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Linux Business GNU is Not Unix Technology

South Korea Jumps To Open Source Software 287

Posted by timothy from the ka-jha dept.
mormop writes "Following on from the news that a far-eastern Linux distro is on the way, silicon.com is carrying news that South Korea is switching $300,000,000 worth of PCs to Open Source Software. The only question now is will Steve Ballmer be capable of covering the sort of distance needed to pull back all these switching governments before collapsing with exhaustion, or is he en route for the Air Miles record?"
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South Korea Jumps To Open Source Software More

South Korea Jumps To Open Source Software

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  • Simple (Score:3, Funny)

    by blitzoid ( 618964 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @05:52PM (#7108314) Homepage
    MS will just buy an airline to keep from paying those high travel costs for Balmer. It's the sensible thing to do!

    But I wouldn't wanna fly on it... they'll probably innovate the control systems with .NET and Passport, so if someone were to check their hotmail they might accidentally trigger the CRASH_INTO_MOUNTAIN subroutine.
    • Doesn't MS already own a plane or 2 ?

      Or perhaps it's Bill who has a private jet. Note that this is almost a trivial purchase for any Billionaire.

    • Re:Simple (Score:3, Interesting)

      by airConditionedGypsy ( 703864 )
      So, this isn't too far from the truth.

      Remember the big power outage in the northeast a month ago? (of course you do)

      Well, the next day while I waited with a bunch of other folks in the sweltering subterranean heat of Penn Station, I was horrified to see that all the ticket machines had friendly little Windows dialog and error boxes popped up, screaming about not being able to restart properly.

      What a ubiquitous piece of software.

      • There is a huge display billboard on the 405 freeway near Long Beach, CA, that plays all sorts of nifty animated advertisements. One day it was almost completely filled with a huge Windows error box.

    • Re:Simple (Score:3, Funny)

      by arcanumas ( 646807 )
      But I wouldn't wanna fly on it... they'll probably innovate the control systems with .NET and Passport,

      Naahhh. They just want YOU to use .NEt and Passport. They run THEIR important systems on Linux. (www.microsoft.com)

    • Re:Simple (Score:5, Funny)

      by Geek of Tech ( 678002 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @07:30PM (#7109132) Homepage Journal
      > But I wouldn't wanna fly on it... they'll probably innovate the control systems with .NET and Passport, so if someone were to check their hotmail they might accidentally trigger the CRASH_INTO_MOUNTAIN subroutine.

      I don't see your point. What in your history with Microsoft make you think that their CRASH_INTO_MOUNTAIN subroutine would actually work? :P

  • Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Open SARS software?
  • In a dark candle lit cavern beneath redmond, Uncle Fester and his staff are dancing and clapping around a black butterfly- chanting devlepers, Developers DEVELOPERS!

  • well (Score:3, Funny)

    by xao gypsie ( 641755 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @05:58PM (#7108355)
    we have all seen him dance......the dude has pretty good stamina. personally, i imagine he will be dancing himself silly to the heads of each government only to find that its hard to convince people your OS is better when you dance like my grandmother after a bottle and a half of wine....

    xao
    • For some reason that brought to mind that ridiculous Dance of Profuse Apology Archer had to make to the leaders of some planet in Enterprise's "A night in Sickbay".

      I wonder how many country's sacred trees Balmer's dog has relieved itself on...

    • its hard to convince people your OS is better when you dance like my grandmother after a bottle and a half of wine....

      The dude dances worse than MY Grandmother.
      ...and she's been dead for 8 years now.
  • Just when you finally thought it wasn't going to happen, it finally does. We will at last have the year of unix but it will be linux. Oh well good to see just the same.

  • Summary misquotes story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeepRedux ( 601768 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:01PM (#7108380)
    The summary says that "South Korea is switching $300,000,000 worth of PCs to Open Source", but the story says that "if the change is successful, we will be able to save about US$300m a year."

    The amount of savings is not the same as the worth of the PCs.

  • the last paragraph is most intriguing.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tokengeekgrrl ( 105602 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:01PM (#7108383)
    "Last month, Japan, China and South Korea met in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to sign an agreement to jointly research and develop non-Windows, open source OS."

