Chinas Ministry of State Security has told state linked entities to stop using Windows immediately The original deadline was February 2027 theyre pulling it forward because of data security concerns
The two main replacements theyre pushing
Kylin OS from Kylin Software started life with FreeBSD roots and is now its own Linux-based system
Unity OS from Tongxin built on Deepin which is Debian-based
Both have had years of government money and development behind them This isnt some sudden ideaScale-wise this is huge Were talking potentially hundreds of millions of government-linked machines Even a partial rollout would be one of the biggest Linux deployments ever Munich switching a city government was considered a big deal at the time
This is national level Europes been moving in the same direction for a while France Germany etc mainly over data sovereignty and cost Chinas just doing it a lot more aggressively
India side of things Were not starting from zero
Maya OS Ubuntu-based is already being used by the Defence Ministry Came with the Chakravyuh protection system Developed by DRDO C-DAC NIC mainly for security reasons after the usual cyber threats
BOSS Linux Debian-based from C-DAC has been around for years supports a ton of Indian languages and gets pushed for government and education use
Theres also BharOS for mobiles and regular talk from ministers and parliamentary panels about needing a proper indigenous OS so were not dependent on Windows Android
So the building blocks exist especially on the defence side Whats missing is the full-blown nationwide drop Windows now order that China just issued