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All of Vietnam's Government Computers To Use Linux, By Fiat
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jan 07, 2009 02:52 PM
from the power-to-the-people dept.
from the power-to-the-people dept.
christian.einfeldt writes "The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an administrative ruling increasing the use of Free Open Source Software products at state agencies, increasing the software's use both in the back office and on the desktop. According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009. The regulation also sets benchmarks for training and proficiency in the software. Vietnam has a population of 86 million, 4 million larger than that of Germany, and is one of the world's fastest-growing economies."
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Fiat? (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I don't know.. they make some pretty crappy cars, I'm not sure I'd trust them to make a decent operating system distribution.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fiat also means: decree: a legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge);
They should move to OSX instead (Score:4, Funny)
A giant customized Starbucks in Cupertino California where lattes and no soy skim macchiatos are given out free to all employees. The background music involves a playlist of Nora Jones, David Matthews, John Mayer, and Bono on loop from an Ipod docked somewhere in the Apple/Starbucks facility. Hours are long but morale is surprising high as developers, hardware and software, are given 30 minute breaks to masturbate to the new itunes interface.
All developers sit at cafe type tables with a Mac Book Pro while their lord and master Steve Jobs stands deskless in his predictable attire of a turtleneck and jeans. In fact, this is the preferred (mandatory) dress code at Apple. Jobs walks around to each and every department, separated by latte and vegan preferences, and checks on the performance and efficiency of his developers. At any given point in the day one may see Mr Jobs yelling at a programmer for not implementing a button in the perfect shade of corn flower blue (#6495ED) and immediately sends him to the apple punitive chamber, consisting of a HP Compaq running Vista Basic.
There are 2 software development departments and 2 hardware development sections in Apple. For software there is the Apple core team, Apple Open Source team. In hardware there is the Apple systems and management team and the iDevice team. Since the OSX kernel consists of a BSD darwin kernel there is no real need for low level programmers and as such the entirety of the Apple core team consists of UI designers and photoshop junkies. All software churned out from the core team is designed in a program strikingly similar to Visual Studio's form designer but with Cocoa Objective C generated instead. The 16 hour day (Jobs demands 16 hour days since he himself never sleeps) of a core dev involves lining up the right shade of chrome with the latest photoshopped graphite button and maintaining the correct color scheme, not an easy job at all.
The Apple open source team involves a little bit more coding, which is mandated to be done in TextEdit or the option of a $80 third party mac text editor. The Apple open source team doesn't actually create much code but searches the internet for interesting BSD licensed software and modifies it as it's own through obfuscation and conversion to objective C. Many of the items a mac user sees comes from the open source world stamped by apple such as the ability to play music taken from 67 different originally linux based players, CD burning, and the overall ability to click a mouse. Apple's legal department has no qualms about this practice and has assured many that since most of the code is BSD and if any is GPLed many Linux hippies should be grateful that Apple fostered WebKit by using KHTML and adding some Gecko bloat. Perhaps one of the most important items that the open source team has done to date is use parts of the FreeBSD to keep the kernel up to date.
There's not much to say about the Apple systems and management team. I suppose they can be classified in to desktop and laptop systems. Because hardware work is beneath Apple in general and thought of being only worthy of Windows Users and as such can be found working on these beauties in the starbucks bathroom. Desktops are currently made by buying dell machines and putting them in Lian Li cases, where the majority of the costs goes to buying titanium Apple emblems to paste on the sides. Laptops consists of the rebranding of only the most silver and black Sony Viaos but talk has been going around about rebranding Asus EeePCs for a new Apple netbook but you didn't hear that from me, for fear of my life.
The iDevice team's job is to develop for the ipod, iphone, itouch, and many other portable electronics apple may release in the future. Their jobs are very interconnected with the open source team as well as the core dev team. Using firmware from random samsung devices and giving it an OSX skin the ipod stands as a shining example that infringement only applies to greasy file sharers and that the music player remains the best in market
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Re:They should move to OSX instead (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, someone actually typed all of that.
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Re:They should move to OSX instead (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Also on a side note to those who are worried about Job's health. He is fine but is trying a new diet consisting of Soy Nuts and Anger.
You troll, I LOL.
hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is also something wrong with trying to support different operating systems and different office productivity suites.