    Wouldn't it be great if state governments (yes, I'm fixated on state governments because I work for one but also because it is the public's money that is being spent) here in the US would do the same thing? I've seen individual states start various research projects but no larger effort that leverages all the resources in all states.

    Tangent: my graduate thesis is going to be on why governments should have an open source technology preferential mandate given the cost-savings and total ownership provided by doing so. Call me crazy but I really believe that government should always choose the least expensive option whenever possibe. Currently, you ask for funding for a project and once you get it the rule is use it or lose it, thus, more money is spent than is really necessary for most projects in order to keep the funding for future years.

    - tokengeekgrrl

    • Wouldn't it be great if state governments (yes, I'm fixated on state governments because I work for one but also because it is the public's money that is being spent) here in the US would do the same thing

      So you are saying there should be 50 slighly different distros?

      No thanks.

      • ...distros build colloboratively by the IT departments from various state governments.

        I realize it would most likely have to occur on departmental levels, for example, I work for the courts and develop case management systems so I would work with the IT departments of other courts in other states.

        The current system in place for some of my appellate courts are based on a system that was developed by a vendor for a different state but since it's proprietary to the vendor, we can't enhance it so we have to r

        • so I would work with the IT departments ... in other states

          This is the thing I really wonder about with OSS. Will the various users of OSS create an Epseranto like landscape of compatible systems, or will the whole thing turn into a spaghetti code "platform of Babel?"

          People get all excited about "The Chinese/Koreans/Germans/Brazilians are endorsing Linux! Yeah!" What's not mentioned is the variation in distros. Knowing how bureaucrats love to create their own empires, I think the conditions for distro he

    • Yes, least cost keeps spaceships in orbit, people off of the streets, and kids disease free! Please, qualify your statements. :)
    • I'd really like to see ministries/departments of education across the english speaking world get together to create open-source textbooks for elementary & highschool subjects.

    • Re:the last paragraph is most intriguing.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nsda's_deviant ( 602648 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:12PM (#7108486)
      I'm not positive about the cost effectiveness of open source (yet) but there are two issues in south korea that must be taken into consideration that is more unique than the US. First, SK is hugelly dependent on MS everything, penetration in UNIX-LINUX-MAC OS X is almost negligible and the past 2 years of worms have devestated the tech infastructure to the point that billions are lost consistantlly when a MS worm is unleashed. Using Linux would then offer a new possibility of being MS independent so they can patch when they want as soon as possible. The Second problem stems from the huge dependence on IE. South Korean portals like Daum.net and hundreds of others are designed almost exculusivelly for IE. There will have to be huge changes made to site infastrcture-design and even business models for web companies if a signifigant minority of the population starts using Mozilla.

      The proclimation is interesting because it doesn't guarantee anything. Future prospects of a success would be monumental and could set a future example for dozens of countries. Here's hoping the South Korean population can make the switch

      • I'm coming from the perspective... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by tokengeekgrrl ( 105602 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:40PM (#7108725)
        ...that I am currently re-writing proprietary applications bought from vendors, (one client-server app based on Oracle powerbuilder and another 32-bit windows-based). Once my team is done, we will own the code but the technology underneath (I'm thinking of Oracle specifically and other middleware applications) will still be owned by someone else. Once say Oracle decides to no longer support whichever of their products we are using, we have to upgrade and re-program it again if necessary, etc...

        Basically, I think the cost-effectiveness will be recognizeable in the longterm because of the total ownership over the technology and investment made into resources so I understand your point in regards to open source by itself not necessarily being cost-effective. I have worked in the state government for 5+ years which, while not an extraordinarily long period of time, has revealed to me the expensive process that is endured with throwing money into "current" technology only to have it fade away within a few years and require replacing.

        But you are quite right in that open source does not guarantee anything but it does offer great potential.

