A Grand Meeting for Open Source

2007 Open Source China Open Source World Summit and round

table conference were held in Guangzhou, China on June 21-22, 2007.

This is a festival in open source community. There were over 400

attendees including more than 20 open source movement leaders and

executives of multinational IT companies, IT experts home and abroad,

international IT venture capitalists, representatives from companies, OS

communities, colleges, research institutes, testing bases, major users,

experts.

Guangzhou Summit was held in a crucial moment when OSS had

become the trend of global computer/software industry and an

opportunity for software industry in China.

Xiao Hua, DG of MII presented an address to congratulate on this

summit on behalf of Chinese government and give great support to open

source movement in China and the world.

Chinese experts gave brief introduction on open source movement in

China. They believe that open source movement in China has developed

into a new era when Linux and OSS grow fast. Community development

mechanism is establishing (including participating in international

community and building up local community); many new booming open

source companies have merged ； Linux and OSS have matured and

finished compatibility test and quality certification with Chinese and

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foreign IHVs 、 ISVs ； Loong Son 2E , initiatively developed by China

adopts Linux (TC), is high-level and Linux PC with mass production.

China and EU have launched Open Source Quality Platform(QualiPSO

project). CJK, Sino-French, Sino-EU, Sino-Russia, Sino-Finland, Sino-

Vietnam have started open source cooperation in ways of combination of

government and NGO (policy and law, standardization, technology

development and assessment, human resources, quality platform build-up

and competition ability center deployment, etc.). Some of the projects

have already made some notable progress.

Dirk Hohndel (Intel) and other experts believe that market potential

and demands are the major driving forces for open source movement; and

they also believe that open source market in China develops very fast.

Now Internet in China ranks second in the world. China has become the

market with the most ferocious competition.

Experts home and abroad expressed their ideas freely in the summit.

Brain Behlendorf, founder of Apache said open source can change the

world. Jim Zemlin (Linux Foundation) and Dirk Hohndel (Intel) believed

that Linux and OSS have made great success, which needs to form an

unified ecosystem. Linux Foundation is a global ecosystem (with 63

member companies). When speaking of commitment for interoperability,

Dr. C. Joseph Lee (Microsoft) pointed out that it cannot be done by any

single company. An ecosystem must be established in order to converge

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the innovation inside and outside the company. Experts believe COPU is

an ecosystem to some extent. It should play full role to promote open

source movement. Jim Zemlin suggested that three things should be done

for open source movement in China: ① holds open source forums ②

focus on some key Linux/OSS projects and try to do best ③ popularize

Linux in China together with Linux Foundation (Linux Foundation offers

many tools for reference). Dirk Hohndel also said this summit was a great

success. Soon after the summit, Jim Zemlin wrote an email to Mr.Lu,

chairman of COPU that if COPU would like to host a joint technical

summit in China with the Linux Foundation, I would be happy to fly key

engineers from the United States and Europe to China to meet with local

developers. These would include people like Andrew Morton and other

key Linux developers.

Dirk Hohndel said the success of open source movement comes

from open source communities, but 85% of volunteers in various

communities are programmers from big companies instead of society and

differences of culture and language influence their cooperation. We need

to work to solve this problem. Wim Cockaerts (Oracle) said, the spirit of

open source movement is development in community where program is

open online to get modification, feedback from volunteers all over the

world. There is much work to do so volunteers around the world should

work together to modify and improve it in order to maintain a high level.

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Chris Dibone (Google) said OSS offer users with more choices and

freedom to determine the way to do, because they could modify and

adjust the programs (optimize hardware and software). All these cannot

be offered by proprietary software. It does not mean that the entire core

program should be open source. Simon Phipps (Sun) said that OSS had

changed the way of software development. It is a perfect combination of

collaborative innovation and initiative innovation. OSS should be

encouraged in developing countries like China and Cuba. It is for the sake

of local economy as well as sovereignty. Localization should be of the

same importance with globalization catering for the local demand and

language.

Masanoba Hirano （Novell）said OSS had become mature. There is

limited room for development of operation system in data processing.

The application of OSS, especially the one in a big size in the market, and

innovation of application have become the key area. Josephine Cheng

fellow of IBM and Simon Phipps of Sun also spoke of innovation of

OSS. Tom Rabon (Redhat) pointed out that open source movement had

witnessed globalization in 1995-2001, informitization in 2001-2006 and

would witness innovation in 2006-2011. Tom Rabon and Dirk Hohndel

both expressed the willing to help China build a strong, innovative and

sustainable software industry taking OSS as an opportunity.

