WTO membership is a national goal. When this country sets a national goal, all 1.2 billions people march toward it. Like the rest of the world, the predominant desktop for government and industries is Windows/Office. Unlike the rest of the world, the number of licenses and the number of installations do not quite match. This gigantic gap does not jive with WTO.

What to do? "Legitimize all those unlicensed installations," says Microsoft.

But China has options. With the amount of money they must pay to legitimize and the talents they have. They can develop their own solutions, replacing Microsoft. After all, this is a country that 1.2 billion people will really march toward the same goal set by the government. Also, since this is about a quarter of world population, they don't really care for the existing market share. Whatever current market share, China's decision will change that. However, no amount of money and talents can cheat time. Large software developments take years, if not decades. China needs something faster. Enter open source solutions.

GPL gets in the way. Even with strong government support, companies must be able to make money. GPL requires you to donate the fruits of your labor back to the community. For years, China lives with the limitation of GPL as the only option. CDDL now gives innovators choices: donate if you wish, profiting from it will be just fine too. CDDL makes software truly free. China now has a true choice to rival Microsoft. Sweet.

Cheaper, Faster, Better, More Secure

Linux has the installation base and the religion factor. Switching costs are real and religion discussions are non-engineering.

• Solaris is cheaper than Linux. Unlike the real thing, commercially distributed Linuxes are quite expensive. The commercially distributed Solaris costs exactly zero. Can't go lower than that.
• Solaris is faster. Just bring on the benchmarks. We beat Linux.
• Solaris is better. Solaris can run years without rebooting. Solaris shines brighter with the latest CPU technologies - CMT, 64-bit, dual-core. Linux does not offer DTrace, Container, Least Privilege, FMA, SMF, and another thousand advanced functionalities.
• Solaris is secure. It is so much harder to hack Solaris that most hackers do not bother. You can conduct business with a peace of mind if the OS is Solaris. After all, IRS runs Solaris. DoD runs Solaris. Wall Street runs Solaris.