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sovereignty (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. This is why Peter Quinn's sovereignty argument for OpenDocument in MA was so apt. It's not about Linux, but communicating lofty ideals like Free Software to government types is difficult. When you start talking about the ancient political documents like a constitution though, and government responsibility to preserve them in a neutral format, things become a lot clearer. Add in the Peruvian arguments for an openly competitive economy based around open standards in software, and it's clear that government's absolute responsibility is to choose free software and standards. So no, Linux should not be forced, but yes, free software should. Our taxes should not prop up individual corporations -- especially when that monopolizes their power and cripples other parts of the economy.
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Re:sovereignty (Score:4, Insightful)
No, what I'm saying is that, at the moment, the government(s) largely prop up one organisation's development: microsoft's. When stuck with microsoft's closed apps, the best a contractor can usually do is script some macros for office, or write a plugin. Maybe an add-on app, if they're lucky enough that their use cases fit that model. However, with open, standards compliant, free software, anyone can develop new features, even for the core operating systems in use, or the core office suite in use. Redhat could be contracted to provide government with OS, but Ubuntu might be preferred for a future upgrade. Currently, we don't have this freedom.
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Not just Linux (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:hooray! (Score:5, Informative)
Treating Linux as a one-size-fits-all solution is almost as bad as doing the same with Windows.
I disagree. While I think OpenSolaris and the BSDs are great operating systems and arguably work better than Linux in some contexts, if you want to pick just one OS there isn't ANYTHING that fits as many contexts as Linux. From embedded systems to big iron and everything in between, Linux works, and works well.
Of course, there's more to the OS than just a kernel, and arguably the Linux kernel used in an embedded system *isn't* the same kernel used in big iron, even if it's build from the same source tree. And that argument also assumes there's value in picking just one kernel for everything. But if you do want to pick one kernel for everything, Linux isn't just a good choice, it's the ONLY choice.
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Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
These are governmental departments. They should be working to open standards. They have a _duty_ to not use closed standards that require their citizens to pay a company half way around the world some fee just to read.
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Next up! (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer take a S.E. Asian vacation...
Re: (Score:3)
Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
You cannot scare Vietnam with office furniture.
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Next week article. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft offers a new deal to Vietnam. Vietnam goes with Windows for 5 more years.
I may be skeptical. Using the Linux card is a great way to get a better deal from Microsoft. The bigger you yell the better the deal.
Re:Next week article. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Next week article. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they're bluffing M$, they just made a quick buck. If they're for real, they made a very wise investment.
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Re:Next week article. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a growing economy, perhaps they are just deciding to take the hit now rather than dig themselves deeper into the Microsoft dependency trap.
To me this seems like a very sensible call for smaller and growing countries - it frees up resources for other purposes and means they are not caught in the trap in the future.
Linux doesnt have to be 'all that great', it just has to work, and it does. We are not talking about countries that have developed to the fat-and-lazy level of needing everything to be 'managed for them' here.
And if you thin Microsoft bends over backwards to help large customers in 'other' countries, then good luck with that.
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Re:Next week article. (Score:5, Informative)
There is a large upfront cost of switching.
In 3rd world people are saving by switching, since Linux can be customized to run on less resources. E.g. Linux Terminal Server is much much resource savvy compared to Windows Terminal Server.
And a lot of people will not be happy that they can't do X like they did before.
I'm pretty sure that Vietnam has its own ISVs. And the move - is the huge investment into ISV sector. For government it's a huge win too: more taxes.
And if they need support on some feature you can't intimate a US Open Source Developer by saying you are from the government.
Do not be silly. US != World. Local ISVs can do it and there are lots of Linux consultancies around of world. Asia is not that backward as many CNN/FoxNews watchers might think.
This is huge chance for local business to cash in - in long term. If gov't is serious, I'm sure they wouldn't let the chance to slip.
At least with Microsoft and you are a big customer they will bend over backwards to help you.
That's big lie. They will "bend over backward" if you have enough money to pay them for that. Otherwise you are on your own.
M$ can and does something on their own - but they rarely listen to feedback. Generally, in M$ ecosystem, burden of backward compatibility is on integrators and ISVs. My friend worked for such company in past implementing features (normally using ActiveX) from new M$ products for older M$ products (and vise versa) as well as smoothing integration with 3rd party software. Imagine: huge business built around solving problems created entirely by M$ development strategy.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I may be skeptical. Using the Linux card is a great way to get a better deal from Microsoft. The bigger you yell the better the deal.
