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."
!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)
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!
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!
Re:hooray! (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't worry. To the officials, it's "this Linux thing" if it's not Windows and not MacOS X.
And the ability to fit into everything is, I think, the point of Linux: The freedom to change it to your needs goes so far today, that Linux runs on the smallest handhelds and appliances, and on the biggest servers and supercomputers. In some way, there is no "Linux". There is just a set of kernels, userland toolkits, GUI desktops, and so on. Combined, they result in some Linux or BSD distribution... or something in between, or something different (like MacOS X).
Windows on the other hand, is rigid.
Please hand in your geek card, for not knowing this. ;)
Re:straight from MS FUD central .. (Score:3, Interesting)
When does yours? I really don't get what you're on about. Have you read the rest of my post? Have you realized that in the real world there are things more important than open source software, like, for instance, getting work done?
Re:Emerging Solutions (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the big things that keep many Government agencies and large business from making the switch. They have not seen anyone do it successfully. The better Vietnam does this the more likely it is to have an effect in the west.
Also, if they write any software that helps with this. If it is written as opens source it would be available to help other organizations switch. It all snowballs.
Excel (Score:2, Interesting)
it always prints the entire document in a 1.5"x1" space...
Set Print Area? An accidentally filled cell somewhere down or to the right?
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.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:3, Interesting)
I lived and worked in Viet Nam as well (2003), and while I did see some computers running Linux there, they were all in the hands of individuals, except for a couple of LAN servers I did admin work on (one at my employer, another at one of our customers).
At the time I was there, two things about most computers in government office were very noticeable: 1) They were really old, and 2) Many of them were running Windows 9x, not 2000 or XP. Getting from there to modernity is probably easier with Linux, especially considering that licensed copies of Windows aren't exactly thick on the ground in VN. The whole time I was there, I only saw three Windows machines that I was sure had licensed copies, and those were three brand new Compaqs that I installed fresh from the box, paid for by Japanese ODA. Amazing that they weren't Japanese PCs, considering the source of the funds. Even more amazing that the only Japanese products on that project were some wireless routers (802.11B WAN product made for outdoor point to point use; our longest hop was around 5 km IIRC, using parabolic antennas).
Are you familiar with Vietlug? http://www.vnlinux.org/ [vnlinux.org]
KPLUG, huh? I'm from San Diego, too, but live in the Bay Area now. I'm from the Montgomery Field area, too, have been to a few KPUG meetings in 2003 before I took a job out of town. Me may have crossed paths in real life at some point.
Re:Not necessarily good (Score:1, Interesting)
Back when PCs where not on every desk, people complained when they were introduced.
They complained about their job being changed from under them, they complained about having to learn new things.
The world did not stop turning, the PC was not taken away from their desk (though some held out from using it until there really was no choice) and now everyone's got a PC on their desk which almost invariably runs Windows.
But things change. Sometimes that change is painful but if there is a real, clear benefit it will happen. Right now I'm not sure where the real clear benefit of Linux on the desktop is - certainly not when Microsoft, despite what anyone on /. may say, are more likely to be admired in the business world for having done such an efficient job of rising to the top than they are to be reviled for how they got there.
Open-source support for Vietnamese language (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fiat? (Score:3, Interesting)
#include <truestory.h>
I was in Turin over Christmas visiting some relatives by marriage.
One of the relatives at Christmas dinner was a retired Fiat engineer.
He told a story once about working on a seatbelt design. He sat at his drafting table for days. Nothing. The design eluded him.
Finally, after five days of designer's block, he went home, plodded down to the basement, pulled out the 5 gallon demijohn of wine which is standard equipment in any well-appointed household in Italy, and poured a glass. Then another. And another. Pleasantly buzzed proceeded quickly to plowed and then straight to s-faced.
Deep into his cups, the design for the seatbelt came at last. He napkin-sketched the design and drew it out in full the next day at work.
Having heard this story related to me, I was Enlightened.
Re:hooray! (Score:2, Interesting)
can you name anyone who uses Linux for professional photography editing?
I do. I'm a budding photojournalist and I consider that no event picture should ever need to be photoshopped. As such whatever photo editing I need never really goes past slight exposure correction, fixing white balance, etc.
For montages and stuff, well, that's why you have a graphist.
Of course I am not speaking for professional photographers of the artsy type, but even then I consider that you can do pretty much anything you need with gimp. Photoshopped works often lie more towards computer-generated works than pictures.
Re:Also (Score:2, Interesting)
You hit the nail on the head. Thailand made almost the same decree some six years ago for its government computers. They needed to appear tough on piracy for some reason.
MS didn't want that, so came in, offered to "legitimize" all the government's MS operating systems (by giving them free Win98), then signed a huge contract with Thailand over it. The FOSS movement went away.
Whatever motivated the first declaration (to move to FOSS) also went away, because Thailand immediately went back to being a hotbed of piracy.