Japan Takes A Look At Open Source Software

irish_spic writes " Accorting to this AP story (in yahoo news), the public management ministry is setting up a panel of scholars and computer experts, including Microsoft officials in order to study the use of Open Source software in the government. The article cites concerns about costs and security as the reason for the study. Me wonders if they are serious or just trying to get discounts from MS."

Comments

This was already posted on Saturday...

[koganuts]

Oops. :)

Not completed related, but

[lingqi]

Just some observation I have since I am in Japan and everything.

Microsoft (or BSA, anyhow) seem to be spending a lot (i mean a LOT) more money here on "anti-piracy" campains than in the US.

Trains are usually littered with BSA (piracy is crime) posters, and they have a HUGE (like maybe 40 feet across) sign in front of Shinjuku station (you know, downtown tokyo and all).

At the same time, I havn't seen free-software related stuff at all since I have been here. It might be the language barrier, but ancedotally speaking, I don't think I am seeing the same % of shelf space devoted to linux than in the US.

Re:Not completed related, but

[BJH]

You know why the BSA spends so much on advertising here?
Every company I'been at here has a major piracy problem - from the OS to applications. It's not condoned, but there's a 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' atmosphere that makes it easy to turn a blind eye.

By the way, if you want to see free-software related 'stuff' here, go to a bookstore. Currently, the following magazines dealing with free software are widely available:

Software Design
Linux Magazine
Nikkei Linux
BSD Magazine
FreeBSD Press

How many does the US have? Linux Journal, ummm....

if you want to buy a distribution, Laox Computer-kan in Akihabara has a fairly good selection.

Re:Not completed related, but

[pao93]

I am also in Japan and work in a technically related sector. There is lots of free-software related stuff around here and if anything, it's at least on par with what's in the west. Most people I work with are pretty aware of Linux and there are a scattering of machines around the network, just like it was back home. In my own case, I use it primarily as an internal web and samba server for my department. Just walk into any book store and there's at least 3 good quality Japanese linux/unix magazines. Huge sections in all the book shops on linux. There's lots of linux and unix only shops in Akihabara. Sure, you see lots of Microsoft propaganda and the BSA stuff occasionally but it's hardly huge. I mean, come on, last week one of my trains was ALL (as in 100% of the space) Apple advertising and the next one was all GAP advertisements. I've yet to see the same from MS or the BSA (though i might have been lucky and not hopped on that train). Anyways, that being said, the big problem in getting it adopted wide scale here is going to be the same as anywhere else: lack of ease of use on the desktop, compatability with office or the other Japanese Word Processors, etc etc. And it probably won't be as cheap as we'd like to believe. This being Japan i'm sure the company contracted out to install all these systems in the government will charge a fortune in service and support fees. Trust me, having been involved in negotiating several major software contracts here, nothing comes cheap, even if it is something being run on OSS backbones. Hey, maybe that's what this is all about! Some corrupt politician is probably doing this to get money from one of his sidelines so he can afford to go the more expensive snack bars...

FreeBSD?

[Gareman]

My understanding is that BSD is fairly popular in some Japanese companies right now. A college friend of mine was the guy who translated the FreeBSD docs into Japanese. Linux might be a bit too political, but BSD OS's seem to take the conservative, stable approach. --gary

Re:bad Japanese impersonation

[mrjive]

No....it's most likely an IRC-ism:
/me slaps so-and-so around with a large trout

The Asahi Shimbun Japanese version of the article

[terkozer]

http://www.asahi.com/business/update/1116/005.html For those of you than can read Japanese.

Re:BRAVO

[Xtifr]

> MS: OpenSource Bad
> OS: Microsoft Bad
> Japan: Why?

> MS&OS: Shit good question.

Actually, I think the OS response would be: see here (the open letter from the Peruvian Congressman). And MS will probably have some dubious claims about how untrained monkeys can't necessarily administer linux/bsd boxes.

But I agree that it's a good thing that Japan is allowing all interested parties into the debate.

There are already studies of Japanese Linux use.

[dwheeler]

There is a Japanese study, simply called the Linux white paper 2003, that studies current use of Linux in Japan. If you don't read Japanese, a summary of the material is available in Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers! in the market share section. Look for the point that starts with "A Japanese survey found widespread use and support for GNU/Linux; overall use of GNU/Linux jumped from 35.5% in 2001 to 64.3% in 2002 of Japanese corporations, and GNU/Linux was the most popular platform for small projects." Note that this is the percentage of corporations using it at all, not the number of total machines, but it certainly suggests interest by the Japanese corporate world. Various other statistics are quoted as well.