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South Korea Jumps To Open Source Software
mormop writes "Following on from the news that a far-eastern Linux distro is on the way, silicon.com is carrying news that South Korea is switching $300,000,000 worth of PCs to Open Source Software.
The only question now is will Steve Ballmer be capable of covering the sort of distance needed to pull back all these switching governments before collapsing with exhaustion, or is he en route for the Air Miles record?"
MS will just buy an airline to keep from paying those high travel costs for Balmer. It's the sensible thing to do!
.NET and Passport, so if someone were to check their hotmail they might accidentally trigger the CRASH_INTO_MOUNTAIN subroutine.
But I wouldn't wanna fly on it... they'll probably innovate the control systems with
I am a filthy pirate.
Open SARS software?
Finally, a large government has adopted this kind of standard. Hopefully more countries and more companies will join the bandwagon after seeing such a large example of free software implementation!
You didn't even bother to fill in the name of the country into the blanks of your standard-form.
In a dark candle lit cavern beneath redmond, Uncle Fester and his staff are dancing and clapping around a black butterfly- chanting devlepers, Developers DEVELOPERS!
we have all seen him dance......the dude has pretty good stamina. personally, i imagine he will be dancing himself silly to the heads of each government only to find that its hard to convince people your OS is better when you dance like my grandmother after a bottle and a half of wine....
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
...because Kim Jong Il just announced any future missiles will be running Linux.
That, and he's instituting a death penalty for trying to steal his magic bag.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just when you finally thought it wasn't going to happen, it finally does. We will at last have the year of unix but it will be linux. Oh well good to see just the same.
Now your KIAs and Hyundais can be built with pride using Linux! Yay!
The amount of savings is not the same as the worth of the PCs.
"Last month, Japan, China and South Korea met in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to sign an agreement to jointly research and develop non-Windows, open source OS."
Wouldn't it be great if state governments (yes, I'm fixated on state governments because I work for one but also because it is the public's money that is being spent) here in the US would do the same thing? I've seen individual states start various research projects but no larger effort that leverages all the resources in all states.
Tangent: my graduate thesis is going to be on why governments should have an open source technology preferential mandate given the cost-savings and total ownership provided by doing so. Call me crazy but I really believe that government should always choose the least expensive option whenever possibe. Currently, you ask for funding for a project and once you get it the rule is use it or lose it, thus, more money is spent than is really necessary for most projects in order to keep the funding for future years.
- tokengeekgrrl
From the article: "If the change is successful, we will be able to save about US$300m a year."
They're not changing $300m worth of PC's, they're saving that much on licensing.
South Korea hopes to save $300M by converting 20% of desktops and 30% of servers. They must have a hell of a lot of computers! Or a really bad bulk licensing deal. Although why they's stop at 20% I don't know... in their shoes, I'd probably try to convert about 95% (assuming some systems need non-WINE-able legacy software for some reason).
One thing that companies outside the US (Germany, China, South Korea, South American nations, etc) is that employing Microsoft is really only good for Microsoft.
But by switching to Open Source for the government, there are several benefits that "trickle down":
1. Programmers within the specified nations are now employed, which keeps money inside the country.
2. The advances that come from Open Source software can be then used in businesses inside the country, which reduces there expenses, and if more development/administration is needed, they can look inside their own country rather than going elsewhere.
3. Exportability. If you have a country with top engineers in Open Source, and another country happens to need those, you are now in a better position to export those services.
I'm not quite with the "governments should make laws forcing Open Source down people's throats", but I am in support of measures that will give them control over their own software destiny.
Granted - as long as they play by the rules of the GPL, BSD, and other licenses.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I am in a position of managing development and procuring hardware and software. I have used Open-Source Software (OSS) instead of Commericial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications recently; I have moved some of my development overseas to India recently.
In hindsight, what I notice, is that I did both for the same reasons. While the COTS applications have lots of advantages (support, professional services, a vendor to yell at), OSS' price was right, and it was good enough. There are a lot of problems with off-shore development (time, politics, control), but, its good-enough, and the price is right.
I know of COTS software companies whose chief competitors are OSS solutions. As a customer, I have picked OSS over COTS. The companies have had layoffs. Imagine if lots of people decided to work on auto assembly lines in the spare time; what would that do to the gainful employment for auto workers?
I'm not advocating anything, I just think that it is important to remember that jobs are lost due to OSS as well as foreign outsourcing. On /., we focus on losses due to outsourcing, but ignore the OSS losses (because this community, including me, tends to be pro-OSS and anti-offshore). In some cases, those losses are the same, when
OSS work is done in foreign countries. If you want to be
protectionist by making it harder to off-shore work, shouldn't
you also be trying to limit OSS?
