Huawei unveils openEuler, its CentOS-based Linux distribution

In the spirit of the age, Huawei releases the source code of openEuler to Gitee, a Chinese alternative to Github

Huawei has released the source code of openEuler, its distribution of Linux based on CentOS. However, in the spirit of the age, it has published the source code of its Linux distribution on Gitee, rather than Github.

The operating system was formally launched by Huawei in September 2019 in response to US sanctions, which had briefly affected the company's access to Windows and Android operating systems.

The company is still running under its second three-month extension exempting it from the full provisions of the US government's Entity List, which ordinarily requires a US company to apply for and receive a licence to trade with a named ‘entity'.

OpenEuler comprises two organisations on Gitee, one for source code and one for package sources.

The openEuler organisation was keen to highlight two particular packages, iSulad and A-Tune, among the openEuler source code. "iSulad is a lightweight gRPC service-based container runtime. Compared to runc, iSulad is written in C, but all interfaces are compatible with OCI. A-Tune is a system software to auto-optimise the system adaptively to multiple scenarios with embedded AI-engine."

The announcement continues: "You will also see several infrastructure-supported projects that set up the community's operating systems… these systems are built on the Huawei Cloud through script automation."

Among the package sources, covered by the src-openeuler organisation on Gitee, are around 1,000 packages with versions in both ARM64 and X86 architecture packages. Huawei claims its developers have made a number of enhancements to ARM64 openEuler code to improve multi-core efficiency. It is also working on a ‘green computing' ecosystem with Linaro and the Green Industry Alliance.

At the moment, the organisation claims, there are more than 50 contributors and just under 600 commits. The openEuler community has around 20 SIGs or project groups.

OpenEuler is intended primarily as an enterprise Linux distribution, rather than for enthusiasts and hobbyists.

The US Entity List is a security designation of the Department of Commerce of organisations considered a security threat by the US government, or subject to sanctions. While US companies or companies exporting goods and services with US content are not banned from doing business with them, they must first obtain an export licence.

These licences are time consuming to apply for - presenting a barrier to trade - and can be revoked at any time.

Huawei currently enjoys a three-month Temporary General Licence enabling it to continue trading with US organisations, licence free, which will expire in February. By that time, the Department of Commerce is expected to be able to support the 300-plus applications that Huawei's inclusion onto the Entity List has attracted.