On the FOSS front, China is quietly making progress. The country already has its own distribution, Red Flag Linux. A recent GNU/Linux user convention in Beijing underlined the fact that while there are still many problems within the industry, growth of 28 per cent is forecast between 2006 and 2010.

While the use of GNU/Linux is growing, this is largely at the expense of Unix. Figures presented at the convention show that sales of GNU/Linux rose by 81 per cent from 2004 to 2005 (the 2005 sales figure was 175 million yuan). But while GNU/Linux' share of the operating system market grew from 4.2 per cent to 9.8 per cent, the share held by Windows also grew - from 55 per cent to nearly 65 per cent. The market share of other Unices declined from 30.9 per cent to 19.8 per cent.

China also has its own line of processors, the Loongson or Godson series, developed as an alternative to the Intel and AMD lines. The aim is to primarily run localised Chinese versions of GNU/Linux.

The latest in the Godson series, the 2UE, was announced recently. The processor uses a modified instruction set of the MIPS processor (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages, a RISC microprocessor architecture) and hence cannot run the XP operating system. There is some silence over the instruction set used due to IP issues.

A first batch of 80 PCs based on this processor is undergoing testing by users, according to a statement made by a manager of the Lemote Technology Company based in Jiangsu province.