        - tokengeekgrrl

    • Re:the last paragraph is most intriguing.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dubStylee ( 140860 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:22PM (#7108568)
      Wouldn't it be great if state governments ... Did you read about Oregon's open source bill? It didn't make it through the legislature but it came pretty close. One great thing about the bill is that the actual wording mentioned not only cost savings, but the issues of local control, of keeping public information resources accessible, of preventing spyware or adware being installed and others. More info here [state.or.us]
      • ...but I have now, thanks! :)

        I think local control is as important as cost savings. From my experience, it is often overlooked as something desirable because some government managers don't want the full responsibility that brings, they always want to be able to point their finger at a vendor. I think the public deserves better than that.

        - tokengeekgrrl
    • . Call me crazy but I really believe that government should always choose the least expensive option whenever possibe

      A government is not a business. I was once told that a business is run to maximize profits, and a government is run to maximize fairness. Governments don't run like this. If they did, things like the US mail wouldn't be guaranteed to everybody. It'd be too expensive to run mail out to people in the country. Paved roads? Again, only in populated areas where the tax money can support it
      • Since there is only so much money to go around to fund IT infrastructure/application development, an integral part of my dept's mandate is to be cost-effective in order to be fair to all users across the state (which is a significant group since I'm in CA).

        In light of that clarification, I don't think your comparison to US mail or paved roads or education or my deciding which candy bar to buy (twixt is my current favorite) is really applicable. ;)

        - tokengeekgrrl
    • Yes, US states are suffering budget constraints, but the purchase price of software is small potatoes in the US compared to the cost of personnel. People costs such as training and support far outweight what you save in the initial software purchase, and I don't think open source benefits from simple-minded economic arguments ("it's free!") that lead to "policy mandates" from above that fail on the front lines and make everybody cranky.

      Over time, though, open source software will get easier to use and peop
    • Wouldn't it be great if state governments [...] here in the US would do the same thing? I've seen individual states start various research projects but no larger effort that leverages all the resources in all states.

      More specifically, the states that opposed the DoJ settlement and pursued their own settlement should be the ones to lead the charge. Since their claim is that they have been ripped off by Microsoft, why should they be content to continue to be ripped off by the toothless DoJ settlement? The
    • "Last month, Japan, China and South Korea met in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to sign an agreement to jointly research and develop non-Windows, open source OS."

      Maybe South Korea should first invest more money (the 300 umptilion they seem to save here) into better education of their admins (I count every user as admin here). They are one of the biggest sources of spam, last I saw, and the reason for that is ratio of boxes with big pipes vs. capable admins/users over there. Mind you, I'm not saying
  • South Korea hopes to save $300M by converting 20% of desktops and 30% of servers. They must have a hell of a lot of computers! Or a really bad bulk licensing deal. Although why they's stop at 20% I don't know... in their shoes, I'd probably try to convert about 95% (assuming some systems need non-WINE-able legacy software for some reason).
    • This plan is to do it by 2007. Perhaps the rest ain't ready to be replaced yet? You don't replace a perfectly good fully paid up machine just to make a point. Well not when you are a goverment.

      Also this is perhaps a test. A BIG HUGE WHOPPER of test but nonetheless a test. By not replacing everything at one they are very likely not going to find themselves suddenly unable to send email or something silly because someone forgot a tiny little server somewhere.

      This is really a first. I think, unless I missed

    • Simply because it's a wide scale test. Right now, Linux users are blocked from "several key Korean web-based services" and it looks like South Korea is trying to remedy that. I expect that given that the general landscape hasn't changed by 2007 and the test is successful, they'll slowly roll their entire infrastructure over. Note that they cited security as a principal reason for the switch...
    • They must have a hell of a lot of computers!

      You don't play many computer games, do ya?

  • Logical for Non-US companies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:04PM (#7108408) Homepage
    One thing that companies outside the US (Germany, China, South Korea, South American nations, etc) is that employing Microsoft is really only good for Microsoft.

    But by switching to Open Source for the government, there are several benefits that "trickle down":

    1. Programmers within the specified nations are now employed, which keeps money inside the country.

    2. The advances that come from Open Source software can be then used in businesses inside the country, which reduces there expenses, and if more development/administration is needed, they can look inside their own country rather than going elsewhere.

    3. Exportability. If you have a country with top engineers in Open Source, and another country happens to need those, you are now in a better position to export those services.

    I'm not quite with the "governments should make laws forcing Open Source down people's throats", but I am in support of measures that will give them control over their own software destiny.

