China’s ‘home-made’ operating system isn’t home made at all, but maybe that’s OK

Like most governments, China’s has long been concerned about the security vulnerabilities that may come with using software developed in other countries. The biggest problem: PC operating systems in government buildings are almost universally run on Windows. For years, China has been trying to create a domestic alternative. Yesterday, the latest alpha build of its decade-in-the-making Kylin operating system went up for download.

According to Techweb, this latest version of Ubuntu Kylin – the version of Kylin that’s being designed for use by the public – still contains serious bugs, and important parts of the OS have not been translated into Chinese.

In fact, whether Kylin is even a Chinese operating system at all is debatable, although the Chinese media continues to describe the project as “home-grown.”

Development on Kylin began back in 2001, but in the early years most of its code was reportedly copied from a US-developed operating system called FreeBSD. Since its 3.0 iteration, Kylin has been based on Linux (the OS famously named after its Finnish-American creator), and while the Chinese version (called Linux Kylin) has been used in government projects (including China’s space program), it hasn’t taken off with the public.

In 2013, Chinese authorities reached a deal with British technology company Canonical for the creation and release of a new version of Kylin based on the Linux distribution Ubuntu. This new version of the OS, called Ubuntu Kylin, first entered alpha in 2013. Several updated versions of the alpha have been released since then, but this week’s release of the latest alpha build reveals that there’s still quite a while to go before the OS is ready for prime time.

The mythical Qilin beast after which Ubuntu Kylin is named.

Still, it’s clear at this point that whatever the final version of Ubuntu Kylin looks like, it won’t really be “home-grown.” It’s being developed with the Chinese market and Chinese government specifications in mind, but it’s still being developed by a foreign firm and based heavily on foreign-developed open-source technology. In the nearly 14 years since the Kylin project began, China’s government seems to have concluded that China isn’t capable of producing a home-grown, from-scratch operating system right now.

Basing “Chinese” operating systems on open-source platforms is probably the next-best thing, though. It may not have the glamor and soft-power punch that China having developed a wholly unique operating system would have, but it also means that there’s a better chance the OS will actually catch on. Since lots of people in China’s tech industry are familiar with Linux and Ubuntu, switching to Kylin may be an easier step than switching to an all-new OS of some kind. And since the foundation of the OS is an open-source system people are familiar with, the OS may have more appeal for security-conscious users who might otherwise be suspicious of an OS developed by the Chinese government.

Ubuntu Kylin could be a tough sell to the general public, as most of the software and games popular with China’s PC users aren’t compatible with the new OS. But with official support for Windows XP – China’s favorite operating system – already ceased, China’s PC users will have to move on to something else sooner or later. Will they choose Ubuntu Kylin over newer versions of Windows? That remains to be seen. But this may be China’s best chance yet at getting PC users onto an operating system that isn’t wholly controlled by a foreign tech company.