On the other side, if you want openness, shouldn't we have openness in labor markets as well as software?
Just food for thought...
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
S Korea may just be using this as a threat to get MS to negotiate on price and/or features. Until recently, govts (and large companies) haven't really had much of a credible alternative to Windows, so they haven't been able to use their incredible scale as purchasing and negotiating power. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS and S Korea come to a deal in six months time...
Currently, Linux users are not able to use several key Korean web-based services. For example, many portals run by banks and government agencies support only Microsoft's Windows operating system and Internet Explore (IE) browser. [from the article].
What's that have to do with Linux? The pages won't run on Mozilla within Windows either then.
If this is one of their main concerns about switching over to Linux, I don't think this is much of a problem. I mean how hard would it be to tune these portals to work on browsers other than IE? These portals should be fixed anyhow, not just for Linux, but for other browsers out there such as Opera, Mozilla, etc, etc.
... will take the lead in this do you think? Hyundai, Samsung or LG?
S.Korea had a similar plan during the 70s when they subsidized the big three to each develop and market their own version of Unix in the hope that they would be able to undercut the Americans.
And people are starting to realize this.
I'm not just talking Linux. BSD, Plan 9, maybe the BeOS projects soon and a number of other players are all distribuing with some form of open source license.
The IP of some of these is absolutely unassailable ( I'd like to see SCO claim rights to Plan 9 ).
During the antitrust trial one of the statments Bill made in his defence was "I'm just one good idea away from oblivion."
Well, there are lots of good ideas floating about freely these days and more on the way.
For every person that switches to a non MS OS their ability to control the market because they control the market weakens. Then they have to start marketing based on added value over the base of free.
You can see that this is actually what they're trying to do with the TCO campaign while trying to match open source with "shared source."
Well, guess what Bill? You'll have to do a bit better than that. I'm not saying you won't necessarily pull it off in the long run, but you'll still be reduced to just one of a number of players, without all extortionate markup gravy either.
The commoditization of the OS is an existing reality. The commoditization of the office suite arrives sometime next week or so.
It's a Brave New World.
KFG
or camels nose under the tent, whatever way you want to explain it, this is very cool. Something I just realized, if enough governments or corporate arenas move to open source software, inertia will help us bring down Microsoft because they will have to create there software to interoperate. If they don't, their current customers will not be able to communicate as effectively with our open source bretheren. The tables will have turned. The tables are turning. Thats very cool.
http://www.haxwell.org
I would think that this would mean that we will be seeing more games coming out for Linux (at least from Blizzard).
But I would suspect that with Korea, China, and shortly Japan moving to Linux, that the game companies will start producing native Linux version.
Loki was just ahead of their time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This one is big....real big and it means big trouble for MS. Losing a city like Munich or even one state like MA MS could absorb but an entire country like South Korea? If I was Ballmer, I would be getting my assistant to fetch me those Depends because he should be shitting his pants. South Korea is a major economic force (relatively speaking, i.e., compared to Peru and Brazil which are dabbling with OSS) and when they do something in the computer and electronic industry they don't do it half-assed or haphazardly.
This is a major blow to MS, but not undeserved and no, I am not just automatically anti-MS. This is just that old adage "What comes around, goes around." MS has sown the seeds of discontent themselves by overcharging and maintaining an iron-fisted and draconian grip over the software industry.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
when governments jump onto bandwagons like this? Sure, Linux is great software, the GPL is a solid license, Microsoft is the Demon of the Decade but most of the politicians (in the UK) don't actively use email so why is it that they now suddenly "get" OSS?
...
Is it their enthusiastic advisors plugging OSS? Then I hope they have a good alibi if their bosses "understanding" doesn't match their expectations - it's a good start but politicians sometimes have a "midas" touch on these issues. Except it's not gold it turns into
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
or rather hot air ballons - they have lots of that
Yesterday, North Korea has switched all their 7 PCs to RedHat Linux. That makes them second MS-free economy in the world (first was, of course, The Principality of Sealand. Film at 11
Not a fan of Freecraft?
All's true that is mistrusted
With OSS you get a customizable product with less (formal) vendor support.
As a customer, this is cheap to buy AND gives you extra flexibility, but OTOH you need to buy service instead.
So you shift the cost of purchase to the cost of service, with the advantage of independance from a single vendor and possibility to customize the software more to your liking.
