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.
Alliances... (Score:5, Funny)
This is cool, but the $24,000 dollar question is - will they go with KDE or Gnome as the default ??
Surely this should be a slashdot poll!
Asian distro defaults...
(o) Vi and Gnome
(o) Vi and KDE
(o) Emacs and Gnome
(o) Emacs and KDE
(o) Cowboy Neal is my interface and text editor, you insensitive clod!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Nano (Score:2)
Re:Nano (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nano (Score:2)
Re:Alliances... (Score:2, Funny)
(disclaimer: I happen to love Emacs, but I can't resist a good joke)
Re:Alliances... (Score:4, Funny)
Load in under 10 seconds?
Re:Alliances... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Alliances... (Score:2, Funny)
Not Emacs, but Mule (Score:2)
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
But will it be OS (Score:5, Interesting)
Can open source be inforced with these governmental development?
Re:But will it be OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But will it be OS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But will it be OS (Score:2, Insightful)
And with a billion+ people, you don't think that these 3 countries will be able to keep up with all of the OSS developments? The question is not *if* the countries may produce closed software, but *why* may they want to.
Re:But will it be OS (Score:3, Informative)
Not true.
Quoted from the peopledaily.com.cn article [peopledaily.com.cn]:
Sources concerned said that as the three nations were heading for the same goal of promoting the cooperation on and development of open source software and pushing forward the campaign of opening source code in the northeast Asia, they agreed to exchange information on open source software, share research results, and make joint efforts on developing open source software of next generation based on the software with freely available s
Re:But will it be OS (Score:2, Funny)
Re:But will it be OS (Score:3, Insightful)
PRC policy is that Tibet is a part of China and happy about it. PRC policy is that Falun Gong is a dissident organisation that must be suppressed. PRC policy is that the events of Tiananmen were justified. And PRC policy is that open source will be kept open source.
Why are you assuming that they're only going to change their mind about the last
Re:But will it be OS (Score:3, Funny)
or the JFK assassination or Lyndon LaRouche.
China as a Linux maker (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.
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:China as a Linux maker (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
If they wanted to keep their code to themselves, then they could just as easily use a BSD as a base, where the license expressedly permits people to take the code and do what they like with it without giving anything back to the community.
Instead, they've chosen Linux, with its more restrictive license, and they've announced they'll be honouring that license.
The Chinese are humans with a capacity for logical thought, not aliens or robots. You can be sure they have considered the benefits and disadvantages of the various options - Linux and the GPL, BSD, or Linux and no GPL leading to conflict with the US and EU. I find it hard to believe they've chosen the last.
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 b
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:5, Insightful)
You will find that all governments (especially the US government) feel "pissed" when they are not "in control", and will use whatever tools at their disposal to gain as much control as possible. The US Govt is a prime example. Look at how they have used tech to gain control of their environment.
So, The advancements that China/etc can make to Linux to make it a better tool for them are going to be used to the collective benefit of ALL linux users, (and I imagine that the BOFH Firewall admins will be especially happy). As for how the tech is used in China as opposed to the rest of the world, well, that is for the Chinese to determine.
So, a government, whether Chinese or not, will always want control... it is their job. Linux, whether modified by the Chinese/etc or not, will be better for the experience.
As for human rights, etc. Well, first you have to ask yourself
gus
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:3, Insightful)
People that took mainly them for granted, and then lost them.
See -
Germans under Hitler
Hong Kong Citizens after the turnover.
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:2, Insightful)
"OSS Violates Human Rights In China" (Score:2)
Just curious what Slashdot editors' position is, since it's apparently so evil for Microsoft to be over there.
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:3, Insightful)
Does the Chinese government have problems? Yes. Do they restrict people's rights more than they should? Yes. Would the Chinese people have been better off if the Guomingdang has won? No.
I have spent almost half of my life in China. I recognize the problems. I'm critical of many things the Chinese government does. I am also very impressed by how much progress has been made without violence.
Gradualism is necessary.
And the Chinese government ISN'T a group of people who follow
Re:Mainland China (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mainland China (Score:2)
While I applaud the 'official' adoption of Linux by these countries, I have to wonder just how much commonality there will be among them, aside from the kernel and a few other tools. The Chinese "Asianux" might have libraries to strictly control what can be looked at/used with it, while the Korean distribution might not have these controls.
