All of Vietnam's Government Computers To Use Linux, By Fiat 380
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."
hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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:Lead time? (Score:3, Insightful)
LINUX FTW! (Score:1, Insightful)
Good for them! I can't wait until the USA makes this same decision.. Might help out our shitty economy
Re:Next week article. (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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.
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Next week article. (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.
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.
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is also something wrong with trying to support different operating systems and different office productivity suites.
Re:Not necessarily good (Score:5, Insightful)
Not forcing anyone (Score:1, Insightful)
Who forced them to make this decision? As far as I can tell (with the article so short on details) the Vietnamese government came to this decision of their own free will. Yes, they're allowed to decide what software to install on their own computers.
As for the psychological effects, it shouldn't really matter why they chose Linux. The fact that they chose it indicates that it's better for some reason. It could be for security reasons. It could be for philosophical reasons. It could be for financial reasons. It could simply be that they were tired of dealing with licensing (or the risks of lacking licenses). All are excellent reasons to switch.
I applaud their decision and hope that others make the same decision, at the personal, business, and governmental levels.
Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's amusing to watch Vietnam do what USA shoul (Score:1, Insightful)
When the government is only allowed to use is Linux, then yes, you've created a monopoly within that specific market segment. And governments are large markets in most economies.
And the Microsoft monopoly bit is pretty tired by now. There's Linux, OS X and a variety of smaller OS variants that are available. Using political force in this manner is worse in my opinion than any "unfair competitive practices" Microsoft has done in the past.
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"
Kudos to Vietnam. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
And as far as implementing any logic I want. Cool, I have plenty of money, so when will you have that arm port of Windows 2000 ready that I can install on my N800? Thought not.
Re:Next week article. (Score:3, Insightful)
And a lot of people will not be happy that they can't do X like they did before.
I don't think the people working for the Government of Vietnam are going to be very vocal about this.
It boils down to money, and national security. Why would they want a proprietary (foreign!) system like Windows when they can have something for free that their army of programmers can tweak and maintain? Their support will come from within, while creating a competent programmer workforce.
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.
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.
Re:hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but there are actually reasons why, e.g., art departments traditionally use Macs. Doesn't mean that you can't use anything else, but there are reasons.
OTOH, there are companies that prescribe that even the art departments use MSWind. Their prerogative.
I think that Vietnam will find that some of their departments are less efficient using Linux. Most may well be better, but some will be less efficient. Others will require more expensive software to properly do their job under Linux (and may require particular distributions for the necessary software to be supported). But by and large I think that it's a reasonable and justifiable decision. They just ought to allow justified exceptions. (But again, that's an efficiency consideration.)
On the average, though, I believe that using open standards will pay off in only a very few years. Given that, Linux is a reasonable standard. Having a single supported OS should act to minimize support costs, since it's one that can actually *BE* supported. BSD would have been another choice, but it has less end-user support, while Linux has a great deal of server support. And there are other choices that would have been plausible...but none of them have the support of either Linux or BSD. (I really can't consider MSWind as acceptable to anyone who actually reads their EULA. Unfortunately, the same has recently become true of the Mac. I think I've bought my last Apple product.)
So given that they have decided to standardize, to my mind Linux is a reasonable choice. And standardizing has lots of arguments in it's favor...and only a few against it. Those few can be very powerful in special cases, however, and that should be allowed for. (Probably it will. This is a news story, and as such certain details were probably stripped. Note that the article didn't say that no commercial software would be allowed.)
Re:sovereignty (Score:3, Insightful)
I agreed with everything else in your post, but here is where I have to disagree. Suppose the US government standardizes on free software -- do you really want tax dollars spent creating a massive government IT force, or would you rather the government contracted with Red Hat or Novell? It is not inherently bad for the government to contract with corporations -- in fact, this is why corporations were created in the first place. We should focus on the real issue, which is that software used by the government should be free-libre, except in certain cases involving military systems (missile control, RADAR, etc.).
Also (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets remember that as part of becoming integrated into the economy - Vietnam will be told taht they have to crack down on piracy.
Do they crack down on piracy and push up the cost of doing business in Vietnam by having all departments use Windows + Office, and thus all those who interact with the government having to have said software - or is it smarted to start off using opensource software now given that they are pretty much starting from a clean slate? They've made a good move - and I'll put money on it people will be looking in and asking their own government why Microsoft is given multi-billion dollar contracts when Vietnam's public service is just as productive (if not more) using Linux/OpenOffice.org as they would using Windows.
Re:Microsoft wins the 2nd Vietnam war! (Score:3, Insightful)
Your an idiot. Do you see a difference between what people see on the street, and what the government buys?
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.
Re:Also (Score:3, Insightful)
To those vendors who say. "My software does not run under Linux but MS Windows and I can't see why I should change". All the Vietnam Government has to say to those vendors. "Well guess who misses out on a Government contact"
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.