In a move which is part of China's five-year plan to get more people to use open source software, the Chinese government has collaborated with Canonical to create a state-endorse operating system.

Canonical - the organization behind popular Linux distribution Ubuntu - has revealed that it is working with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to develop a suitable version of its Ubuntu OS for China. The OS will be dubbed Ubuntu Kylin; and will likely be launched in April.

According to Canonical, the Ubuntu Kylin OS will use Chinese character sets, and will not only boast notable capability for supporting the way in which the Chinese people interact with computers, but will also reflect China's date conventions.

With open source software giving people an increased access to its internal workings, thereby enabling them to modify it themselves, Canonical has revealed that the first Ubuntu Kylin OS version is intended for desktop and laptop computers. The OS' code will be created at a Beijing-based laboratory staffing engineers from Canonical and a number of Chinese R&D agencies.

As per Canonical, the future version of the Ubuntu Kylin OS will include tools which will allow people to use popular Chinese web services - including Baidu maps and the Taobao shopping service - along with the versions of office programs and image management tools, directly from the main screen of Ubuntu.