    Granted - as long as they play by the rules of the GPL, BSD, and other licenses.
    • I'm not quite with the "governments should make laws forcing Open Source down people's throats"

      No person may have Free Software (or opensource code) shoved down his throat. Companies may have "Free Software" forced on them - but they're not people, and their interests in this case do not coincide with those of the people.

      Anyhow, counter this with:
      * I am not quite with the "governments should make laws forcing Freedom down people's throats"
      The negative association is only added by the "throats" part, and
    • I'm not quite with the "governments should make laws forcing Open Source down people's throats",

      In this case, at least, the government isn't really forcing open source down people's throats. What they are doing with the 30% mandate is they're seeding the space with enough PCs running Open Source that the market can't just blithely ignore the existence of anything non-MS.

      At that point, people really have a choice. If OS turns their crank, then they know that the market will support most/all that they w

    • Well we are billies bitch here in the UK, Microsoft got to do alot of the government portal stuff and guess what! It only really works well with windows.

      James

  • OSS unemployment? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bladernr ( 683269 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:04PM (#7108410)

    I am in a position of managing development and procuring hardware and software. I have used Open-Source Software (OSS) instead of Commericial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications recently; I have moved some of my development overseas to India recently.

    In hindsight, what I notice, is that I did both for the same reasons. While the COTS applications have lots of advantages (support, professional services, a vendor to yell at), OSS' price was right, and it was good enough. There are a lot of problems with off-shore development (time, politics, control), but, its good-enough, and the price is right.

    I know of COTS software companies whose chief competitors are OSS solutions. As a customer, I have picked OSS over COTS. The companies have had layoffs. Imagine if lots of people decided to work on auto assembly lines in the spare time; what would that do to the gainful employment for auto workers?

    I'm not advocating anything, I just think that it is important to remember that jobs are lost due to OSS as well as foreign outsourcing. On /., we focus on losses due to outsourcing, but ignore the OSS losses (because this community, including me, tends to be pro-OSS and anti-offshore). In some cases, those losses are the same, when OSS work is done in foreign countries. If you want to be protectionist by making it harder to off-shore work, shouldn't you also be trying to limit OSS?

    On the other side, if you want openness, shouldn't we have openness in labor markets as well as software?

    Just food for thought...

    • With OSS you get a customizable product with less (formal) vendor support.
      As a customer, this is cheap to buy AND gives you extra flexibility, but OTOH you need to buy service instead.

      So you shift the cost of purchase to the cost of service, with the advantage of independance from a single vendor and possibility to customize the software more to your liking.

      A standard (COTS) product can be produced off short. The service for OSS however must be (partially) provided by someone who is on-site, i.e. is harde

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by donnz ( 135658 )
      Well, experiences differ. When we started our campany 6 years agao there were five of us. Now there are 32 of us. Like 80% of the software industry we develop bespoke solutions. OSS has hugely enhanced our capability to deliver complex solutions using best of breed technology for a fraction of the cost.

      Services companies like our will easily take up the slack of product companies. Just remember, we are a services industry and the cost of our tools detract from what can be delivered for a given amount of mo

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Peaker ( 72084 )
      I'm not advocating anything, I just think that it is important to remember that jobs are lost due to OSS as well as foreign outsourcing. On /., we focus on losses due to outsourcing, but ignore the OSS losses (because this community, including me, tends to be pro-OSS and anti-offshore). In some cases, those losses are the same, when OSS work is done in foreign countries. If you want to be protectionist by making it harder to off-shore work, shouldn't you also be trying to limit OSS?

      You start with agreeabl

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have used Open-Source Software (OSS) instead of Commericial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications recently

      First of all, COTS and OSS are orthagonal concepts. Is Red Hat COTS or OSS in your view?

      Second I _hope_ you don't just download something off the net and call it a day! Free/Open requires commercial support just like non-Free/Open software.

      The difference between Free and non-Free is the licensing model and the lack of "use" and "copy" restrictions. By making a dichotomy between "commercial" and "o

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Master Bait ( 115103 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:44PM (#7108750) Homepage Journal
      You forget that many COTS companies have also lost their livelihood due to the monopolization of commercial software by Microsoft.