A standard (COTS) product can be produced off short. The service for OSS however must be (partially) provided by someone who is on-site, i.e. is harder to move off short.
The whole idea of OSS as a business model is to sell a service, not a product.
Update: North Korea has also announced plans to switch over its 3 computers to open souce software...
The effective cost of an OS is now $0
That's wrong. I gladly pay for my W2K licenses because it helps me get more work done quicker. For me to learn how to use Linux, it would take me many, many hours. Time is money, kiddo. No OS is free.
Makes it seem like all the pundits who called the browser wars OVER were a bit premature in their declaration. With non-U.S. governments going whole hog to non-proprietary products, Mozilla, Konqueror, and other open source products will finally see their share rise at the expense of IE (what else is there to rob from?). When the U.S. becomes a small subset of web users, IE's market share will be less like a monopoly and more like a realistic competitor.
The only question now is will Steve Ballmer be capable of covering the sort of distance needed to pull back all these switching governments before collapsing with exhaustion, or is he en route for the Air Miles record?
Hah! Now that's priceless!
How the hell is anyone supposed to understand that? Where is your puctuation? Without punctuation its just looks like a mess of jumbled up letters.
That's just silly. Why would Ballmer need to use commercial aviation when he's Dancing Flying MonkeyBoy! As the Wicked Wizard of the Pacific NorthWest sends him aloft, cackling "I'll get those Ruby Hats yet, my pretties!!!! Eyy Hehehehehehehehehe!!!!"
It's 300 HUNDRED million, not three million. And it is the amount of savings, not the dollars' worth of boxen.
One thing I have to give Microsoft credit for is their foreign-language support and Asian IME's. I had to set up a Linux box for a friend with both Traditional and Simplified Chinese support, and it was nasty to try and figure out. The final result was not quite as simple and easy-to-use as what you'd find in OS X or Windows.
In the light of this, the decision of Eastern governments like China and Korea to go with open-source software is all the more significant. To me, it indicates that they are more than willing to deal with software that may not be as good to gain the benefits of OSS.
20% of desktops and 30% of servers.
and for billy gates? how about a buggy whip?
i'm serious, btw.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
that's three hundred million dollars.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
I've just been to two websites in the last five minutes (www.iams.com and www.thefermentedgrape.com) that did not cooperate with Mozilla. Iams' had a text version; the other is a wine brewing store just down the street, so I'll be able to talk to them directly (gak! RealWorld!). Perhaps -- I'm the overly optimistic sort sometimes -- a country with 48 million people switching to Mozilla (yes, government != joe user) will make the odd web developer realize that not fucking everybody uses IE.
(ObDisclaimers: I realize that two web sites are not a huge deal. Most of the time I'm happy to write off the site in question and move on. The instructions did specifically state that I shouldn't taunt Happy Fun Ball.)
Carousel is a lie!
.....considering that ~90% of the software in said country is pirated anyway. The big loss will be to the OSS community when they realize that more and more OS code will be incorporated into closed source apps with note even a by your leave given to the GPL.
. Call me crazy but I really believe that government should always choose the least expensive option whenever possibe
A government is not a business. I was once told that a business is run to maximize profits, and a government is run to maximize fairness. Governments don't run like this. If they did, things like the US mail wouldn't be guaranteed to everybody. It'd be too expensive to run mail out to people in the country. Paved roads? Again, only in populated areas where the tax money can support it. Education? Fuck the kids. They're too expensive.
Sorry kid, but that's a pretty shitty topic for a thesis of any kind because you haven't thought it out more than deciding which candy bar to buy.
Yes, US states are suffering budget constraints, but the purchase price of software is small potatoes in the US compared to the cost of personnel. People costs such as training and support far outweight what you save in the initial software purchase, and I don't think open source benefits from simple-minded economic arguments ("it's free!") that lead to "policy mandates" from above that fail on the front lines and make everybody cranky.
Over time, though, open source software will get easier to use and people will encounter it more and more often. More "killer apps" will appear for Linux, prompting the installation of Linux for those apps, leading to experimentation with other apps ("as long as we have this Linux box and the app is free for the download, why not check it out...?"), leading to more familiarity and more experiments, etc., from the bottom up.
When the users instigate the experiments, they'll be a lot more patient with the inevitable obstacles than if the decision is imposed on them from above.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Three HUNDRED million, not three million, which would be about 300,000 to 400,000 PCs if your cost factor is correct. But, as has been previously pointed out, the article actually says that they'll be able to save around three hundred mil, meaning that's the cost of the software being replaced, not the cost of the PCs.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
...distros build colloboratively by the IT departments from various state governments.
