Japan, China, S Korea Agree To Standardize Linux 270
Ooi writes "Japan Today News reports: 'The governments of Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to work together to come up with an alternative computer operating system to reduce reliance on Microsoft's Windows, the Yomiuri and Nihon Keizai newspapers reported Sunday.
According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely. The agreement was signed in Beijing on Saturday by senior government officials from the three countries.'
Australian IT has an article on the issue prior to the meeting." A few weeks ago, I spoke at the Asia OSS meeting in Hanoi of which the three gov'ts above are also members. There's a very serious commitment to OSS especially among the governments represented there.
But will it be OS (Score:5, Interesting)
Can open source be inforced with these governmental development?
China as a Linux maker (Score:5, Interesting)
Expected (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:3, Interesting)
What's to stop them disobeying (in particular, their Government) the GPL and doing what they like with the code?
Who would be able to prosecute them? Who would care enough?
The chinese government will do with linux what they want. And no-one wants to stop them, because you can't piss of the Chinese Government, as its too big a market for imports and exports.
Try reactos. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:2, Interesting)
True enough, but if they're going to settle on an official OS this seems like a best-case scenario. Imagine how much more control they would have if the Chinese government were to write their own, closed-source OS. Even if it is a crime to modify the OS, I wonder how easy that would be to enforce.
Re:Expected (Score:5, Interesting)
On another angle, why did the U.S. and Europe bother suing Microsoft? If they didn't like Microsoft's monopoly abuses, all each of these governments had to do is leverage their buying power. "We demand you unbunndle, stop, etc, or we will take our business elsewhere." That would have been far more effective and quicker than the courts.
Once governments switch, their contractors and vendors and others who communicate with them may switch too -- to be compatible. The same domino effect that help Microsoft be where they are today.
Red Flag (Score:5, Interesting)
At least China already has some experience in this market. Kudos for supporting OSS and maybe (if that actually write any code) helping Linux improve even faster.
Asian-language localized UNIX tools (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, the apt-get software is a key tool in the system administrator's arsenel. It has a relatively simple command line syntax, but it is obviously in English, and therefore would pose a problem for Japanese, Chinese or Korean administrators wanting to come rapidly up to speed. What would people think about tools like apt-get being re-engineered to include a language abstraction layer, so locales could be exchanged like plugins, to customise the tool for new countries? In fact, this type of localisation need not be limited merely to language changes. Entire cultural paradigms could be replicated via a plug-in system. For example, in Chinese markets the apt-get package management model could be described as a yum-cha cart, bringing tasty morsels of .deb packages to each table, or system. The package database would be the little card the attendant checks when you receive each plate, or in this case, .deb package
I look forward to the community's response!
What about Red Flag? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how this will fare for Red Flag Linux [redflag-linux.com] (English [redflag-linux.com])? Nothing like a government-sponsored monopoly to cut into profits...
I'll believe it when I see... (Score:5, Interesting)
Korean Ebay is IE6 only, Korean banks offer internet banking only to IE6 users, Many Korean government websites don't function properly with anything but IE6, etc. etc.
I've been seeing articles about Korea's "committment to Linux" for a long time, but I've yet to see any evidence that the Korean web is anything other than completely and utterly owned by Microsoft.
Re:It really says something (Score:3, Interesting)
As the old line says, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"
*looking around my house* Windows 2k, XP, 2k, 98, 2k... yea... I'm screwed.
Re:Yay! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:4, Interesting)
If Western software was being pirated by China, you'd expect the US to do something about it, right? The only problem is that that same software is the biggest competitor to the US's biggest software developer, who's also a major contributor to campaign funds.
Want to talk about conflict of interest?
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:2, Interesting)
An OS monopoly wouldn't be a too bad thing, really. If true OS, you'd still have the ability to choose from several product because the OS certified licenses aren't allowed to bind you to certain products iirc. Besides, if you really like a certain project but don't agree with things,, you can always fork and take matters into your own hands.
Anyways, the MS monopoly doesn't have to be horrible either. If MS decided to open up ALL win32 APIs, used PURE and UNENCRYPTED XML markup for Office documents, made all components in the OSes optional with an option to not install them in the first place and a few more things I can't think of atm, then the MS monoply would be allot less worse. Of course, this is Slashdot, people around here will always find something about MS to throw a fit at, just like some pro-MS sites will always manage to find something about Linux/OSS to throw a fit about.
Koreans will go their own way ... (Score:2, Interesting)
L
Re:Alliances... (Score:3, Interesting)
The vi vs emacs question is irrelevant to everyone but developers, and then only a small group of developers. For simple system editing you don't need to have either on your system:
NE editor:
http://ne.dsi.unimi.it/ [unimi.it]
Since the concerns of these goverments are for everyday users their concerns will be for ease of use and so far KDE is ahead if for nothing else its similarity to windows.
Just my opinion
Steve
apt-get available only in English? (Score:2, Interesting)
I use Debian and I can see messages like below
"Package list wo yomikondeimasu"
"Ika no tokubetu package ga install saremasu"
"26 upgraded, 41 newly installed, sakujo: 146 ko horyuu: 12 ko"
mostly Japanese message.
But,IMHO,apt-get localization is rather irrelevant;One can't administer system if one don't have enough intelligence to understand relatively simple apt-get messages.
In these internet days , language localization for administrative tools are nonessential and unimportant...every administrator should learn some level of English.
Someday sysad may get a mail from foregin Mailer-Daemon
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate to break the blindingly obvious to you but:
No one has a monopoly on Linux!
They can't! It's free software. I can sell Linux, you can sell Linux, we all can sell Linux. And we can all have our own versions too.
You're worrying about a problem that does not exist.
Some may say this is a good thing, but to me this is government intereferance in a sector they should not touch.
And why shouldn't they touch it? So they can keep sending money off to a foreign country for something that could be handled domestically?
God forbid the g'ovt step forward and support something which benfits everyone, and only gets BETTER the more people use it.
The g'ovt has no business getting people to come together and help each other find a solution to a common problem at little or no cost?
It might destroy someone's profits and as we all know, once you make a profit with your business, the gov't is supposed to do anything in their power to continue that profit, even if your business model is totally outmoded.
Re:It's also doomed (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming all that, what happens when they get a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft owing to the fact that their entire GUI is an almost exact rip-off of Windows NT, including bundled apps like the text editor, and that they all use the same name as the stuff in Windows. What's the use of an OS that's no longer being developed owing to the fact that its core team has just been shipped off to a Gulag camp somewhere in Antarctica? It's not going to keep up with Microsoft very long under those conditions.
OSS Meeting not so OPEN (Score:2, Interesting)
An interesting observation from participants was the question about continuous effort and follow-up actions. Instead of hosting workshop to discuss future co-operation, visits to local companies was arranged.
During the meeting, Redfalg CEO has claimed they have build a new distribution "ASIANUX" as the foundation of all Asia Linux distributions.
The question is that do we yet need another standard given LSB has been publicly accepted and who is RF to claim such statement...
Re:Why all the negative comments about the news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares if it's un-American? The majority of the world are not Americans.
Bob
Re:OSS Meeting not so OPEN (Score:2, Interesting)
Moreover, it seems that some people is feedup with Redflag and effort is gearing up to promote another state-owned distribution. I thought the government understood that state-owned enterprises were generally non- competitive and that's the cause for massive restructurse that took place in the past decade...and if it is not competitive in traditional industries what would make a difference now in the IT industry???
Lastly, many regional distributions were not invited to the meeting and if there are many differences in China, how do they expect it to work with 3 countries
Re:Koreans will go their own way ... (Score:2, Interesting)
BTW you know very little about Linux - flash, javascript and popups (unless you disable them) all work on all the major Linux browsers. I am sure that the Korean version of Joe six-pack (Here in Canada he is Joe twenty-four-pack) knows nothing about Linux but I can assure you that in the Korean government and the big corporations they know a lot about Linux they are not going to let themselves get left behind by China and Japan.
What you must understand is that this is all about setting up a standards base for asian Linux distributions to adhere to, together with related certification. It is not to develop one "official" distro for the three players.