China wants to reduce its reliance on Windows and macOS by redoubling efforts to develop its own OS

China has created an open platform to accelerate the development of its own operating system and get rid of dependence on American developments such as Windows and macOS. This is reported by South China Morning Post.

Kylinsoft, a subsidiary of state-owned China Electronics Corp, last week joined forces with more than 10 Chinese companies, including the National Research Center for Industrial Information Security. They are creating an openKylin community where developers will share code related to the Kylin OS.

China has been trying for decades to create an operating system that could compete with Windows but so far has not succeeded. Microsoft’s OS occupies 85% of the market in mainland China.

Attempts to accelerate the creation of a competitive operating system from China are taking place against the background of the country’s strained relations with the United States. China is seeking to break its dependence on the West for key technologies and software.

Kylin was originally developed by the National University of Defense Technologies of the People’s Liberation Army. It was licensed for commercial use in 2014.

According to a report by research and consulting firm EqualOcean, early versions of Kylin contain code from the Unix-like software FreeBSD, while later versions are based on Linux.

To date, Kylinsoft has released three operating systems: V10, V4 and NeoKylin V7.0. V10 is compatible with the largest number of processors, including those from HiSilicon, Loongson, Sunway, Hygon and Huawei Technologies Co.’s FeiTeng.