Huawei’s open source operating system joined by more innovative developers

Huawei launches the OpenEuler operating system in September 2021. (Photo courtesy of Huawei)

Operating system used to remain a challenge for many industries.

For instance, financial institutions need their operating system to be extremely reliable as they have to deal with a huge user base and complicated business forms.

The power industry, which sees a broad geographical coverage of its businesses and high maintenance cost, must work to lower its cost and enhance safety while guaranteeing sound information construction and high-quality system operation and maintenance.

Now, the OpenEuler, an open source operating system launched by Chinese tech giant Huawei, is making the issue far less difficult.

Open source operating systems open and share their source codes, allowing anyone to carry out secondary development of the systems based on the industries in which the systems are applied.

Huawei introduced The OpenEuler in September 2021, and its code, trademark, community infrastructures and other assets were donated to the OpenAtom Foundation in November the same year.

This has transformed the OpenEuler from an open source project led by its founding company into one that's co-constructed by the industry and shared by the community.

Huawei donates the OpenEuler operating system to the Openatom Foundation. (Photo courtesy of Huawei)

The rapid growth of the system is attributable to the continuous contribution made by the members in the OpenEuler community, who are growing ever more diversified. So far, the community has attracted nearly one million developers who established nearly 100 groups. The system has been downloaded more than 470,000 times and the community joined by more than 330 enterprises, including chip manufacturers, operating system developers, and application software suppliers. The OpenEuler community is becoming one the most dynamic communities in the industry.

“The operating system is being applied in more and more industries, and a large batch of outstanding open source software are merging,” said Ren Lin, a senior technical expert with the information technology center under China Mobile, one of the three major telecommunications carriers in China. He believes Huawei's donation of the system to the Openatom Foundation will further stimulate the innovation in the application of the system.

So far, the OpenEuler has been applied by government departments, financial institutes and telecommunications carriers in a wide range of industries, such as energy, aerospace, logistics and education. Numerous operating system developers have started developing commercial versions of the system. China Mobile, together with its two major rivals in China - China Telecom and China Unicom, have all developed their own versions of the OpenEuler.

According to a report on the Chinese operating system market, the OpenEuler saw the largest market share expansion in the sectors of government and carrier affairs, and ranked first in terms of market growth in its application in the financial industry.

Over one million sets of the operating system have been applied for commercial use, and another two million are expected to be applied this year.

Besides, Huawei has launched a talent development acceleration plan under the guidance of relevant department of the Chinese Ministry of Education, with an aim to encourage more university students and teachers to join the operating system industry.

High school student Wu Qihan, a prize winner at the 2021 Kunpeng application innovation contest held by Huawei, told People's Daily that the contest enhanced his understanding of operating system and improved his knowledge and technical capability.

Bai Zeping, a senior college student and a developer in the OpenEuler community, holds a similar view. He said the Chinese environment and equal communication in the OpenEuler community have brought developers closer to the community.

As the most basic and important software, operating system is the core and bedrock of a computer system. Whether an operating system has a large developer base and whether it is massively applied are of crucial importance to the system. As it is joined by more and more innovative developers, the OpenEuler will offer stronger support for China's digital infrastructure construction in the future.