I realize it would most likely have to occur on departmental levels, for example, I work for the courts and develop case management systems so I would work with the IT departments of other courts in other states.
The current system in place for some of my appellate courts are based on a system that was developed by a vendor for a different state but since it's proprietary to the vendor, we can't enhance it so we have to re-write it so that we own the code and can make changes as needed. Imagine if we could create a baseline application for all the courts in the state and leverage all the programmers in those IT departments to work on it? Ok, so maybe it's just my fantasy.
- tokengeekgrrl
by the way.
No one takes AC's seriously.
In this case, at least, the government isn't really forcing open source down people's throats. What they are doing with the 30% mandate is they're seeding the space with enough PCs running Open Source that the market can't just blithely ignore the existence of anything non-MS.
At that point, people really have a choice. If OS turns their crank, then they know that the market will support most/all that they want/need to do. If MS-Windows really is better, there's still 70% of machines that can be left running Windows.
Right now, with MS both owning the market and also coming up with all sorts of incentives for companies to build sites that only support Windows, there are a lot of people who don't thing that there's a real choice for them.
A real free market requires choice, and I think that this provides that.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
One thing I've noticed is that many organizations and countries have been switching to open source software just because it's not Microsoft. They're sick and tired of Microsoft's ruthless and illegal business practices, and quite frankly I don't blame them.
The problem is that OSS is not the golden hammer solution to every problem. Some systems are better off being built using propritary software, especially when you need someone who will "just fix it" if it breaks, or has a whole suite of solutions that work together. Unfortunately, Microsoft's violation of anti-trust law has ensured that there are few, if any, viable propritary alternatives to many software products (i.e. desktop operating systems). The result is that our options are limited to choices which, in some cases, are far less than optimal.
Microsoft's business tactics may be driving people to open source, but if open source is not the answer to your problem, that is not a good thing.
Would you rather pay a bunch of money for an encumbered proprietary tool or get an approximately equivalent unencumbered tool for close to free? I don't see how MS can defend itself in this battle.
...that I am currently re-writing proprietary applications bought from vendors, (one client-server app based on Oracle powerbuilder and another 32-bit windows-based). Once my team is done, we will own the code but the technology underneath (I'm thinking of Oracle specifically and other middleware applications) will still be owned by someone else. Once say Oracle decides to no longer support whichever of their products we are using, we have to upgrade and re-program it again if necessary, etc...
Basically, I think the cost-effectiveness will be recognizeable in the longterm because of the total ownership over the technology and investment made into resources so I understand your point in regards to open source by itself not necessarily being cost-effective. I have worked in the state government for 5+ years which, while not an extraordinarily long period of time, has revealed to me the expensive process that is endured with throwing money into "current" technology only to have it fade away within a few years and require replacing.
But you are quite right in that open source does not guarantee anything but it does offer great potential.
- tokengeekgrrl
I wonder how many country's sacred trees Balmer's dog has relieved itself on...
...but I have now, thanks! :)
I think local control is as important as cost savings. From my experience, it is often overlooked as something desirable because some government managers don't want the full responsibility that brings, they always want to be able to point their finger at a vendor. I think the public deserves better than that.
- tokengeekgrrl
Yes. 30% of servers and 20% of desktop computers at organizations where people are supposed to work is exactly where computer games are played. Blizzard would be wise to exploit this linux market
From the article, this seems like a boon for mozilla users in SK. This probably means more OpenOffice users and that's another positive. And if this pans out, more people in SK would be receptive to try Linux at home. But unfortunately, Linux has quite a ways to go before it really becomes an enticing game market.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
How many LEGAL copies of starcraft sold in SC?
Does anyone have the stats for this? I was under the impression that it's mostly piracy...
Buttsex.
Since there is only so much money to go around to fund IT infrastructure/application development, an integral part of my dept's mandate is to be cost-effective in order to be fair to all users across the state (which is a significant group since I'm in CA).
;)
In light of that clarification, I don't think your comparison to US mail or paved roads or education or my deciding which candy bar to buy (twixt is my current favorite) is really applicable.
- tokengeekgrrl
I'd be in more trouble if the sun suddenly exploded tomorrow, which is about as likely.
Wow. I hope your job doesn't depend on your ability to judge odds. Major US corporations go away on a regular basis (at least one a decade); their life expectancy is well under 10^2 years. G class stars explode--almost never. But even if we charitably count all failure modes as "explosions" they still last on the order of 10^10 years, a ratio of a hundred million to one.
