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Canonical has announced the signature of an agreement with the Chinese government, within the framework of a development project, which aims to implement an operating system based on Ubuntu – Ubuntu Kylin.

In the way of FOSS

Kylin was formerly known as an ultra-secure operating system developed by China to withstand cyber attacks and cyber espionage attempts. The announcement of Ubuntu Kylin is in line with the program of the Chinese government launched a few months ago, to promote and accelerate Open Source in the country.

Now Chinese hardware manufacturers and software publishers (Lenovo, Acer, ZTE, Huawei …) will have a common reference point with Ubuntu Kylin. The market of workstations is the first target, other platforms (servers, tablets, smartphones and cloud) will follow.

Main features

Ubuntu Kylin is distinguished by Chinese input methods support, local languages (modern as ancient) support, the integration of local calendars, a new indicator of weather and the implementation of web services within the Chinese search-engine Baidu. For the rest, it will be stock Ubuntu with Unity as the desktop environment.

Future versions will further strengthen the local dimension with Baidu Maps integration, and Chinese cyber-merchant Taobao. Chinese web payment systems, such as Alipay, and railway and air schedules in real time are also penned for inclusion with Ubuntu Kylin.

In addition, the Ubuntu Kylin team will be working with Kingsoft Office, to design a photo editor. The OS will be available on April 13, so a few days before the next version of Ubuntu, 13.04. Only fear for the moment, a made ​​in China backdoor…

What do you guys think of Ubuntu Kylin? Is this going to be a great opportunity for Canonical, or is the fact that they are jumping into the bed with the Chinese government a bad thing? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

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