China to build it's own Windows compatible OS?

[Tea]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26278.html

If true, very interesting.

 

[Tea]

Also on The Reg today, the UK governent, which got into a lot of hot water over it's previous very obvious pro-Microsoft at any price stance, has now announced some sort of institutionalised preference for open source software. The document is titled: Open Source Software Policy Document and was made available to the public for download ..... in Microsoft Word format!

 

[Tea]

But there is more!

"- UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
- UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.
- UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.

(Tea checks calender. Nope. Not April 1st. Frowns, scratches ear with foot, decides that it must be a mistake.)

 

[Mercutio]

Value for money? So if OSS delivers software with any value at all, does that make it infinitely better than Microsoft's?

Proprietary? There goes all of MS-Office, except maybe Word (.doc files can be made with HTML editors, after all).