Slashdot Mirror
Korea Replacing 120,000 Windows with Linux
The Korean government has just signed a contract with Hancom to purchase 120,000 copies of HancomLinux Deluxe 2.0 (which is basically Red Hat OS + tweaks + korean language support + KDE localized) and HancomOffice 2.0. Thats quite a big achievement. Here is Hancom's Press Release about it.
In a unrelated story, North Korea will still be running MS Windows as dictated by their leader, Kim Dae Gates, or "Bill" as he is affectionatley known by the loving people of his communist country...
If it takes 20 minutes to install Linux, and you're bottlenecked by having a single copy to install from, then it takes 40000 hours to install it 120000 machines.
They probably ran a profiler on the process and found that it was spending all its time talking to that one CD. So they figured, "What if we parallelize it?" And they found out that if you have 120000 copies, you can install it on 120000 machines in 20 minutes.
20 minutes is less time than 40000 hours. Now, here in a America, time means nothing (*cough*), but in Korea perhaps it is valued. Add to that that the copies of Linux are very inexpensive, and it's a good tradeoff.
Does this mean they will use Linux instead of Windows as their mail spamming engine?
I have blocked *.kr and many IP address blocks assigned to Korea long ago. it seems that all that comes out from it is spam and portscanning.
OTOH, maybe Microsoft is just parasitically sucking capital out of the US economy and adding it to the $36Billion hoard of cash buried in its back yard. It's not like they have that many employees on the payroll to cut checks for; nor are they sending out dividends.
You forgot to factor in the time necessary to open 120K software boxes worth of shrink wrap.
Wow, this is getting to be a giant, real-life sized game of RISK. :)
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
120K new open mail relays ; )
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge