SCILAB is the famous open source software for scientific computing co-developed by scientists of INRIA and ENPC. Since 1997, SCILAB has been extensively received by scientists, engineers and technicians, and practitioners in both academia and industry. It has been recognized as the best substitute for commercial software like Matlab, Xmath and Matrix, and is being distributed currently at the speed of 10,000 copies per month in all over the world.

SCILAB has brought us not only powerful functions in scientific computing, but also its free spirit of open source. At present, many scientists in INRIA are devoted to promoting the open source software to the world, particularly in China. The free spirit of open source software and technology makes far-reaching sense to China's software industry in terms of liberalization from the international Commercial software companies. Therefore, research institutes and governmental sessions concerned in China and France have co-developed and been supporting SCILAB activities in China. From this point of view, SCILAB promotion in China has set up a broad bridge between the researchers in China and in France, and it provides the opportunities for Chinese researchers, engineers and students to study and to express their talent by means of competition and communication with industrial partners both in Chinese and French side.