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South Korean Gov't. Advocates Linux 232

Posted by timothy from the alternatives-are-worse dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "Korea has now taken the plunge on the Linux operating system, and is now starting to advocate Linux for use in government and public sector applications. South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communications announced the move today, which will result in decreased Microsoft market share in the region." According to the article, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication "will provide a total of 3 billion won (US$2.95 million) for government agencies which want to use the Linux and other open-source computer programs this year."
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South Korean Gov't. Advocates Linux More

South Korean Gov't. Advocates Linux

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  • US in trouble ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mirko ( 198274 )
    Last month, they converted some of their assets in dollars, now they are getting away from USA's most fortunate software company ?
    Is there some policy here ?

    • Re:US in trouble ? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, both the US$ and MS are becoming less competitive.

    • Re:US in trouble ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mirko ( 198274 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:26AM (#12074481) Journal
      Oops, I meant not in but from Dollars to Euros [pravda.ru].
      And no, it was not meant to be a flamebait but just a question.

      • Re:US in trouble ? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RoLi ( 141856 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:42AM (#12074934)
        The USA cannot maintain an enormous trade deficit forever, so the devaluation of the dollar is just a matter of time.
        • Actually it can. The trade deficit is not a very large part of GDP. I'm not saying it should, but it can, so long as the GDP stays high.

          • The trade deficit is not a very large part of GDP.

            Despite the impressive size of US GDP, around US$10 trillion annually, the trade deficit is still a much larger percentage of GDP than any other nation's trade deficit. About 6% last year. About US$5 per day per U.S. resident.

            If I were to take out loans constituting 6% of my annual income each year, it wouldn't take too many years before I'd declare bankruptcy. [Or not anymore, since Congress recent timely action to make personal bankruptcy laws much mor

            • Sound fiscal policy is impossible without massive overhaul of mandatory spending. In 2004, just Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid added up to 42% of total federal spending. SS alone is more than the entire DoD (and that's in 2004 ... a war year).

              Bush cut taxes, but he failed to reduce spending. It's just out of control. Let's hope, for the country's sake, that he does a better job this time 'round.

              The only real hope we have is that states stand up and say "no" to federal spending. I don't think citi

              • I agree that entitlement spending has to be reset on a sustainable path.

                Social Security actually contributes more money the federal budget than it takes away! About US$160 billion annually now, ramping down to zero in 2018. Unfortunately, our esteemed Congresspersons on both sides of the aisle keep using the Social Security surplus to pay for general fund expenditures. Otherwise the deficit wouldn't be $400 billion a year - it would be glaringly obvious that it's $600 billion a year and that the folks man

                • We can hope for moderate stagflation, but I'm not real optomistic. I expect that what's really going to happen is a wild bout of inflation, which we can hope will not surge over into hyperinflation. And everyone who saved for the future will find their assets either too highly taxed to hold onto, or worthless.

                  But with an oligopoly running the news, everyone will think the troubles are local, and be deceived about the causes (blaming it on whichever scapegoat is popular at the moment).

                  If you can flee, fl

    • Re:US in trouble ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gt_swagger ( 799065 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:29AM (#12074494) Homepage
      If anybody is in trouble it is Microsoft. Aside from a FUD campaign, they have done nothing but encourage Linux growth with their strong apathy towards the end user they so often crap upon and insistance of keeping a brutal EULA and locking their users into a product cycle.

      Microsoft is failing to compete, and thus their market shares are declining. It's simple buisness here. What... do you want them to get a federal subsidy? Those poor innocent submarine patent people...

    • Re:US in trouble ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dabigpaybackski ( 772131 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:55AM (#12074571) Homepage
      Last month, they converted some of their assets in dollars, now they are getting away from USA's most fortunate software company ? Is there some policy here ?

      Yes, I believe it was once known as "enlightened self-interest."

  • So now the North will use Microsoft? :-) (Score:5, Funny)

    by BerntB ( 584621 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:27AM (#12074484)
    I guess this means North Korea will have to use Microsoft?