Moreover, I'm not all that familiar with the GPL, so could someone explain to me in simple 5-year-old terms
Re:China as a Linux maker (Score:2)
Expected (Score:5, Interesting)
Try reactos. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's also doomed (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Can we please stop saying MS has a monopoly? (Score:2, Informative)
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-232565.html?legac
Re:Can we please stop saying MS has a monopoly? (Score:2)
Re:Can we please stop saying MS has a monopoly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft are considered to have a monopoly because any new OS is caught in the chicken-and-egg problem: nobody will use the new OS because it doesn't support hardware/software, but nobody will code hardware/software support for it because - since nobody is using it - doing so doesn't gain them any customers.
Microsoft may not have acted to create that monopoly, but that isn't necessary for a monopoly to thrive. The last mile problem is still grounds for monopoly regulation of telecoms even though the telecom firms didn't invent the problem.
Look out, Far East (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Look out, Far East (Score:2)
Re:Look out, Far East (Score:2)
Does SCO know about this? (Score:2, Funny)
PROFIT!
Geez. With this, Darl might approach the riches of the head of Ikea [thetick.nl], who recently bumped Gates off the "richest dude" list.
Re:Does SCO know about this? (Score:2)
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/ap/a
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.
Re:Red Flag (Score:3, Informative)
Koreans will go their own way ... (Score:2, Interesting)
SCO filing 1.3 billion lawsuits then? (Score:3, Funny)
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!
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
Re:Asian-language localized UNIX tools (Score:2)
Re:Asian-language localized UNIX tools (Score:2, Informative)
This was discussed when the Asianux thing first came up on
I have enough trouble getting japanese & cyrillic char
Re:Asian-language localized UNIX tools (Score:3, Insightful)
Bob
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...
Re:What about Red Flag? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, I can answer my own question. According to this story from the Korea Herald [koreaherald.co.kr], Red Flag will contributing knowledge, if not helping with the development:
Another example of Microsofts big fear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of an interesting analogy. This could be similar to the Big Iron vs PC issues that happened during the 80's. Everyone wants the speed, responsiveness, and immediate feedback of the PC. From a core OS standpoint, Microsoft just doesn't provide this. If you want a change, such as how it handles your system of written communication, you either pay the big bucks and DIY or wait for them to do it for you. Security issues tend to take longer with Microsoft. Etc, etc...
Microsoft won't ever go away. But I fee that they will become less relevant.
Re:Another example of Microsofts big fear. (Score:2)
Boy, sometimes a typo just says it all, doesn't it?
At least... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's good news and no mistake.
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:I'll believe it when I see... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200403/ kr/index.html [securityspace.com]
which is somewhat a prerequesite for Linux on the desktop. If admins in companies have experience with Linux on servers, only then they will evaluate it on the desktops. It seems Microsoft has already lost the Korea-server market without any hope of gaining ground (When you run Linux, you have more choice of webhosters, have better support and on top pay less.) the desktop is next. It will take much longer than on the servers, but it will happen, especially when the government is helping.
3 countries have different causes (Score:5, Insightful)
For Korea, the most wanted is cheapness of Linux, that will help the country to grow without paying licence fee to the US company.
For China, to kill rampant piracy to meet global standard, Linux is ideal solution, and of course it is free of security backdoor that may be present in software made in the US as GNU/RMS repeats it. You may worry about China use Linux as a tool to suppress free speech, but considering this is a project of 3 countries, such aspect won't be in its contents.
Though 3 countries have different causes, as the initiative of so-called Open Source development is still in the hand of the Western people and internationalization of current OSS is poor, it is no wonder those countries start their own movement.
Re:3 countries have different causes (Score:2, Informative)
Communist OS (Score:2)
Re:Communist OS (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Communist OS (Score:2)
Unfortunately.. (Score:3, Funny)
Don't know about that billion of people (Score:2)
On the other hand one could ask: "What will OSX users say now, until now they've been bashing that OSX is the most widely deployed *X, oh yeah, it has tranlucency"
It was only a matter of time... (Score:2)
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
It's called ASIANUX and it's been around since Jan (Score:2)
They also have a story [internetnews.com] that just ran on Friday about ASIANUX hitting 1.0 Beta and signing up over 40 vendors for certification.
this is still /. right? (Score:2)
this is still
Software as a Public Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Being virtually freely copyable, software is coming close to fitting economists' definition of a public good [auburn.edu] - something that can't be provided to one person without providing it to everyone.