When discussing on application innovation of OSS, experts

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mentioned several points as follow:

1) As for the various solutions offered to different users, Open

Source Stack(LAMP Stack) arises. LAMP, J2EE and .NET have

become the main pillars compete and integrate with each other.

At the same time, LAMP and Mixed Source Stack both grow in

American 、 European and Chinese market. Josephine Cheng

(IBM) and Simon Phipps (Sun) were in favor of Mixed Source

Stack solutions.

2) Users want open source product improve usage level( or enlarge

application area), value-added function.

Usage level: company、telecom level

SLAs；Service level: SLAs

EALs； Security level: EALs

Quality level: compatibility test and quality certificate

Product function: various functions, easy to use, stability,

mature, interoperability.

Value-added: manageable, security, usage ratio, liability

TCO: low cost

3) To encourage client to transfer to Linux when they improve their

UNIX system (Mainframe-Mission Critical), which means to

improve the ratio for UNIX to Linux. Experts (Novell) talked

about this issue.

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4) To develop and transplant application software on Linux or open

source platform. Converter (or Translator) should be developed

for interoperability among difference platforms.

5) To adopt virtualization tech, which could converge and share

source, make software and hardware match better, lower cost,

improve system (especially hardware) efficiency. Experts form

Intel , Redflag, CS2C talked about this issue.

6) To adopt SOA. Service-oriented architecture is a simplified

system design to make IT less complicated, integrated

application and service, easy for application integration. It

promotes and adopts open standard design concept and

computing architecture. Till now over half of the core business

system has adopted SOA. It will grow in a fast pace in the future.

Experts home and abroad discussed about this issue.

7) To develop and promote applicationd for Linux desktop

system:①adopt thin Chients(TC) which is a simple network

computing mode, a system based on server with less desktop

space with high security and low TCO, easy to manage and

quick response. But it lacks of entertainment function and can

not computer offline. Li Guojie(Academician of CSA)

introduced about how loongson computer adopted TC.②To

develop and promote Linux operation system such as One

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 Laptop Per Child( offline operation) which was recommended by

Brain Behlendorf③to develop and transplant application

software in Linux desktop system platform④ to develop Linux

desktop system taking “Open clients” (IBM)as a role modal.

8) To develop and popularize MLI (intelligent mobile phone with

embedded Linux.

9) To establish post-developing procedure including Bug Fix,

Patch, upgrade which means feedback- modification-

improvement, and offer users with in-time, effective,

comprehensive tech support to get the credit.

10) To establish support and service -oriented business modal selling

OSS in low price in order to get the advantage position in the

competition.

During the summit, experts discussed about making and applying

open standard and interoperability, which was the theme of 2006 Open

Source China Open Source World, but it still needed to be solved so it

became the topic for Guangzhou Summit. As we all know, Microsoft

competes with OSS as the biggest proprietary software vendor, of course

it makes collaboration with OSS. There is frequent friction. When Prof.

Lu talk about open source movement, he said Open Source Movement

did not intend to beat MS, they only disagreed with monopoly of MS.

Open source and MS could co-exist in the market, and offer one more

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choice for users. Besides competition, they could make cooperation in

some circumstances such as open standard, interoperability, and solutions

with mixed source stack. If MS wants to enlarge its ecosystem into many

open source companies, open source movement will respect open source

companies’ decision in the condition of no impairment to others. MS

asked COPU for qualification to attend Guangzhou Summit and promised

to fully support it. MS sent Dr. C. Joseph Lee to give a speech ( Open

standard& interoperability). Dr. C. Joseph Lee said in his speech that any

single vender could not fulfill the promise of interoperability. There

should be an ecosystem where collaboration, sharing and win-win result

are promoted. He also said MS agreed with open standard, asserted

interoperability should be on base of policy, definition, IPR, standard

deployment and competition. Some experts also suggested that any

company should not acclaimed that its so-called potent offered unfairly to

its partner or users so that other open source companies and users would

be threatened. Some one called out for open source society should be

united to work out coutermeasure.