    A marriage born in... well, never mind. :-)

  • Way cool (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dorsai65 ( 804760 ) <dkmerriman@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:28AM (#12074489) Homepage Journal
    Now to get a few more governments to see the light!

    • The best way to get discounts from Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's probably just a price negotiation tactic.

      Seems the best way to get a price break from Microsoft is to announce that you're advocating Linux.

      I'm shocked at countries that *Don't* use this strategy.

      • Even if that is the case, Linux still gains from such an arrangement.
        In order to leverage Linux against MS, some amount of money and time must
        be spent to compare the two so that they can put numbers in front of the
        MS sales rep.

        So, even if it's just a ploy, Linux still gets excellent PR from this.

  • Take note "Monkey Boy!" (Score:5, Funny)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:28AM (#12074490)
    Oh, I hope my man Ballmer is awake. He should grab his bags and prepare to leave for Korea. We surely live in interesting times don't we?

    • Re:Take note "Monkey Boy!" (Score:5, Funny)

      by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:35AM (#12074507) Journal
      I now have this image of the Ballmer stomping around shouting
      "KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,..KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,KOREANS ,..."
      It is not the most plesant mental image I've ever had .
    • Oh, I hope my man Ballmer is awake. He should grab his bags and prepare to leave for Korea. We surely live in interesting times don't we?

      I hear he's busy trying to stop excessive gland secretion -- 10 feet is a long way to skip. Anyway, from what I hear, Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light has been sent to South Korea to send all the evil Linux users straight to heck. He will hit the really naughty ones with his spoon.

  • They're making a big mistake. (Score:5, Funny)

    by gt_swagger ( 799065 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:35AM (#12074509) Homepage
    Didn't they read that report by those two professors that got Microsoft funding about how Linux is plagued by security holes, higher ownership cost, and a swarm of locusts? I hope they can right the ship before it's too late.

  • $2.95 million is a small step (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:36AM (#12074510)
    That 2.95 million dollar figure from the article seems very tiny. Wouldn't be surprised if they still pay orders of magnitude more for proprietary stuff.

  • Tactical move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:41AM (#12074528)
    Next we hear about this is that they have signed a 5-year contract with Microsoft to update all the state administration machines to latest Windows, after long and hard negotiations with M$. The price will not be disclosed.

  • so.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:50AM (#12074554) Journal
    Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?

    • Americans seeing Anti-Americanism everywhere... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:03AM (#12074593)
      Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?

      Erm... no. The South Korean government is pretty friendly towards the US compared to other countries, both in Asia and internationally. The population gets a little annoyed with the excesses of some of the soldiers here and the United States government's abrasive approach to North Korea, but that in no way is going to translate to the South Korean government, in a country historically devastated by war that's now more than happy to take slow, gradual steps when it comes to international diplomatic situations. As such, suggesting that Korea is dropping Microsoft as some symbolic slap in the face is a really silly way to look at it. Even if the average young- to middle-aged Korean would like to tell the U.S. where to get off, the government isn't going to. Besides, the average Korean also LOVES their Windows-based games. Linux has very little fame over here.

      If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that a long-term relationship with Microsoft involving Windows XP might seem too expensive for the government. Windows 98 is still the popular OS of choice over here, so if they're worried that dropped W98 support means migrating to either an updated Windows or another OS, it might be worth throwing a few million at Linux to see if it can be adopted on a broad scale.

      As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?

      • Re:Americans seeing Anti-Americanism everywhere... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DarkSarin ( 651985 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:50AM (#12074965) Homepage Journal
        It's interesting that this should come up.

        I am currently in a cross-cultural psychology course (of sorts), and we had a guest speaker speaking about France and why some folks think that the French hate Americans.

        His take was simple--Americans and French are the only two cultures that think their culture is the best and want to impose it (in some fashion) on everyone else. Naturally then, like any time you have two folks who think they are the best, bar none, us Americans have butted heads with the French.

