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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.
I'm sorry, but I'll have to disagree with you. There is one important point which you miss out -- India already has an existing user/customer base of Linux which is ever growing, except that it is not very well known.
:-)
For example, some people from our own local LUG (http://www.chennailug.org) convinced the electricity board of some states here to use Linux.
(Incidentally, the other developer besides Miguel working on Mono, Ravi Pratap, is from our LUG)
The LUGs also take it upon themselves to spread Linux to colleges and schools. Lots of LUGs around the country have convinced schools, colleges and offices by conducting local Linux expos to showcase the prowess of Linux. The problem is, India being a relatively big country, you do not hear about these things. And offlate, we are really getting commercial queries to the LUG, and people are beginning to use it as a hiring ground for hunting good talent. Which I'd say, is a very good thing!
Another point is that, there are a lot of LUGs in India which have convinced their respective state/local bodies to switch to Linux. Since it is a bunch of freelancers doing it, it is not known.
But the truth is, India is beginning to see an evergrowing stream of companies switching to Linux. But because of the fact that other things are also going on, these are just not noticed. As an example, the number of people attending our LUG meets has literally tripled in the past couple of months!
My point is this - just because some companies do not do it, and there is no monetary benifit involved does not mean it's not happening. Just that world domination is happening subtly but surely
The REAL reasons that the Korean government is adopting Linux is not because they believe Linux is necessarily a better OS but because Hancom's Office Software, more specifically, Hancom Word runs on Linux.
Since the early 90's, the most widely used word processor in South Korea has been Hancom Word. Before Windows 95, it ran under DOS and when Windows 95 came out, a graphical version appeared. Even today, most universities and all government agencies use Hancom Word because of national pride and preference to software developed within Korea and by Koreans. It was a brillient move to port the software to Linux/Unix(I'm not sure which version of Unix it ran under... i believe the originally the port was targeted for Solaris) and with the sudden interest and popularity of Linux in Southeast Asia, Hancom is reaping the benefits.
100% of the Korean Government is currently already running the Windows version of Hancom's Word so it was a particularly easy decision to choose free/open source operating system over M$ Windows... Meaning, that if 23% of the annual purchase is Linux/Hancom Office, it's because 77% percent is Windows XP but running Hancom's Word Windows version. It simply doesn't matter to the Korean government what OS it runs as long as it runs Hancom Word... It doesn't have to worry that 23% of its documents will be incompatible to the rest. Since every government agency runs Hancom Word, 100% compatibility is guaranteed.
Sadly, this isn't the case outside the government and education system. The majority of the Korean public run Windows because virtually all PC games run only under Windows(In my opinion, S.Korea is becoming the Gaming Mecca of the World, but that's another story). The Korean public will never adopt Linux unless Starcraft and Fortess(a korean online game) are ported to Linux (hehehe). In other words, unless either an exact counter-part or a superior standard base/software doesn't exist... people won't switch.
Anyway, this type of move would not be as easy in other countries/governments because most countries rely on Microsoft Office products. Unlike the rest of the world, the South Korean government standardized it's office suite with a korean Office suite, which wisely ported it's product to Linux. I'm not sure if China's government is using an office suite developed by a Chinese company, but it wouldn't surprise me it it did... if that's the case, it would be extremely easy to switch the OS within the Chinese government to Linux as it was in the South Korean government.
Since it doesn't seem anytime soon MS will port MS Office so I guess we just need to develope a better Office suite.(keep up the good work guys)~
From the press release: ... , has announced that they have concluded an agreement with the Central Procurement Office of the Korean Government to supply the 120,000 copies of desktop Linux office packages in this year.
January 9th, 2002 in Seoul, Korea - HancomLinux,
[warning: lots of strong worded opinion ahead (-:]
Piss-poor Slashdot reporting at work again. Read the press release, people. The Korean government is purchasing 120,000 copies of the proprietary, closed source commercial office software, HancomOffice. Linux is free. They're not paying for free software. They're not paying for localization work done by the KDE/Qt people. They're not paying for the RedHat Linux distribution. No.. They're paying for proprietary software (with proprietary file formats) and related support services. This is NOT what Linux needs. The article does not mention the cost, but even at a very conservative estimate of $10 per copy x 120,000, that's $1,200,000 and I would guess that support services are extra. Does the Korean government realize that if they took that same amount of money and paid say.. 15 top Open Source programmers for one year to work full time and perfect KOffice or OpenOffice, that they (and the entire rest of the world) would never have to spend another dime on office software?! But instead, they've just locked themselves into an upgrade cycle, even if it does use Linux and is a much better/cheaper product than Microsoft's. Proprietary software is damned stupid and totally uncalled for. And it makes me sick to think of how much the US government spends of my own tax dollars on proprietary software as they make the same type of mistakes.
Open Source programmers need to wake up, quit their day jobs and realize that the world is in great need of their services. Yes, it will take innovation and initiative. Yes, it will take new business models that are purely service, support, and consulting oriented. But as this article shows, the money is out there.. loads of it. And you can help change the world for the better at the same time. Once software is set free, it's permanent. Obviously small companies (hence with small programming staff) such as Hancom and Gobe have been successful in producing high-quality office suites in a relatively short amount of time. Why? Because it's not that difficult! Here sits Microsoft's cash cow sleeping on a grassy knoll, just waiting to be tipped over. And yet the various Open Source productivity projects are moving at a snail's pace because nobody has taken a strong enough initiative to get the job done and over with once and for all.
As a sidenote, anybody else think Slashdot editors are going a little bit soft on proprietary Linux software these days? *cough*va*cough*
Interesting point but the Korean labor cost is not so cheap. Here is a list of various countries. Compare the $8.14 hourly rate in Korea with the $2.46 for Mexico.
Your point is well taken though.
Help fight continental drift.
I work as the only foreigner in a Japanese company and frequently have to work in either language. To switch languages on my Linux box, I simply log out and log back in, selecting the other language when I do. On the NT machine, I have to reboot.
If I want both English and Japanese on the NT box, that means I have to have two seperate licenses and two different installs on the same machine in two different partitions.
I had heard that Win2K lets you choose between languages and related that to a friend who was buying a PC here in Tokyo, but that simply isn't the case. (At least not for J/E.) MS apparently does make such a version, but it is only available to corporate customers, not via retail.
As for software, apps are being made in other languages and sometimes 'ported' to English. Sylpheed (http://sylpheed.good-day.net) is one such package, a really good mail client (MUA).
Other packages have been translated well enough that a non-English speaker may think it's a native program - Webmin comes to mind, as does Sourceforge's website.
There are probably others that are similar, but I haven't realized that I am not seeing it in the developer's native language. (I get a lot of my software from the Japanese Linux magizine CDs' monthly picks, so it's not always clear what the 'original' language of a package is.)
Funny thing is, I've never seen Mandrake in these distro magazines - I hear it's one of the most popular in the US, but have yet to run across a copy here. I've wondered if it's an i18n issue...
IMHO, multi-lingual envronments is one area (critical for me) that Linux outshines its closed-source alternatives. (Want Icelandic Linux? No problem. Windows? No can do.)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.