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by consumer ( 9588 )
      That's crazy talk. People gain jobs from OSS. OSS allows them to get good at programming or other technical work without paying a lot of money to learn it. Companies that use OSS employ people (like me) to write code with it. Anyone who was good at writing code for IIS should be able to switch to a job writing code for Apache, unless they are unwilling to learn it. The only ones who potentially suffer are the ones who got paid by Microsoft to create IIS, and they ought to be able to find something else

    • Re:OSS unemployment? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AxelBoldt ( 1490 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:58PM (#7108886) Homepage
      jobs are lost due to OSS as well as foreign outsourcing.

      Jobs aren't lost due to foreign outsourcing, they are simply moved from one country to another country which arguably needs them more.

      Clearly, jobs are lost due to OSS. Jobs are lost due to all programming, and due to all automatization. After all, it is the very point of technical progress that machines do the work that otherwise humans would have to do. Obviously, the better we make our machines (and programs), the more jobs will be lost.

    • Not all jobs are "lost" to OSS. I maintain a perl module. I do so on the clock. It was a "product" that my company needed, but we needed some additional functionality. The original maintainer was unable to continue, so he turned it over to me. I get to work on an open source project, other people benefit from the work I do (well, they will once I complete testing and release it), and I get paid. What could be better?

  • Or bluffing as a negotiating tactic (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:04PM (#7108411)
    S Korea may just be using this as a threat to get MS to negotiate on price and/or features. Until recently, govts (and large companies) haven't really had much of a credible alternative to Windows, so they haven't been able to use their incredible scale as purchasing and negotiating power. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS and S Korea come to a deal in six months time...
    • S Korea may just be using this as a threat to get MS to negotiate on price and/or features. Until recently, govts (and large companies) haven't really had much of a credible alternative to Windows, so they haven't been able to use their incredible scale as purchasing and negotiating power. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS and S Korea come to a deal in six months time...

      Oh I don't doubt that MS will discount heavily over the coming months, but if you have any knowledge of Korea at all, you know that there

  • Which of S.Korea's state subsidized monopolies... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Osrin ( 599427 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:05PM (#7108419) Homepage
    ... will take the lead in this do you think? Hyundai, Samsung or LG?

    S.Korea had a similar plan during the 70s when they subsidized the big three to each develop and market their own version of Unix in the hope that they would be able to undercut the Americans.
  • And people are starting to realize this.

    I'm not just talking Linux. BSD, Plan 9, maybe the BeOS projects soon and a number of other players are all distribuing with some form of open source license.

    The IP of some of these is absolutely unassailable ( I'd like to see SCO claim rights to Plan 9 ).

    During the antitrust trial one of the statments Bill made in his defence was "I'm just one good idea away from oblivion."

    Well, there are lots of good ideas floating about freely these days and more on the way.

    Fo

    • Wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by NineNine ( 235196 )
      The effective cost of an OS is now $0

      That's wrong. I gladly pay for my W2K licenses because it helps me get more work done quicker. For me to learn how to use Linux, it would take me many, many hours. Time is money, kiddo. No OS is free.
      • Might want to start investing in your own future and learn another OS. Otherwise your time might be as valuable as an Amiga operator...
        • Might want to start investing in your own future and learn another OS.

          My job isn't to learn OS's. I have a business to run. Not everybody is an IT geek. I pay MS a few hundred, install the software, then go on with my life.
          • Not everyone is in IT I would agree. But just imagine if MS went away tomorrow, where would you be? Even non-IT people can benefit from learning other tools besides MS.

            • Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Flamebait)

              by NineNine ( 235196 )
              Not everyone is in IT I would agree. But just imagine if MS went away tomorrow, where would you be? Even non-IT people can benefit from learning other tools besides MS.

