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Today, I overheard the guys at my lab talking about some news that some minister of some ministry. I asked what it was about, and they told me that I should go read about it in Blogone for myself.

So I went to read and found a good article at http://www.blognone.com/node/3355 and they had me go and read further at many newspapers such as Thai Rat and The Bangkok Post. Also, today it was posted on Slashdot. The whole deal is strange because he just got the position at the Ministry of ICT but immediately came out and said that Open Source is wrong and he sees Open Source as having no value for the country.

--Extended quote from the minister which is as reported in TFA--
I also saw reported in the interview that he doesn't like e-books, either, because they hurt his eyes and give him a headache. Oh Jord! (ed. No idea who Jord is) The Minister of ICT of Thailand reads hard-copy books instead of acting like a modern head of the ICT of Thailand should!

I've included the quote here for you "As for the next six months to a year, will there be a strategy for e-government? The minister answered 'We're really pushing for it because it has to happen' As for electronic transactions, the minister offer the opinion that the current law (bill?) is fine as it stands and he expects that it will pass the senate soon. Turning to e-society, he said that it's not really important, adding that he doesn't really like e-books because they ruin your eyesight and don't feel like a real book."

Will our little department home make it? My colleagues on Blogone commented that they want to write an open letter to the minister. It should be out soon.

Today, I overheard the guys at my lab talking about some news that some minister of some ministry. I asked what it was about, and they told me that I should go read about it in Blogone for myself.

So I went to read and found a good article at http://www.blognone.com/node/3355 and they had me go and read further at many newspapers such as Thai Rat and The Bangkok Post. Also, today it was posted on Slashdot. The whole deal is strange because he just got the position at the Ministry of ICT but immediately came out and said that Open Source is wrong and he sees Open Source as having no value for the country.

--Extended quote from the minister which is as reported in TFA--
I also saw reported in the interview that he doesn't like e-books, either, because they hurt his eyes and give him a headache. Oh Jord! (ed. No idea who Jord is) The Minister of ICT of Thailand reads hard-copy books instead of acting like a modern head of the ICT of Thailand should!

I've included the quote here for you "As for the next six months to a year, will there be a strategy for e-government? The minister answered 'We're really pushing for it because it has to happen' As for electronic transactions, the minister offer the opinion that the current law (bill?) is fine as it stands and he expects that it will pass the senate soon. Turning to e-society, he said that it's not really important, adding that he doesn't really like e-books because they ruin your eyesight and don't feel like a real book."

Will our little department home make it? My colleagues on Blogone commented that they want to write an open letter to the minister. It should be out soon.

What? Like Thailand a couple of years ago, with the gov't's own Linux on the fast track to becoming the national OS and the gov't requiring 90% use within two years? Oh, yeah, since MS offered the gov't a sweet deal, that software hasn't been updated. Last version was December 2004. In the lifespan of a Linux distro, that means that it's dead.

From Thailand, LinuxTLE 5.5.92 features Linux kernel 2.6.9, GCC 3.4.2, X.Org 6.8.1, GNOME 2.8.1, KDE 3.3.1 and Firefox 0.10.1. Download CD1, CD2 and CD3 or download the DVD.

With so many distros being offshoots of Red Hat (including my favorite localized one, LinuxTLE), why did you choose Debian over Fedora for your base?

K12LTSP is the "install and run" distro for school's thin clients. I have used it at two schools and am using their setup to produce ISOs for Thai schools based on LinuxTLE.

Yeah, we've translated the first chapter of that book into Thai (available here) and have seen some real enthousiasm over it.
My SO (who did most of the translation) finds Gimp easy to use and has no problems with the 1.2 interface. She actually finds it easier to use on a 800x600 screen than the development version.

Apt-cdrom, my man. Just type apt-cdrom add and you have your local (an d out of date) repository. My distro (rpm based LinuxTLE) supports it.