Eventually though they won't be able to offer discounts anymore because they won't be making any profit. It's not a sustainable model. Sooner or later, Microsoft is going to have to eat cow.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft isn't competing against free.
They are competing against the price it will take to do a full switch to Linux vs the cost to stay and get new windows licenses.
As Linux gets better that cost gets smaller. Their may be a point where it isn't profitable for Microsoft. But it is a case where the product is already made, and covered their cost in the US and other areas. Then they can go really low on the price for a while.
reasons for moving to Open Source .. (Score:5, Informative)
Among the reasons cited [silicon.com] were:
to reduce commercial software license fees,
freedom from foreign-owned technology,
greater security,
curbing the number of infections from Windows-based viruses and
to gain technological leadership on platforms relatively free of dominance by large multinational corporations
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Re:reasons for moving to Open Source .. (Score:5, Funny)
So all Microsoft needs to do to get the deal...
Lower License Costs.
Hire Vietnam Workers to work in Vietnam
Disable Active X
Use Vista with Norton.
Give them some stock options
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Re:Next week article. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an issue that a lot of developing countries have.
When you're at Vietnam's level of development, the piracy rate is astonishing. 99% of the software is pirated. All the software used at home is pirated. Most of the software used in government offices is pirated. Most of the software used in companies is pirated. Sometimes some do-gooder will wind up buying legitimate software, but that's really rare.
MS knows this. Everyone knows this. In a country with a per-capita income of $1000 a year, there's simply not a dollar at the end of this conversation. Yell, scream, protest to the World Court. Nothing will happen. There's no money to take.
So nothing happens.
Development moves along. Cheap furniture and rattan baskets turn into power tools. Christmas lights turn into consumer electronics. Power tools become CNC machines. Consumer electronics become silicon fabs.
Suddenly, you're not a dollar-a-day country any more. You've got real money. Moreover, your money comes from exports.
At this point, Microsoft comes back again. This lax attitude towards intellectual property? Beggar countries are allowed to slip by. Middle-to-high income countries? Uh-uh.
Your legislature is given a modest proposal. Produce intellectual property laws and enforce them, or the export-driven capital party comes to a grinding halt.
You now have a nascent IT infrastructure in your government offices which was built on pirated MS software. What was winked at for years is winked at no more.
Your IT managers now have a very expensive problem. Purchase licenses for every machine in government use, or retool for open source. Your choice. Both options suck.
By starting on OSS early, Vietnam is making a smart choice which will save a lot of pain down the road.
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!all (Score:5, Interesting)
All of Vietnam's Government Computers To Use Linux
According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009.
FTA:
by June 30, 2009, 100% of servers of IT divisions of government agencies must be installed with open source software;
I really doubt all of the Vietnam government's computers are servers. Also, Open Source does not neccisarily mean Linux. (not that BSD is a bad alternative)
Emerging Solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
Penguins?!? in Vietnam? It's a cold day in hell boys!!!
Also, this bodes well for Open Source everywhere. Eventually all other countries will follow suit and the people will have government systems that work best for their diverse cultures, tailor made UIs and logic, that can also extend inventive solutions.
Also knowing what is in the source code helps identify potential threats to national security.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Also, this bodes well for Open Source everywhere. Eventually all other countries will follow suit and the people will have government systems that work best for their diverse cultures, tailor made UIs and logic, that can also extend inventive solutions.
You BET! Every country on the globe (with the exception, perhaps, of Cambodia) is eager to follow in anything that the hip, trendy Vietnam does. Hell, I would be surprised if the United States can resist the trend, I predict they will issue a government mandate to run free software* by 2010!
*Of course, don't hold me to exactly what that free software will be. The US Govt could, pretty easily, simply mandate that Microsoft Windows be given to them for free.
Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:4, Interesting)
Penguins?!? in Vietnam? It's a cold day in hell boys!!!
Black Footed Penguins [wikipedia.org] (also known, according to Wikipedia, as "Jackass Penguins") would likely feel right at home there, seeing as how they are native to Africa. They have a couple in the zoo here, they keep them inside during the winter.
When is somebody going to name a Linux distro "Blackfoot?" It would be HOT!
