through .doc files. Microsoft's .doc and other file formats not being disclosed has brought compatibility difficulties to domestic Office software on the current Linux platform—Yongzhong Office, Red Office, and WPS Office. At present, the relevant departments are formulating our country's XML-based file format standard. Before this standard is issued, open file formats should be required.

　　E-government and China's informatization development will promote the open-source Linux platform. But the reality is that the original systems are basically on the Windows platform, so for quite a long period, e-government environments need to support multiple OS platforms such as Linux and Windows.

In procurement by central government units, it was stipulated that “brands whose computer products come preinstalled with domestic operating systems and office software will receive appropriate bonus points.” This is only natural; in essence this means procuring hardware and software together. Needless to say, “domestic operating system” means Linux. Red Flag Linux, CS&S Linux, together with the “Yangfan” Linux application software project successfully carried out over eight months by the Beijing Software Industry Promotion Center under the Beijing Science and Technology Commission, ought to show their practicality in this procurement. I believe everyone still remembers the scene staged by Microsoft exactly one year ago when it launched WinXP: “Legend leads the masses in surrender and completely abandons Linux.” The government cannot force a company's behavior and choices, but the government can choose on behalf of the people for their own interests. At present, Linux is advancing worldwide with overwhelming force. With strong promotion by all the major IT vendors except Microsoft, technical strategic decisions made by many countries based on their security and economic interests, countless successful application cases including well-known large enterprises and institutions from all sectors of society, and the large-scale emergence of products whose Linux technology innovation and performance are continuously being optimized, Microsoft's long-standing strategy of making the public “fear, worry about, and distrust” Linux has already been completely crushed. Microsoft's CEO Ballmer recently had to admit: “Linux is an important competitor,” and “Linux will not disappear.”

　　Promoting Linux and turning the situation around by relying on Linux should be an important strategy for China. China's economy is weak, but the overall demand for informatization is great, and this determines that Linux is destined to be China's strategic direction. Walmart in the United States is already selling Linux PCs for two hundred dollars apiece, while China's Legend is putting its emphasis on the “digital home.” China's “disadvantaged groups” also need computers, so we should applaud the procurement rule that “brands whose computer products come preinstalled with domestic operating systems and office software will receive appropriate bonus points,” and applaud Dell for preparing to sell low-priced computers with Linux installed and compete for China's 15 percent of households without computers. A kindergarten in China has long not dared to launch a website for early-childhood moral, intellectual, and physical education carried out over the Internet together with parents, because they learned that some of the children's parents are laid-off or unemployed workers, and even medical expenses are a problem, while current computer prices are even more beyond what they can afford. Low-cost Linux solutions will allow China's e-government, education, enterprises, and informatization for the whole people to be implemented earlier, to benefit more ordinary people at the lower levels, and to get more things done. Just by looking at low-priced Linux operating systems and domestic office software costing only a fraction of Microsoft's price, we will understand why China must adopt Linux. Some people are attacking domestic office software for not being completely compatible with Microsoft, but this only further proves why we should kick aside this vile practice of intentionally keeping formats closed in order to seek monopolistic hegemony and obstruct competition and technological innovation.

With the development of the domestic lottery industry, various state-issued lotteries such as welfare lottery and sports lottery have been launched one after another all over the country like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. However, because the lottery business in our country has not been around for very long, lottery machine operating systems in the past mostly used DOS operating systems, with poor ease of use and incomplete network connectivity, unable to keep up with the rapidly developing lottery industry. Shenzhen Sile Data is one of the main suppliers of equipment and application software for our country's lottery industry, and has been constantly seeking better product technology. Market demand is the driving force of products. Red Flag and Shenzhen Sile Data worked closely together to develop and produce an all-new dedicated operating system for lottery machines. This system uses the highly reliable embedded ControLinux system aimed at the industrial control field, and therefore has performance advantages unmatched by other operating systems.

　　Compared with the original system, the embedded LINUX system for lottery machines has the following advantages. First, in terms of the operating system, compared with traditional DOS systems, Red Flag ControLinux has complete network connectivity functions and supports TCP/IP, PPP, and other protocols, giving the system broad room for network-based functional expansion. Second, as a mature and stable 32-bit multitasking operating environment, embedded Linux is better suited to large-scale data processing situations such as lottery issuance, betting, and statistics. Third, this dedicated lottery machine operating system uses file-based management for external network devices, making them convenient to use and manage. Finally, hard disk power-failure protection gives the system reliable data protection, safeguarding the smooth operation of lottery work.

　　On the hardware side, Shenzhen Sile Data chose an industrial control board. This industrial control board carries serial ports, parallel ports, Ethernet cards, and so on for network transmission use. At the same time, external devices are easy to expand, saving hardware design time; the host machine specs are also fully sufficient to meet requirements.

　　On the software operating system side, the powerful Red Flag ControLinux is used as the system template and basic platform, providing users with complete GUI graphical system support. In order to achieve excellent power-failure protection performance, the entire system was customized for the characteristics of the EXT2 file system to protect data in the file system as much as possible. This greatly reduces damage to the file system caused by abnormal shutdowns. When writing application programs, users can operate files in synchronous mode as much as possible, such as using the parameter O_SYNC when opening files, thereby ensuring data security.

　　The main person in charge at Shenzhen Sile Data is very confident in the market promotion of this product: “Lottery is also a new kind of product in our country, and the market space is unlimited. Embedded Linux has met every one of our system requirements; we firmly believe that our cooperation with Red Flag will promote the development of our country's lottery information industry.” Liu Bo, president of Red Flag, believes that “in the information age, market demand is the driving force behind development; the application of embedded Linux systems in lottery machine systems is the best reflection of Red Flag providing personalized service to customers.” The wide application of embedded Linux systems is the foundation for realizing networked life. Excellent Red Flag embedded Linux fully embodies the advantages of safety and stability, powerful functions, and small footprint in practical applications. Its high degree of customizability and portability can provide a guarantee of success for a wide range of embedded products including palmtop computers, mobile office computers, PDAs, set-top boxes, and information appliances.

In the industrial control field, along with China's intelligent and digital transformation of industry, embedded devices have already been widely applied. All kinds of embedded devices such as intelligent control equipment, intelligent instruments, and automatic control equipment all require an embedded operating system that is highly reliable, has powerful network functions, and is open. At the same time, fields such as industrial control, simulation, and the military require embedded systems to support real-time operation. The Red Flag ControLinux system and EDK development system were created precisely to meet this series of demands for embedded systems in the industrial control field!

　　As an embedded Linux system specially designed to meet the needs of the industrial control field, Red Flag ControLinux has the following advantages:
--high reliability; strong real-time performance; complete network functions;
--low consumption of system resources, saving users hardware costs;
--support for various industrial control boards and commonly used external devices, meeting the hardware system requirements of the vast majority of industrial control users;
--efficient application software development tools, shortening users' product development cycles;
--complete technical training and after-sales support, thoroughly solving users' worries;

　　At present, Red Flag ControLinux has already been successfully applied in the following systems:

1. Jiangsu Province lottery machine system
2. DBELL video/audio decoding system
3. Fuzhuo Electronics STU equipment system
4. Galaxy Weiye monitoring system
5. 66267 troop private network access server
6. Yideheng program-controlled exchange system