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.

Comments

OpenSource Korea

[peripatetic_bum]

Just think about it,
We know that India and China are battling it out to see who is going to be the powerhouse computer programming center and here Korea may have just pulled a coup by declaring openSource to be something that the gov't official supports. I dont know about you, but I would now look towards Korea as a contender for the place to where computer programming is acutaly done. Think of the costs savingd from using opensource

(I know OpenSource still costs money to run, but just think of the savings Korea will experince)

Thanks for reading

Re:OpenSource Korea

[metlin]

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 :-)

Um, we need some details before

[twilight30]

... breaking out the champagne. It is good news, but the devil's in the details. Over what time period will Hancom introduce these machines? Which departments are to use them? Are they moving over all previously-MS documentation to Linux as well? Are any of the MS-machines to be retained for doco reading?

Sorry to be such a poopy-pants. (Has anyone heard any more about Mexico's initiatives?)

Domino Theory

[crumbz]

During the US-USSR cold war there was a notion espoused by the US think taks called, "Domino Theory". It postulated that once a country within a geographic region changed to a communist government, it's neighbors would be more likely to do so. Hence the US policy of containment that we have seen since WWII.

Now, does this analogy apply to Free vs. Monopolistic Software ? We have recently seen the Chinese undertake a government program to promote free software over Microsoft. Now Korea. Is India next? Or Japan?

Granted, geography is not necessarily a factor in this "war" but language certainly is. When can we expect this to spread to Europe or (better yet) the US?

Re:Domino Theory

[Rob Kaper]

Do you, the consumer have more or less choice in desktop OS's, applications, and so-called "middleware" (what a stupid term) then you did in 1995, when MS first bundled IE and Windows?

Me the techie does. Me the consumer does not. In 1995, most major dummy computer stores (where regular consumers get their stuff) offered computers with either OS/2 Warp 3 or Windows 95 preinstalled. Now, it's just Windows.

So while Microsoft has no monopoly in the techie market, they do have one in the thousand times larger real consumer market.

Hmmm

[zachusaf]

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...

Wish I started out on *nix

[Calle Ballz]

When I got my first computer... it was a windows 95 machine (yes, I know, i'm a very late bloomer)... and I learned that thing inside and out to where I just *knew* windows intuitively. When I learned that the entire computer world was not windows... I took my first oppurtunity downloading the slackware disksets. It was more difficult I think, because I was so used to the windows point & click interface. Now I run a combination of BSD/SlackWare/Win2k all intuitively... but I would have rather been introduced to any of the unices as my primary introduction to computers.

As for these Koreans, I think this is a major step in computer education for those new to computers. Those who are not familiar with computers whatsoever will have no problem adapting to Linux, since they know nothing else. When learning any non windows operating system... you get so much of a better feel on how computers actually work. I think it's a great tool to learn, and even as just a user... I've noticed RedHat is great for that purpose.

Good for Self-Sufficiency

[Tadster]

It doesn't really matter what the incoming OS is, as long as it is open enough for the national IT infrastructure to develop self-sufficiency.

Globally, IT dependence on Windows has been a blight on the evolution and advancement of computing tech by homogenizing platforms and marginalizing new, innovative, and/or different domestic manufacturers (eg Sharp's X68000, the NEC PC-980x platform).

Good to see Korea join Mexico & China start working on self-sufficiency rather than the pernicious co-dependence of taking the easy route of being a MS shop.

Re:Major achievement

[Waffle Iron]

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.

Re:Major achievement

[Phil-14]

sure it's great news that this is happening, but I fear many people have forgotten something, It's because of companies such as Microsoft that the US economy is doing as well as it is. So many people hate MS and want them to die out of business but this destruction would only harm our economy.

And it's because of Hancom that South Korea
actually has a word processor that handles
their native language. About two years ago
Microsoft tried to buy Hancom with the intent
of taking their native-Korean-language office
suite off the market and replace
it with MS Office (which isn't nearly as
functional in Korean). The sale was blocked
by the Korean government. So you think M$
should make decisions that make other people
suffer for its own business gains, but you
act suprised when people hate it? Microsoft
has earned the hate of many people,
both in Korea and the US.