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Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually all other countries will follow suit
Are you suggesting there will be a domino-effect?
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Lead time? (Score:4, Informative)
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Not necessarily good (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, this is not necessarily good. Forcing free software on someone is not going to generate all good comments. In fact, forcing someone to use something, especially if they aren't used to it, usually generates more complaints - not because the new thing is actually worse, but simply because they are being FORCED to use it.
I dunno. I like using Linux and I think it's a good alternative to Windows, but forcing people to switch doesn't really show Linux to be a "good alternative," doesn't make people want to use it on its own merits, etc... it makes it look more like a financial move, not a "This is better software" move.
Re:Not necessarily good (Score:5, Insightful)
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send in the Linux attack team .. (Score:5, Informative)
under NO circumstances lose against Linux
netcraft confirms it!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Open standards are more important (Score:5, Insightful)
I think open standards are much more important than open source software. The ability to use your favorite program to get a certain task accomplished without having to worry about compatibility problems is worth much more than wether you use open source or not. I would much rather use Pages instead of OpenOffice if it only would support ODF, for instance.
straight from MS FUD central .. (Score:3, Informative)
Straight out of the MS FUD manual. Like, let then use 'free' software as long as they us our Intellectual Property and Patent dues. When does your shift on slashdot finish ?
Microsoft wins the 2nd Vietnam war! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you go to any asian country, you find stacks and stacks of CDs and DVDs filled with mislabelled stuff from Microsoft to Universal studios. So, the thought of Vietnam actually paying for a bunch of Windows licenses just seems rather remote to me.
I would be willing to bet that Microsoft has been quietly watching Windows get rolled out all across Vietnam, knowing that, they don't have but a dozen licenses for the entire country, and a million copies of Windows, and just let Vietnam build all of their infrastructure on top of it.
Then, once they see the Vietnamese are hooked, they sent in a salesteam to ask them to pay for it, or they will shut the country down. Vietnam of course issues its edict, but both they know and Microsoft know, that Vietnam now belongs to Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon both roll over in their graves, and somewhere, on a dark night, the leaders of Microsoft enjoy a drink to celebrate the triumph with Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney and the Bushes. "Hey, we might have f--- up in Iraq, but we finally won Vietnam."
Ballmer, are you listening? (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org,
I guess it's time for Steve Ballmer to catch the next flight to Hanoi with cash and incentives in his briefcase. If this approach worked in the past [infoworld.com] why shouldn't it work one more time?
Go Ballmer go!
Me so horny? (Score:3, Funny)
no minister .. :) (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'm sure you'd like to hear from Peter Quinn, formerly CIO [groklaw.net] of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts"
This distro will not include a browser. (Score:5, Funny)
Why?
Charlie don't surf! [wikipedia.org]
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
They've been talking about this for years. I worked in Vietnam for a year three years ago and still visit a couple times a year and they were talking about it even then.
But so far I have never seen a computer running Linux there that I or a Linux user friend of mine didn't set up myself. And I am completely unable so far to find the actual text of the proclamation that says that they will use Linux. Nor have I been able to contact anyone who knows anything about it. They are probably just looking for leverage against Microsoft.
Why is it that nobody ever links to the actual text of the legislation or proclamation?
I really do hope they mean it.
hey, (Score:5, Insightful)
Dumbasses tagging this 'communism' - it's nothing to do with communism - more like COMMON-SENSE-ISM.
Open-source support for Vietnamese language (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Decline of the LAMP stack (Score:4, Insightful)
IIS7 is remarkably performant, even compared to Apache2, and I haven't seen a significant security update come down the pipe for it or ASP.NET in quite some time.
The initial cost outlay of a Windows machine is higher, of course, but did you consider the other costs? Maintaining an application written in .NET is a lot easier than doing the same in, say, Perl or PHP (unless your staff is universally comprised of language virtuosos, which strikes me as unlikely). Their development teams may already be proficient at .NET. I know that the common wisdom around here is that a good programmer should be able to pick whatever the hell they need to use and be able to get up to speed, but a lot of programmers aren't good but are nominally productive with what they already know. And the support Microsoft offers to big companies is really, really good. (Red Hat and Novell offer good support too, but neither are the same kind of behemoths that Microsoft is.)
There are good reasons to pick something that isn't what you personally like, whether it's proprietary or not.
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