              I'd be in more trouble if the sun suddenly exploded tomorrow, which is about as likely. What IS more likely is using an obscure OSS package, then the kid who wrote it, say, gets kicked out of college, and doesn't have broadband at his parent's house, so he can't support it any more. Or, the OSS company that wrote it goes belly up. Call m

              • Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Jord ( 547813 )
                Who said it had to be OSS? Locking yourself into ANY one vendor is nuts. I can remember back when business owners couldn't be bothered to learn how to use a computer themselves and would rather have an assistant do all that "techno stuff" for them. I now know quite a few of them that are out of jobs and cannot get a job because they are suddenly lack experience in crucial areas. The world of technology is a lot bigger than just one company no matter how big that company is. Tying yourself to any one co

              • Wow (Score:2)

                by MarkusQ ( 450076 )

                ...imagine if MS went away tomorrow, where would you be?

                I'd be in more trouble if the sun suddenly exploded tomorrow, which is about as likely.

                Wow. I hope your job doesn't depend on your ability to judge odds. Major US corporations go away on a regular basis (at least one a decade); their life expectancy is well under 10^2 years. G class stars explode--almost never. But even if we charitably count all failure modes as "explosions" they still last on the order of 10^10 years, a ratio of a hundred

              • What IS more likely is using an obscure OSS package, then the kid who wrote it, say, gets kicked out of college, and doesn't have broadband at his parent's house, so he can't support it any more. Or, the OSS company that wrote it goes belly up.

                I know that you're a troll, and I shouldn't bother to answer. But if this is your picture of open source software, then you were living under a rock for at least the last 3-5 years. OSS is supported and actively developed by more than one big company.

                Or, the OSS c
      • That is exactly what most of us here on slashdot want you to do. You stick with your W2K half assed closed platform while the rest of us cut you off at the knee's. Say you walk into a customer and throw down your cool web app based on the great .not platform. The customers first reaction is going to be shock when you tell him he will need a sql server oh yes with enterprise licensing and on top of that a web server that will need to be patched daily and need to have a ton of ram just to run windows. Now bei

  • A foot in the door.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Haxwell ( 229790 )
    or camels nose under the tent, whatever way you want to explain it, this is very cool. Something I just realized, if enough governments or corporate arenas move to open source software, inertia will help us bring down Microsoft because they will have to create there software to interoperate. If they don't, their current customers will not be able to communicate as effectively with our open source bretheren. The tables will have turned. The tables are turning. Thats very cool.

  • Blizzard (Score:5, Funny)

    by lobsterGun ( 415085 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:07PM (#7108440)

    I would think that this would mean that we will be seeing more games coming out for Linux (at least from Blizzard).
    • Yes. 30% of servers and 20% of desktop computers at organizations where people are supposed to work is exactly where computer games are played. Blizzard would be wise to exploit this linux market

      From the article, this seems like a boon for mozilla users in SK. This probably means more OpenOffice users and that's another positive. And if this pans out, more people in SK would be receptive to try Linux at home. But unfortunately, Linux has quite a ways to go before it really becomes an enticing game ma
    • How many LEGAL copies of starcraft sold in SC?
      Does anyone have the stats for this? I was under the impression that it's mostly piracy...
  • when governments jump onto bandwagons like this? Sure, Linux is great software, the GPL is a solid license, Microsoft is the Demon of the Decade but most of the politicians (in the UK) don't actively use email so why is it that they now suddenly "get" OSS?

    Is it their enthusiastic advisors plugging OSS? Then I hope they have a good alibi if their bosses "understanding" doesn't match their expectations - it's a good start but politicians sometimes have a "midas" touch on these issues. Except it's not gold i
  • Yesterday, North Korea has switched all their 7 PCs to RedHat Linux. That makes them second MS-free economy in the world (first was, of course, The Principality of Sealand [sealandgov.com]. Film at 11

  • Browsers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rdean400 ( 322321 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:14PM (#7108502)
    Makes it seem like all the pundits who called the browser wars OVER were a bit premature in their declaration. With non-U.S. governments going whole hog to non-proprietary products, Mozilla, Konqueror, and other open source products will finally see their share rise at the expense of IE (what else is there to rob from?). When the U.S. becomes a small subset of web users, IE's market share will be less like a monopoly and more like a realistic competitor.
  • ...or is he en route for the Air Miles record?"