Do you think it's
good for US business to have to keep spending
billions of dollars fighting off the Outlook
Virus Of The Week? I can't afford to take the
time off of real work to keep trying to keep
the work M$ computers virus free. Is it supposed
to be a comfort to me and the millions of small
business owners like me who have substantial
productivity drains from Microsoft software that
Bill Gates is making lots of money? To be blunt,
if you think M$ is more important to the economy than ten thousand randomly chosen small businesses, you're making the same sorts of mistakes the Soviets did. Personally, I don't want the US to go the way of the Soviet Union.

Re:Major achievement

[juuri]

For those that don't understand part of the above.

Microsoft doesn't pay dividends on stock you own. Hence many critics complaints about their shifting of money to avoid paying any taxes at all. When you are buying msoft stock you are hoping it will be worth more in the future to sell. There is no revenue side for you as the investor other than this. Because of this msoft MUST continue to increase the dominance it has to push the stock price up and keep investors happy. The gist? msoft can't be a well behaved company and keep the stockholders happy.

Gates gets richer and richer by year at an incredibly rapid pace because of the particular "loophole" in taxes on stock.

sloppy journalism

[news_junkie]

The Korean government has just signed...

hey folks, aren't there still two Korea's?

Reasons the Korean government adopted Linux

[tavon79]

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)~

This is NOT good news for Open Source

[Ogerman]

From the press release:
January 9th, 2002 in Seoul, Korea - HancomLinux, ... , 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.

[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*

Re:This is NOT good news for Open Source

[Lonath]

It depends on your goal. If you want 100 percent scores on the FSF Purity Test from everyone who encounters or uses any OS/FS, then you're correct.

If your goal is to give as many people as possible a taste and gentle introduction to OS/FS because you reason that "you catch more people with honey than with vinegar", then you should support this move.

I think the second approach will make for more people using OS/FS in the long run, simply because more of them will be exposed to it.

Sure, they're using a proprietary program on top of an OS/FS system, but it's better than a proprietary system on top of a proprietary OS.

The world will be a better place when nongeeks at least know about OS/FS so they can decide if they want to use it or not. Beating someone over the head doesn't work unless that person is already one of the converted.

Re:This is NOT good news for Open Source

[archen]

This is NOT what Linux needs

Oh? And what does Linux need? Only open source programs that are free? Are you saying that people can't make an honest living programming and selling their closed source software? I agree that it sucks that it uses a closed file format, but that's the way it works sometimes. With any luck maybe that format will be opened some day. Does it matter though? They can't be worse than Microsoft who makes it a point to constantly change their formats mainly just to screw everyone else.

Realistically I think you might be comming at this from the wrong angle (as many of us tend to do). What does Linux need? Who cares? They didn't purchase those licences because they neede Linux, they purchaced it because they needed superior software that did what they wanted it to. If Hancom makes a better product and they sell it, then more power to them. I'd like to see more corporations drop their closed source ways too, but right now that's not going to happen, and unless some of these companies start making things for Linux, Linux will be sitting in obscurity for quite some time. If open source alternatives are going to take over, then they must be better products - and unfortunatly right now Star/K office only get "close but no cigar". Right now open source is only making strides because of those products which truley are better, like Apache. Closed source isn't all that great, but right now Linux could probably use a small crutch like this. I mean really, what's the alternative: use MS Office on Windows like every other goverment...

Linux can flourish where labor is cheap

[RebornData]

Linux is definitely much more of a "do it yourself" system than Windows is. That's viewed as a liability by most corporations in the US, but it's an advantage where skilled labor is cheap.

There's a parallel in the construction industry. In US, labor is more expensive in comparison to construction materials than in, say, Mexico. In the US, construction uses as many prefabricated, pre-assembled components as possible in order to minimize on-site labor. It's cost effective to manufacture, stock and transport a large variety of pre-fab parts to minimize on-site assembly. In contrast, where labor is cheap in comparison to materials, you find that it's more common to bring raw-materials on-site and create what you need from them, since it's cheaper to pay a skilled laborer to do it as-needed rather.

The same thing applies to software. It does suprise me that countries like Korea and China like Linux where having skilled on-site talent is more cost-effective than paying large license fees to MS.

Re:Linux can flourish where labor is cheap

[bstadil]

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.

Linux is great for that ...

[wirefarm]

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