Thus, you are saying that a 1% chance is "about as likely" as 1 chance in 100,000,000, which is...well, wrong.
-- MarkusQ
HBCI is fine stuff that works very well. Maybe it's even secure. I just love my Moneyplex 4 Linux from http://www.matrica.de There's even open HBCI if you don't like commercial software. But I really think commercial software that uses open standards isn't bad. Schugy
Fact Check. The conspiratory project with the Chinese appears to be development of Linux and other open source, not to create a new OS. Your reference clearly states that the project will be open source, and claims that it will be based upon Linux.
the next 10 years will be very interesting.
I do not see how microsoft will survive..
I mean they are and arent like IBM, see, IBM had much more going for it than an operating system.
they had PC's, servers, and all kinds of hardware, they flopped in the PC and OS category, and microsoft and independent PC makers kicked them aside, IBM has thrived on helping opensource, manufacturing computer hardware, etc. they have a survival plan. now they back free software, because hey, it's just software, you gotta have a machine to run the software.
microsoft is mainly software and stock shares, they do make computers, but they're just as shoddy as the software they make, when microsoft falls, they're going to fall VERY hard. IBM fell, but they had plenty of padding to help them surive, I suggest to Mr. Gates that he better start saving up his money and start looking for a place to retire, because his time is coming up.
but then again, let's not too cocky, because you never know what will happen, thus why I say the next 10 years will be interesting.
I bet in the end, all the other countries, except the US will have freedom to choose what software they want to use, while the us has to use microsoft as their operating system, the way special interest has a stranglehold on the government.
it's gonna be a wild ride.
After all, why should the asians buy from MS anyway. They are already using cheap asian labor to make the software then sell it back at inflated american prices. Why not just skip the MS middleman and "pay" their own people..and save a buck or two. When American companies pay cheap labor in asia it's "outsorucing", when Asian companies pay cheap asian labor in asia it's "unfair" competition...see.
I think you're right on about Globalism though. American companies aren't making JOBS for americans, they're just using it as an excuse to get free work. OSS changes the focus [back] from buying a canned "product" to buying experience and know-how. Corporations like MS have spent years trying to "bottle" knowladge from others and sell it real cheap. OSS lets YOU use knowladge to improve your situation. MS is really in the same racket as the RIAA or MPAA. While they are really popular, they don't make anything people can't live without. That OSS is even an issue shows how quickly software became "Corpratist". After all, we don't have debates about independant music or film, yet independant [free] software is somehow inferior or wrong? It's a great brainwashing job!
300 Megabucks is big money to me or you but small change in this league. Korea, China, Japan and India running OSS on open standards protocols will make a huge difference for the world. A distro like Mandrake is already easier, faster and more reliable than closed source slop from Redmond. Add enough market and you will find much better device drivers, office suites and interfaces to all the home electronics. I don't think closed source should be outlawed though. There are some honest and reliable closed source vendors. If they use open standards it is not that bad to interoperate. Even if Microsoft was no cost it is too expensive for the quality and security. DC
One thing I have to give Microsoft credit for is their foreign-language support and Asian IME's.
Not really. Up to 98 and Me, i18n capability of Winduws was a joke. You had to install half-ass IME on preinstalled IE and it worked only on a few apps, as far as I know.
The current IME on 2K works OK, but apps written for a localized version of windows still DO NOT run on English version. You can't even install them. Localized versions of Win I believe handle apps for English version (I'm not sure) but localized versions of Windows has UGLY English fonts by default.
As far as XP goes, I'm not sure, but it looks like it went back to dark ages again. I couldn't configure it to be i18n compatible. I may be missing something, but configuration offers much less than W2K did. MS offers downloadable IME for XP, but unlike IME's for 98/Me, the one for XP is botched and it doesn't work with Mozilla!!!!. It only works on IE, Office and so forth. You can dual boot both English and localized versions on one machine to solve ALL the problems, of course, but why do you have to pay twice for one OS? Besides you HAVE to install two versions on different partitions because if you install both on one partition, system files for the two versions will screw each other up.
Linux's i18n capability depends on distribution. I first tried Redhat and it worked great. You need to re-login after you change language setup to switch default language, but switch is far more thorough than Winows. Not only IME, it switches desktop's language settings as well. Besides that, you don't have to worry about incompatibility between English version and localized version. Unlike Windows, OS by American monopoly, necessity for i18n has always been there during development of Linux, which took place world wide. Although there are some extra features on w2k ime (dictionary, etc), overall I find Linux language handling more thorough and trustworthy.
My 2cents.