        I'm not saying that I agree, but I suspect that he has some of that right. (As an aside, he is an American that has spent a number of years in France--and got his PhD in French Medieval Literature from a French University (not the Sorbonne, although he did spend time there, and occasionally lectures there) that I can't remember the name of (and couldn't pronounce when he told us, let alone spell!).

        Now, since we have strayed so far off topic, let me just say that I hope that every country wakes up and sees that the smartest way to run things is on software that they have the source for and can modify themselves. A small business can get away with relying on someonw else to write their software (especially the OS), but a gov't has the resources and the time do it right themselves, and they should. Why? Because of security concerns. I wouldn't trust confidential data of the sort that most gov'ts keep to a host of proprietary OS boxen. (Never mind that they shouldn't be keeping some of the data--that is a different debate).
        • His take was simple--Americans and French are the only two cultures that think their culture is the best and want to impose it (in some fashion) on everyone else.

          I take it he'd never heard of Germans?

          There was even a couple little wars about that issue.

          And then of course there's the middle east... where people are actively killing themselves and each other for this very purposes..... and some of them aren't even americans!

          I suppose it's not your hypothesis, but I just feel the need to say that it'
          • First off, I didn't say that I necessarily agreed--just that that was his take on the matter. Of course his whole opinion was much more complicated than that.

            Note that the French (according to him), just feel that they have the best culture in the world and that everyone should follow along just because it is so great. He in no way intimidated that they were militant about it.
      • As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?

        Because we feel our government's actions deserve it? Prehaps.

        Perhaps because we don't properly understand the cost that other people pay, so we figure that if we were treated that way, we'd be upset. It's been over a century and a half since we had a major war on home ground, and we've forgotten how terrible it can be. (You raised an excellent point!)

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:20AM (#12074653)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hear that? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AnyoneEB ( 574727 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:53AM (#12074562) Homepage
    That cry of anguish is all the South Koreans trying to get WINE to work so they can play StarCraft. (I have done it, it just took a lot of messing with settings.)
    • In Korea, only old people cry... when their starcraft playing kids forget to feed them.

      Don't you worry. The finest WINE-STARCRAFT-HOWTO ever will be written very soon.

      If you can translate yours to Korean and stick advertistments all over it, you could be a millionaire.

  • (maybe) Sort of old news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ihavnoid ( 749312 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:03AM (#12074595)
    Actually, KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency), an organization funded by the Korean government, switched all its desktops to Linux, and that news was around about 8 months ago. I remember, that the purpose KIPA switched all its desktop to Linux (around 100+ desktops), was to test the possibility of Linux desktop in Korean goverment agencies. The biggest problem of using Linux in government agencies, was the vast amount of in-house tools plus special applications that didn't exist for Linux, and staff training issues. I remeber a KIPA staff screaming for help on a LUG webboard, due to l10n issues. They seemed to have some problem because of inadequate Korean support in Linux.

    Something that may be ironic, is that KIPA's current president, Hyun Jin Ko, is the former president of Microsoft Korea. :)

  • There is hope! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Walkiry ( 698192 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:06AM (#12074605) Homepage
    High Linux userbase in South Korea woud mean more games ported to Linux. It's the only thing that keeps windows in my machine.

    I want to be freeee!

    • Re:There is hope! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:53AM (#12074754) Homepage Journal
      more games ported to Linux. It's the only thing that keeps windows in my machine.

      I want to be freeee!

      Nobody is forcing you to use Windows. You can be MS-free right now, if you want.

      If you like a game that's only available to Windows, you basically have two choices:

      • Harass the makers to release a Linux (or OSX, or whatever) version. If enough people do this, they will release it.
      • If the makers insist on Windows-only releases, why would you want to deal with them in the first place? It means they're in bed with MS.

      • Re:There is hope! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drspliff ( 652992 )

        If the makers insist on Windows-only releases, why would you want to deal with them in the first place? It means they're in bed with MS.

        No, it's just because producing a multi-platform game usually increases development time and testing time by at minimum 1.5x.

        The problem is that if you spent another 6 months on a project, the result of that additional 6 months of work isn't always justified by the increased number of sales or larger userbase.