Chinese experts said now ODF had become international standard,

and how UOF( 75%of UOF’s terms are in coherence with ODF, 20% of

its terms are convertible to ODF), could become international standard as

the Chinese standard. Expert from MS also spoke of how to help Office

Open XML become international standard.

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 In the open source middle ware company sub forum, Kingdee middle

ware company gave report on open of middle ware engine (JSF). They

discussed about problems and trend of open source middle ware

technology with experts from Apache 、 JBOSS 、 SUN 、 IBM, Tencent,

Huawei, ZTE, Potevio, Hitachi(China). People regarded this meeting a

success. Executive of Kingdee Middle Ware appreciated this fruitful

exchange and discussion. Ben Wang, PHD (JBOSS) thought this summit

was the biggest and most significant meeting he ever participated and he

benefited a lot.

There are 3 other sub forums in the summit, the first one is open

environment, the second one is open standard, including report on open

source middleware market analysis, open client solution, virtualization

tech. The third sub forum focused on OSS application including report on

OSS’ impact on software industry in China, trend of global open source

application, demand of OSS professionals, OSS application in finance,

manufacturing, and local application, as well as local open source

community.

The fourth sub forum was held in Macao on June 28 where

representatives from mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan exchanged

their experience on open source.

There was a round table conference during the summit where

experts home and abroad had a face-to-face discussion on open standard,

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interoperability, ecosystem and application innovation and other hot

issues of open source movement in China and the world.

Honored guests home and abroad to this summit include: Prof. Lu

Shouqun ( chairman of COPU) , Chen Chong ( president of CSIA) ， Jim

Zemlin (executive director of Linux Foundation) ， Brain Behlendorf

( founder of Apache) ， Josephine Cheng (Academician of NAE, IBM VP

& IBM Fellow) ， Li Guojie (Academician of CAS) ， Ni Guangnan

(Academician of CAS) ， Hu Kunshan( vice chairman &secretary general

of COPU) ， Mark Shuttleworth （ founder of Ubuntu ） ， Wim

Cockaerts （ VP of Oracle ）， Chris Dibone （ senior open source expert

form Google ）， Larry Augustin （ founder of Source Forge ）， Simon

Phipps （ Chief Open Source Officer of SUN ） ， Tom Rabon （ VP of

Red Hat ） ， Prof. Xu Hongbo(Chinese team leader of EU Qualipso

project) ， Dirk Hohndel （ strategy director of OTC Intel ） ， Jim

Lacey （ chairman of LPI ） ， Masanoba Hirano （ VP of

Novell ） ， C.Joseph Lee( CTO of Microsoft China) ， Liu Peng( vice

secretary-general of COPU) ， Dr. Zheng Siyuan ( VP of Redflag) ， Han

Naiping ( GM of CS2C) Dr. Yuan Quan( director of Guangdong Linux

Public Service Support Center) ， Gregory Lopez( open source counselor

of Thales)，Hu Caiyong ( GM of Office 2000)，Zhou Qun ( president of

Beijing Turbolinux)，Cai Jun ( GM of Kingdee Middle Ware ), Dr. Wang

Xugang( vice director of CSIP) ， Dr. Li Anyu( director of e-commerce

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center of CAS ) ， J.Avon Farr （ core programmer of Apache ） ， Dr.

Gong Min( senior Chinese open source expert)、Dr. Chen Zhong ( dean of

software school of Peking University) 、 Dr. Ben Wang ( core member of

JBOSS) ， Zhu Min( founder of WebEX) ， Jiang Xiaodong

( representative of Scott D Sandell, Partner of NEA VC Company) 、 Yu

Jianfei ( vice DG of Guangdong Information Industry

Department)，Yang Haizhou (president of Guangdong Software Industry

Association) ， Huang Yuzhen( secretary-general of Guangdong Software

Industry Association) ， Dr. Xie Qian ( director of CESI) ， Wang

Xingyao( VP of SUN, dean of Chinese Research Institute) ， Chen Shi(

president of RedHat Greater China) ， Xuan Yan( VP of Oracle) ， Liang

Zhihui( GM of IBM China Innovation Center)，Feng Xiaoyan ( manager

of CTO Intel) ， Han Zitian( vice president of Macao Open Source

Association) ， Jian Jinyuan ( chairman of Hong Kong Linux

Commerce)， Li Keyan( manager of Microsoft China Tech Center) ,etc.

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