I just love the business atmosphere here in the U.S. where everyone without high-paid lawyers gets to lick the shit off the Big Players' shoes, or get bullied out of business.
Seriously, why is it that here in America people aren't more inclined to switch to lower cost solutions? I mean, if you think about it, with the money that companies and government spend on software, they could collaborate and develop their own software and never have to pay out the ass for software again.
Everywhere else in the world, companies and government are realizing this.
I just don't get it.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's also funny how the majority of third world doctors, teachers and yes, terrorists are educated in the US.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
However industry experts have expressed skepticism, saying that the country's software developers don?t have the resources to support both Windows and Linux.
And now the 'experts' think the N. Korean programmers aren't smart enough.
-- Up to no good and lovin' it!
Looks like the Evil Empire is going to lose, and lose big, in the Far East. The Rebel Alliance is growing increasingly strong in Korea, along with Japan and China.
Personally, I favour the domino theory: once Linux is being used in 10-20% of the computers in these countries, more and more countries will choose freedom with Linux and OSS. First in the government infrastructure, then business and home users.
Microsoft will be unable to stem the tide in the server sector. They'll hold on longer on the business desktop. Possibly they will eventually re-position themselves as a home PC / games machine company.
The increasing shrillness and implausibility of MS denunciations of Linux will show that in their hearts they know they're losing.
The arguments that OSS causes a loss in job suffers from the same flaw as /. arguments that technology causes a loss of jobs and outsourcing causes a loss in jobs: looking at a particular piece of the economy rather than looking at the economy in the aggregate.
Innovative endeavor is never a bad thing. OSS and motorized street sweepers both cost jobs for someone. But society as a whole is able to be more productive, and more jobs are created. Similarly free trade leads companies to move jobs abroad, but it also makes American businesses possible that would previously have been unprofitable and makes consumer good more attainable. Imagine how expensive products would be and how difficult it would be to run a computer store or a car dealership or a toy factory if all the parts were 4-20x as expensive.
OSS, technology, and free trade really suck for some people. Real people lose real jobs. This is particularly hard on people losing low skill jobs, which are the most likely to be lost due to technology or globalization
The answer isn't stopping innovation (I consider outsourcing a market/resource management innovation). The answer is making sure that there are systems in place that help the people who lose out due to innovation to get the skills to take advantage of the new jobs that are created by innovation.
Bill G: er, Steve, where do you want to go today?
G'nite folks!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
So my prediction is that Microsoft will cut them a deal and the whole plan will be quietly dropped.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The Onceler spoke for the thneeds he was making and not much else. The Lorax spoke for all the nice things you mentioned.
Cheers...
All's true that is mistrusted
In my company (big financial institution) we use alot of OSS: perl, apache, Linux and many utilities.
We have a team of people that check that the code is kosher (checking that no trojan is introduced, that it does not do stupid or inneficient things, etc). Those jobs would not exists if we were relying on COTS (ought to love acronyms).
And then we have all the programmers, developpers and SAs whose jobs require to know how to use these tools. More job creation.
So in my opinion, OSS moves jobs from the producer to the consumer, greatly benefitting the second one.
If pure software companies want to keep those jobs for themselves (thus remaining profitable) they will have to open their software and help their clients tailoring to their needs.
The days of software companies bossing their clients aound may be over if software users take the oppportunities that OSS provides.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I don't feel a bit sorry for MS. I've never seen a company work so hard to fuck themselves since the AutoDesk days. Over the years they'll fade into the IT background. They'll probably survive in some fashion, look at Novel.
Man, it was fun there for a while. Aren't you going to miss the battle, just a little?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
According to Stephen Northcutt; SANS NewsBites Editor; in the latest isssue said: "However, there is usually a reason for monoculture; it is hard to
imagine trying to do real business using open office on whatever version of Red Hat Linux is out this week." Therefore any attempt to convert to whatever flavour of GNU/ Linux can't be done. The great success in Hollywood and elseware using GNU/Linux must not be real.
zenray
If you are a big company, yeah, you can get the "just fix it" treatment.
Or if you are a goverment, you may get that.
But for the rest of the world you may just forget it, "just fix it" does not work simply because you can't afford it. "Just fix it" is a reality that very few dealing with software companies experience.
Even big companies live under forced obsolecense: big companies with relatively stable (for Windows) set ups using NT4 are forced to migrate. The "just fix it" is a falacy that software companies perpetutate but that UT savvy people should dismiss as the half truth it is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
$300,000,000 worth of computers? >DROOL
-Tim Louden
I suspect that many governments particularly France, Germany and China probably took the "with us or against us" stance of the Bush administration rather more seriously than they could have and see closed source software from the US as, potentially, the ultimate spyware. Even with MS's shared source idea there's plenty of room to put a few backdoors in that'd be very difficult to find.
