French, Chinese Governments Agree On Linux Development
The French and Chinese governments have signed an agreement
to work together on development of the open source operating
system, Linux. The agreement was signed between the French
Atomic Energy Commission and the Chinese Ministry of Science
and Technology. The main focus of the agreement will be
on development of the software for multiple platform use,
on PCs, PDAs and servers.
The agreement was signed in the presence of French president
Jacques Chirac and Chinese president Hu Jintao by Alain
Bugat, a senior CEA official and Chinese MoST minister
Xu Guanhua. In the past two years, Linux has been widely
adopted by the Chinese government as the operating system
of choice for government ministries and schools. Major
reasons for its widespread adoption are an open source
code which is available for modification, and no licensing
fees. As it has become more popular, governments outside
the US have worked together to drive adoption. Japan,
South Korea and China are now working on developing a
Linux distribution which supports double-byte languages,
which are necessary for East Asian languages.
The Linux development agreement is just one among many
signed by French president Chirac during his current visit
to China. President Chirac has been effusive in his praise
of the country's economic development, and has urged French
SMEs to participate in China's development.
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