The Beaverton, Oregon-based open source software advocacy group has been focusing on expanding its presence in Asia this year and signed up its first two Chinese members in February and March.
China is one of the fastest growing markets for Linux and now the OSDL has announced plans to build a locally staffed Beijing office that will handle technical, business and marketing activities for China alongside OSDL’s existing US and Japanese offices.
The open source group is already working with Chinese governmental organizations to promote the use of Linux and its establishment of an office in Beijing has received the green light from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). We recognize that Linux marks a great opportunity for the expansion of the software industry in China, said Ding Wen Wu, deputy director of MII, in a statement.
The Chinese government consistently drives progress and the advanced use of Linux, he added. OSDL’s initiatives for accelerating the adoption of Linux in enterprise computing have garnered worldwide support. We expect to collaborate with OSDL and we are committed to advancing Linux together with OSDL.
Existing OSDL members in China include Beijing Software Testing Center, a government-backed software testing operation, and Beijing Co-Create Open Source Software Company Ltd. In June the OSDL appointed its first director of Asia, Masanobu Hirano, to drive the adoption of Linux in the region.