That's not to say that Linux is guaranteed leak free but they will see it as being more under their control particularly when they can write their own distro.
Whether there are any backdoors in Windows or not is irrelevant, Just the thought of the Dept. of Homeland Security being able to poke around a foreign governments files would be enough to tip the balance.
It's a paranoid old world out there.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Dangit, why do I never had mod points? I loved this post! It was a very incisive and clever comment on people's stubborn scepticism and failure to think outside the box.
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
It says the lobbyists have too much power in goverment.
The article summary says they are switching $300M worth of PC's, but actually that's what they plan on saving.
-R
Around 2 million copies. Very impressive... http://www.frictionlessinsight.com/Articles/BeingB lizzard/BeingBlizzardEntertainment.htm
For all those who haven't seen him dance yet, here's a link. Enjoy!
Ballmer Dance
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Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
They'll want XP back ... big time and in a bad way ....
Sorry dude, South Korea is 4th.
/ 03 -01-07_largest-economies.shtml
Japan
China
India
Korea
http://www.australianpolitics.com/foreign/trade
All your oil r belong to us.
So you're now dumping 1 Billion dollars into workers in India! Great.. now how much of that comes back to US companies?
Indians dont buy levi's, old navy. Many shun Coke and other similar products. They are not after the latest Jewel CD.
Hopefully people get the idea. Money spent overseas does not come back the way companies say it will. Even if we bring up their standard of living and such they socially buy locally.
Anyway - North Korea is already member of the "Axle of Evil", so why not extend this to South Korea?
Not using Microsoft Software should be enough proof that they are terrorists/mass destructors/atomic bombers/anarchists/communists.......
I wouldn't be too optimistic... the last few times I was in an internet cafe in China/Taiwan/HK/Korea, the most played game was either Lineage or Dragon Raja, MMORPGs coming out of Korea. Stores were lined more with local games than imported US games. Granted, CS/SC/WC/UT have a following, the local software companies have a better grasp at what the local taste is like.
I don't have any sales numbers, but I suspect most US-made games sell a whole lot more in the states/Europe than they do in Asia. Not to mention rampant piracy.....
Unless, of course, we all start playing non-US games, which does seem to be the coming trend. Lineage II (Korea) is coming to the states, FFXI (Japan) is soon to be released, and China... well... the cultural differences have yet to been bridged. Chinese games are more tied in with their history and culture, and really geared towards Chinese-literate.
Now.. imagine.. five years down the line, FFXX-3 being developed for Linux due to Japanese everyday usage... and imagine the average Joe in the US when said FF is being brought over.
"Dude, you hear the next Final Fantasy will run on this Linux thing?"
"Damn man, how much is it?"
"I hear it's free!"
"Let's get it!!"
*massive slashdot-effect (err... FF-effect) as Joes/Janes all over the US suddenly started downloading Linux*
I'd like to agree that JoeLinux appears to be a total loser. Geopolitics, indeed. What do you think this is, Kuro5hin?
/. can such giant monkey cock at times.
And what is this crap he says about no trustings at ACs? Comments like his are why
I read on an onboard magazine in Icelandair a couple of years ago that many big corporations were purchasing aircrafts and putting pilots in their payrolls because it was cheaper than paying for all the flights some of their executives had to do. Not only that, baring certain high-traffic routes, it's also faster to travel with your own airplane than depend on pre-defined routes and connections.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
While the rest of us shit in a bigger hole in the floor, built into an immobile chair and we eat our cattle... and chickens and pigs... In the "grand scheme," we're not that much different, we just like to think we are.
Which is interesting given MS' apparent lack of profit from any other division but OS and Office.
As the profit margin and profits fall, the risk of having unlicenced copies of MS software around (which medium sized organisations can easily do without meaning to) rises due to greater efforts at enforcing/wringing out the last drop of profit.
As this happens the risk-reduction produced by moving functions to Open Source programs increases.
An anonymous coward said: Not only are you prejudiced, you are also bigoted too. It's incredibly presumptious of you to believe that Asia is the sole source of all spam e-mail - as I remember, quite a few boxes get rooted in the U.S, Western Europe, Israel, Russia, what have you.
First, that's a straw man. I did not say that Asia is the sole source of all spam. Some of it comes from a lot closer to home. And it's also true that even when Asian open relays are used or Asian companies are employed to send it, it is often advertising American products. Read my original statement again. I was very precise, and you've ignored the distinctions.
