Open Sources 2.0

Chapter 13. When China Dances with OSS

Boon-Lock Yeo, Louisa Liu, and Sunil Saxena

One of the key challenges for China’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry is to ensure that China has the right software solutions to support usage models and value requirements. The advent of open source software (OSS), along with its business model with respect to intellectual property and value proposition, brings this business force to the fast-growing software industry in China. That, in turn, will provide an opportunity for the OSS community to promote and popularize this model throughout the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This chapter analyzes how OSS has developed in China and where it is heading.

What OSS Was and Is in China

With the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing at an average rate of 9.8% year over year (YoY) from 1979 to 1997,^[1] China has been pegged as a fast-growing economy. The high-tech industry had become the number-one pillar industry as of 2002,^[2] and is expected to contribute 7% to the country’s overall growth in 2005.^[3] All of this is part of China’s tenth Five-Year Plan, with the vision that “information drives industrialization” and ICT will continue to be a national focus onward.

There are many growth opportunities within China’s ICT, particularly in software and services, hardware, and telecommunications. Currently China is experiencing significant growth and success in hardware and telecommunications, notably with companies like Lenovo^[4