Government action is the only sustainable way to fund public goods, because of the free rider [auburn.edu] problem. This announcement was only a matter of time - and it's only the beginning.
Andrew Klaassen
Why all the negative comments about the news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some have gone as far as calling this unamerican, thereby furthering the hollow arguments put forth by C. Mundie and co. just a few years ago.
There is a lot to be happy about:
*More bug fixes and more features
*Wider and larger hardware support
*Better internationalizaton support
And for those of us that also care about free software, I think the OS will have a slow ripple effect throughout the respective societies of Korea, China and Japan.
Eventually, it will take time, students will be empowered to start their own businesses by having the right tools at their disposal; those in Civil Society will also have an easier time finding likeminded individuals and building issue communities that use the power of open source software to coordinate their activities. All of this will take time, but it is possible.
I think FLOSS, if nothing else, opens a window into altruism and the opportunity to build a more open tomorrow. Those ideas will be the seed of change over a few generations.
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
Apart from one major issue... this sounds ok.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just hoping Christmas Island joins in too.
Re:Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)
These 3 countries are out to save a buck and at the same time try to get a bit of traditional American IT industry, OS making.
I think Americans in generally should be less worried over telemarketing jobs going to India, this is the real threat, the risk that high tech IT jobs moves east, far east.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing wrong with that.
and at the same time try to get a bit of traditional American IT industry, OS making.
Since Linux is not traditional American IT industry software, there is no technological drain happening here. This decision does however have the potential to shrink the market share of a certain technologically stagnated and sloppy American OS vendor but that is only to be expected when this American OS vendor's product sucks bigtime. Another factor is the simple fact that given the USA's obsession with intelligence gathering nobody trusts this American OS vendor not to cave into the pressure to spike its product with backdoors
Re:Yay! (Score:2, Funny)
Aww. Red Hat's not THAT bad...
Re:Yay! (Score:2)
On the server arena the same goes for Windows Server and Linux. For one thing the Windows boxes suck up alot more manhours than Linux does both in terms of administration tasks and security. In the last 6 months exactly one machine in the pool of 22 Linux/AIX/BSD machine
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
This is horrible news! With Sweden claiming the world's richest business man owning IKEA here [cnn.com] , Bill Gates needs all the support he can get to jump back on top. If we all work together and pledge to purchase a copy of Windows XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro we can make the dream happen... we can put Bill back on top and win one for America!! Down with crappy swedish furniture manufacturers and up with global monopolistic software giants! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yay! (Score:2)
Slashdot icon for Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA (Score:3, Funny)
click here [thetick.nl]
Re:Slashdot icon for Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA (Score:2, Funny)
Ah, now look what you've made me done! I smashed my desk to bits.. again.
Re:Yay! (Score:2, Funny)
"Wow! Our ruling class is better than your ruling class!"
Re:Governments don't write code (Score:2, Insightful)
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:It really says something (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It really says something (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:2)
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62806,00 . html [wired.com]
The author of a new book detailing a plan to use a Trojan horse embedded in stolen software to wage economic war against the Soviet Union fired back Thursday at charges the book's revelations are "rubbish."
Thomas C. Reed, a forme
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:4, Informative)
May I ask why you think that IT infrastructure is a sector that government should not touch? I mean, is there a real reason for believing that the private sector is superior in this area?
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:3, Informative)
monopolies are capable of being very good, for example they can make things standardised and there's no waste caused by repeating what's already been done. monopolies are ONLY bad when they act in such a way to
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, no monoculture is good. I don't think it'd be good to see Linux everywhere, I'd like it if there was more than one tool to do the job.
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:2)
MS Windows is a product offered by Microsoft.
Simple enough for you?
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:2)
Let
Re:So the Monopoly is now..... where? (Score:2)
Any single piece of software that happens to be installed everywhere is not neccesarily a bad thing as long as its not owned and controlled by a single company.
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
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.
Re:Potential Target (Score:2, Insightful)
just becuase the software is made in that country (by the PRIVATE SECTOR, only aided by the gov. like it says in the article) doesn't mean that everyone in the oountry will instantly switch..
I've liked in Japan for two years now, I personaly knew only a handful of people that ran any for of *nix on their home computers, and I have met 0 people in Japan that do. People wont just switch, particularly people in asia were it takes decades to change any