    That's just silly. Why would Ballmer need to use commercial aviation when he's Dancing Flying MonkeyBoy! As the Wicked Wizard of the Pacific NorthWest sends him aloft, cackling "I'll get those Ruby Hats yet, my pretties!!!! Eyy Hehehehehehehehehe!!!!"

  • Language support. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcgDE ... net minus distro> on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:20PM (#7108548) Homepage Journal
    One thing I have to give Microsoft credit for is their foreign-language support and Asian IME's. I had to set up a Linux box for a friend with both Traditional and Simplified Chinese support, and it was nasty to try and figure out. The final result was not quite as simple and easy-to-use as what you'd find in OS X or Windows.

    In the light of this, the decision of Eastern governments like China and Korea to go with open-source software is all the more significant. To me, it indicates that they are more than willing to deal with software that may not be as good to gain the benefits of OSS.
    • Oops, you haven't been following this story completly have you?

      Foreign language support has always been a mess in MS software. Sure it may look good enough when as a primarly english user you occasianly have to use a foreign language. It just doesn't seem to be good enough when your english ehm sucks.

      Their unicode support blows for one, having once again ruined a standard. Try reading a simple text file with asian text on another OS. Good luck.

      The entire reason the asain countries like OSS so much is tha

      • "So wether OSS is better or not is not really the point. For them at least it is better in that they can alter it themselves and not have to depend on a company in america to please please support all the local languages."

        You're absolutely right about that. Application-level support in Windows is pretty bad. I was thinking more along the lines of the Chinese/Korean IMEs that were offered a year or so ago when I was trying to get it up and running. That was using RedHat 7.3, so that gives you an idea of
  • i think ballmer would appreciate some knee-pads in his stocking this year. i say we chip in and buy him some, along with a Fodor's travel guide.

    and for billy gates? how about a buggy whip?

    i'm serious, btw.

  • I'm really happy about this line: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) * on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:21PM (#7108560) Homepage Journal
    As a first step, organisations including South Korea's Industry Promotion Agency and Korea Association of Information and Telecommunication will switch to open source software such as the Linux operating system and Mozilla web browser for both desktop PCs and servers.

    I've just been to two websites in the last five minutes (www.iams.com and www.thefermentedgrape.com) that did not cooperate with Mozilla. Iams' had a text version; the other is a wine brewing store just down the street, so I'll be able to talk to them directly (gak! RealWorld!). Perhaps -- I'm the overly optimistic sort sometimes -- a country with 48 million people switching to Mozilla (yes, government != joe user) will make the odd web developer realize that not fucking everybody uses IE.

    (ObDisclaimers: I realize that two web sites are not a huge deal. Most of the time I'm happy to write off the site in question and move on. The instructions did specifically state that I shouldn't taunt Happy Fun Ball.)

  • One thing I've noticed is that many organizations and countries have been switching to open source software just because it's not Microsoft. They're sick and tired of Microsoft's ruthless and illegal business practices, and quite frankly I don't blame them.

    The problem is that OSS is not the golden hammer solution to every problem. Some systems are better off being built using propritary software, especially when you need someone who will "just fix it" if it breaks, or has a whole suite of solutions that wo

  • basic problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by trb ( 8509 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2003 @06:32PM (#7108650)
    Would you rather pay a bunch of money for an encumbered proprietary tool or get an approximately equivalent unencumbered tool for close to free? I don't see how MS can defend itself in this battle.
  • the next 10 years will be very interesting.
    I do not see how microsoft will survive..
    I mean they are and arent like IBM, see, IBM had much more going for it than an operating system.
    they had PC's, servers, and all kinds of hardware, they flopped in the PC and OS category, and microsoft and independent PC makers kicked them aside, IBM has thrived on helping opensource, manufacturing computer hardware, etc. they have a survival plan. now they back free software, because hey, it's just software, you gotta have

  • Looks like the Evil Empire is going to lose, and lose big, in the Far East. The Rebel Alliance is growing increasingly strong in Korea, along with Japan and China.

    Personally, I favour the domino theory: once Linux is being used in 10-20% of the computers in these countries, more and more countries will choose freedom with Linux and OSS. First in the government infrastructure, then business and home users.

    Microsoft will be unable to stem the tide in the server sector. They'll hold on longer on the busin

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