I'm not trying to argue with you, but I'm going to recommend a distro that the Thai gov't put together to install on their low cost computers, which are intended for the computer illiterate. Everything works by the default. Plugins are installed and codecs are enabled which RH and others don't do. Apt from Connectiva. My Network from Redmond Linux (They changed their name, right?). It's been praised in international reviews. The link is here, and I hope you find a better solution than what you have now.

1. This offer is only for buyers of the low cost computer program, which comes preloaded with LinuxTLE. It is not available to the general public, where the prices still stand as usual. Some say it is a fight against Linux, but many Linux columnists say it is a fight against Panthip Plaza (the famous computer mall where illegal software is available for virtually nothing), and
2. It is for XP Home and Office Standard edition, which is nothing like the military purchase.

• mplayer-common-0.90rc4-2_4tle
• mplayer-skin-BlueHeart-1.4-2
• mplayer-skin-Cyrus-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-hwswskin-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-neutron-1.4-2
• mplayer-skin-slim-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-xine-lcd-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-avifile-1.5-2
• mplayer-skin-CubicPlayer-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-gnome-1.1-2
• mplayer-skin-netscape4-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-proton-1.1-2
• mplayer-skin-xanim-1.5-2
• mplayer-skin-AlienMind-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-CornerMP-aqua-1.0-2
• mplayer-gui-0.90rc4-2_4tle
• mplayer-skin-MidnightLove-1.5-2
• mplayer-skin-plastic-1.1.1-2
• mplayer-skin-WindowsMediaPlayer6-1.2-2
• mplayer-0.90rc4-2_4tle
• mplayer-skin-CornerMP-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-default-1.6-2
• mplayer-skin-mentalic-1.1-2
• mplayer-skin-phony-1.0-2
• mplayer-skin-trium-1.0-2
• mplayer-tools-0.90rc4-2_4tle

The PDF export has been backported to OfficeTLE 1.0.2 and has been in there for several months already. I am excited about the MySQL access, instead of going through ODBC, which is a pain for me on a redhat 8/9 based system. Hopefully OfficeTLE 1.1 will be out soon.

This is going to sound a little far fetched, but I suggest you give LinuxTLE a go. They have a ready to work desktop with all the major plugins already configured, a Connectiva style apt, and update software regularly. For example, since I upgraded to 5.0 about ?three? months ago, I have been upgraded from mozilla 1.2.1 to 1.3 to 1.4. This never used to happen with RH or Mandrake. In fact, I read about Moz 1.4 on Slashdot and went to download, but found the look just ugly compared to the 1.3 I was running from LinuxTLE, then did my apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and found the next morning that I had a beautiful looking Moz 1.4 on my desktop, with my profile carried over.

This wouldn't be Thailand, would it? There are several reasons why that would be so... mostly it's goverment policy.

This wouldn't be Thailand, would it? There are several reasons why that would be so... mostly it's goverment policy.

Anyone who has been here for a long time has seen my posts about Thailand, but I'll summarize what's happening here, and it's big.
You see linux desktops and laptops in almost every computer store. All top five domestic brands, including Belta Liberta and Laser ( I can't find a link), use it for their lower models. It is always the same, the National Electronics and Computer Technology (NECTEC) organization of Thailand's own Linux TLE, a Red Hat based distibution that has had Thai language support and translations added to virtually every application.
Since November,the new releases come with version 4.1R2, which is touted as "Professional," and includes OfficeTLE, an OO.o variant which includes such difficult to program features as a Thai word parser, because Thai uses no spaces between words. It, in my opinion, outshines Sun's Pladao Office, which translates as "Starfish." The menus for Pladao are all in Thai, but the OfficeTLE menus are in English. Books for both litter the bookstore shelves in prominant places.
NECTEC also has a venerable serverdistribution, SIS (can't find the link), which stands for School Internet Server, and connects primary, secondary, and tertiary(?) schools to their SchoolNet, a free internet and information sharing operation.
Free Software is kicking here in Thailand.
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