Second, it is never prejudiced or bigoted to believe something because the evidence supports it, no matter how politically incorrect the resultant statement is.
Do you even know what "prejudiced" means? It means coming to conclusions without examining the evidence or in spite of good evidence to the contrary. That's what you've done.
My statement is supported well by my logfiles and those of other people I've talked to. A lot more malicious traffic comes from Asia than could be explained by their proportion of Internet usage. It's as simple as that. If you run the statistics on your own machines, I believe you'll find the same thing.
And bigoted? A bigot is "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ." (American Heritage) Okay, I'm strongly partial to people who reply to polite emails, make some effort to understand what they're getting in to, and participate in the world community in general. I am intolerant of other people. That technically meets that definition of bigoted, but I don't think it meets the spirit of the word. I certainly didn't imply that all Asians have those undesirable characteristics; I noted that the noticeable ones do. Those are the ones who are important for affecting Linux's reputation, so that's sufficient to draw my conclusion.
I said: I've never gotten a decent response back from Asia when reporting these sorts of things to ISPs, and I do from elsewhere in the world.
An Anonymous Coward said: Maybe if you were less arrogant and condescending, you would get a response.
No, I use the same tone regardless of which continent the ISP belongs to. I've politely pointed out that they have a spammer or open relay on their network. I've tried giving various levels of information - from assuming they know what I mean by just that to spelling everything out. Nothing works. The only responses I've ever gotten back were bounce messages don't have abuse addresses (contrary to some advisory RFC I can't remember off the top of my head) and don't have postmaster addresses (contrary to RFC-82[23]). When that happens, APNIC's contact addresses for the IP range are worthless, too.
Flamebait away. The karma system exists for a reason. I have plenty of karma because I've said things in the past that people have found to be true, and so I can get away with saying unpopular things.
Ralph Wiggum: (to Lisa, who fell asleep in class on top of her project) "You look like my mom after she's had her box of wine."
Couldn't find the episode in snpp.com, but found a reference to it here.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I believe that there are other reasons why the govts of China, Japan, and Korea decided form a Linux pact that go beyond simply saving money in the bureaucrasies or having an alternative to Microsoft. If those were the only reasons, then there is no need for such an international tripartite techno-alliance.
Ever since Sony started marketing transistor radios back in the 60s, Asian manufacturers have dominated the electronics industries. This is not news to anyone. However, despite this, they always had to pay hefty royalty fees for certain key technologies developed by American or European firms that were protected by intellectual property laws (let's leave China out for now, since they are only in the initial stages of the development path that Korea and Japan embarked upon decades ago). Examples of such technologies include dolby noise filtering techniques during the days of cassette tape players and the semiconductor chips that implement the CDMA protocol developed by Qualcomm that go into every cell phone made by Samsung. Licensing fees for Microsoft software is only another example. Korea and Japan have traditionally been export-oriented economies and a big percentage of those exports is claimed by hi-tech products. Therefore, promoting the use of locally developed components or technologies has always been a issue of high importance, both politically and business-wise.
This is not the first time Asian govts have intervened to guide private industry. In the 80s, the Japanese undertook a national VLSI project to develop their semiconductor industry when it was realized that electronics were destined to be more digital instead of analog. The Koreans implemented their own massive push into semiconductors on the heels of the Japanese in the 90s. I believe that something similar is happening now with Linux.
Why Linux?
Many devices that are designed today are essentially specialized computers. By that I mean, the architecture basically resembles that which is present in a regular PC, ie volatile memory, non-volatile storage, CPU, and optional interfaces all linked together by a system bus on a mainboard. A Cisco router is nothing more than a specialized computer whose architecture has been optimized and adapted for the purpose of routing IP packets. Same for cell phones and mp3 players. But any device that utilizes a CPU must also have an operating system. That's where Linux comes in.
The design trend is leaning more and more towards embedded systems utilizing some form of Linux as a de-facto standard platform. Therefore Linux has an important role to play, even beyond desktops and servers. The open-source nature of Linux is appealing, esp to the Asians, because it helps mitigate the issue of having to pay royalties to foreign companies. By agreeing to cooperate in Linux and open-source, the three Asian nations are in a sense declaring independence from being constantly beholden to proprietary foreign technologies and perhaps even positioning themselves to seize leadership in setting technical standards in a key area which they think is crucial by leveraging the power of a huge combined marketplace that will include China.
-- I hereby announce, on behalf of my great ancester Oog, a retroactive patent on THE WHEEL.