A North Asian government alliance to promote the Linux operating system and reduce dependence on Microsoft's Windows plans to release its first products for China in six months, a senior official said on Monday.
The Linux-based software - jointly developed by China, Japan and South Korea - would offer government and business users a choice of operating systems, said Lu Shouqun, president of China Open Source Software Promotion Union.
"You wouldn't want to wear the same style of clothing every day of your life, would you?" the former government official said in an interview with Reuters. "Government users need security, and business users need cheap software. Linux meets both those needs."
Asian governments have latched on to Linux, created by Finnish university student Linus Torvald in 1991, as an antidote to Microsoft Corp's virtual stranglehold on the sector. The software is free. Its code can be freely viewed and modified.
The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs even believe certain patches in the Windows code can allow US authorities to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during any war over Taiwan.
The government also wants to build a domestic software industry, now estimated to be worth just shy of $3 billion and growing more than 20 percent a year, around Linux.
Lu, recommended by China's powerful Ministry of Information Industry to lead an alliance of software companies in China, said the jointly developed software would be licensed for free to Chinese, Japanese and Korean software firms.
The firms would then independently develop their own commercial software packages for sale, he said.
"I think it will take another six months to start seeing products on the market," he said in an interview at his office, which has a wall dedicated to photos of the 67-year-old with former President Jiang Zemin and industry luminaries. "We aim to roll out desktop and server software, plus applications."
The alliance had not decided whether foreign Linux-backers such as Oracle Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc with operations with China would also receive the basic software for free.
Oracle and Sun are members of Lu's group, as are IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Intel Corp, SAP AG, BEA Systems Inc and Novell Inc.
North Asian countries had decided to work together, despite historic enmity, because they wanted to resolve issues not addressed by the international Linux community, such as inputting characters.
But Lu repeatedly pointed out the three governments did not want to create an exclusive Asian version of Linux.