        This is true in almost all areas of multi-platform softwa

      • If the makers insist on Windows-only releases, why would you want to deal with them in the first place? It means they're in bed with MS.

        Although this inference isn't entirely reasonable, I think it'd be better to prove my point by analogy: "If a programmar insists on Linux-only releases, it means he's in bed with Linus."
        • "If a programmar insists on Linux-only releases, it means he's in bed with Linus."

          Possibly... but Linux programmers would probably use some kinds of standard, which would be portable across many more platforms.

  • Free Software in Korea (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All the links in these used to work.

    Free Software in Korea: Part One -- The Microsoft Connection
    <URL:http://linuxtoday.com/developer/1 999100400105 NWLF/>

    Free Software in Korea: Part Two -- The Linux Side
    <URL:http://linuxtoday.com/developer/1999101 000105 NWLF/>

  • Wow... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:44AM (#12074724)
    All those infringers of SCO intellectual property...

    At $699 per cpu license, Darl McBride must be hopping with joy at the thought of all those Koreans buying SCO IP licenses. Yes indeed, you too can get one of these protection licenses. All you have to do is read the SCO IP website!

    wget -v --mirror www.sco.com/scoip/

    Be sure to download all available information so you can be an informed SCO IP Protection license customer! It would be a shame if you didn't!

    Remember, the command again is wget -v --mirror www.sco.com/scoip/

    Get your documentation and license Today!

    --
    BMO

    "Contracts are what we use against customers" -Darl McBride

  • Microsoft Anti-piracy move (Score:4, Funny)

    by draxredd ( 661953 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:47AM (#12074732)
    Microsoft has finally come up with a plan to supress Windows piracy in the south-east : Widescale Linux Adoption.

    ;)
  • technologically-active and innovative country in today's world, that should say something... and give hope to all of us who think OSS in general is closely linked to technological innovation, freedom and actually more commercial activity overall.
  • Just so you guys know, South Korea is internet/computer CRAZY! - they love it!. The covereage of broadband there is one of the best in the world. It is the only country to have 2 (yes 2) internet game tv shows - ie where they actually show games happening, and not just review lame games for advertising $$$.
    This is the reflection of a popular culture that has made the population know whats what, and government reacting in a wise and well informed (and not comercially brow beaten) way.

    Also Although South Kor

    • A bit of geography (Score:2, Informative)

      by GWTPict ( 749514 )
      The UK's full title,

      The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

      So Northern Ireland is part of the UK, not a region of Britain. It is of course very close to Ireland, consisting as it does of 6 of the 9 counties of the historic north eastern Irish province of Ulster.

  • For the average Korean... (Score:5, Informative)

    by alwsn ( 593349 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:31AM (#12074903)
    I've been teaching in Korea for two years so far and the average Korean could not use Linux productively. The reason being is that almost every web site requires ActiveX to do anything; logon, make purchases, check email. Even on the sites not requiring ActiveX, they look like garbage on anything but IE. One plus is that MS office is not nearly as intrenched as it is in the States with many Koreans preferring a Korea Office suite (I cannot remember the name as I do not use it myself.) And, of course, you cannot play Kart Rider on linux.
  • The People's Democratic Republic of Korea now advocates the Open Freedom Microsoft operating system.

    -

  • Nevermind... (Score:3, Funny)

    by JayJay.br ( 206867 ) <100jayto&gmail,com> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:38AM (#12075277)
    ...only old people will use Linux anyway.

    In other news, distros will be forced to use KDE. Either that, or they will change the country name to South Gorea.

    /me hides in shame for excessive Slashdot cliche use.
  • When South Korea does something, North Korea usually does the opposite. Since South Korea is going with Linux, maybe Kin Jung Il will go with Windows for North Korea.
  • In Korea only old people use Microsoft?
  • Isn't North Korea the communist Korea? Wouldn't they be the ones using Linux then, since Linux is the Official OS of communism?

    Or is it only old people in south Korea who are using Linux?

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