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Japan, China, S Korea Agree To Standardize Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the moving-towards-it dept.

Ooi writes "Japan Today News reports: 'The governments of Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to work together to come up with an alternative computer operating system to reduce reliance on Microsoft's Windows, the Yomiuri and Nihon Keizai newspapers reported Sunday. According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely. The agreement was signed in Beijing on Saturday by senior government officials from the three countries.' Australian IT has an article on the issue prior to the meeting." A few weeks ago, I spoke at the Asia OSS meeting in Hanoi of which the three gov'ts above are also members. There's a very serious commitment to OSS especially among the governments represented there.

10 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. But will it be OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's all well and good these countries developing Linux, but will it remain open source?

    Can open source be inforced with these governmental development?

  2. China as a Linux maker by Michalson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So how much can we expect Linux and OSS to be exploited for oppression and control of the population? China already takes a lot of measures to control the internet (students get arrested just for entering key phrases like "taiwan", "human rights" and "democracy" into google), if they can control the OS too what is to stop them from using that to further control (and while the GPL forces it to be open source, they can easily make it a political crime to use any clean/lite version of their distro)

    1. Re:China as a Linux maker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "and while the GPL forces it to be open source

      What's to stop them disobeying (in particular, their Government) the GPL and doing what they like with the code?

      Who would be able to prosecute them? Who would care enough?

      The chinese government will do with linux what they want. And no-one wants to stop them, because you can't piss of the Chinese Government, as its too big a market for imports and exports.

    2. Re:China as a Linux maker by Short+Circuit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That would lead to funny (as in odd) situation.

      If Western software was being pirated by China, you'd expect the US to do something about it, right? The only problem is that that same software is the biggest competitor to the US's biggest software developer, who's also a major contributor to campaign funds.

      Want to talk about conflict of interest?

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      tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  3. Expected by Peter_Pork · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It has been clear for some years that most countries are very unhappy with the existing OS monopoly. Given how critical IT has become, it is simply unacceptable to rely on a single, foreign vendor like Microsoft. Linux (in some evolved or forked form) will be the standard OS everywhere, at least outside the US. Other open source projects, like FreeBSD, may also conquer quite a few markets. Paradoxically, the only solution is an free, open source Windows, but I doubt Microsoft is so brave!

    1. Re:Expected by weave · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I do believe you're right. One could say "duh, obvious" even, but I've been surprised it hasn't happened before now. With growing mistrust of the U.S. around the world, why would a foreign nation trust a closed source piece of software from a U.S. company?

      On another angle, why did the U.S. and Europe bother suing Microsoft? If they didn't like Microsoft's monopoly abuses, all each of these governments had to do is leverage their buying power. "We demand you unbunndle, stop, etc, or we will take our business elsewhere." That would have been far more effective and quicker than the courts.

      Once governments switch, their contractors and vendors and others who communicate with them may switch too -- to be compatible. The same domino effect that help Microsoft be where they are today.

  4. Try reactos. by Krik+Johnson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Its a free open source operating system that is a clone of Windows NT. Reactos website

    --
    I have a fetish for traffic cones
  5. Red Flag by somethinghollow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wasn't that the Idea with Red Flag Linux (or whatever it is called... Slashdot's search feature rarely returns anything that has my search terms)? Will South Korea and Japan go for Red Flag or will they start a-fresh?

    At least China already has some experience in this market. Kudos for supporting OSS and maybe (if that actually write any code) helping Linux improve even faster.

  6. Asian-language localized UNIX tools by Debian+Troll's+Best · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This article is great news for proponents of Linux in the Asian IT market. However, this is only a first step on the long march to acceptance. In my experience, a big stumbling block of new IT rollouts in non-Western environments are the language and alphabet related ones. These problems extend from the GUI and applications right at the top, all the way down to basic command line tools. Making sure that there are suitably localized versions of commonly used Open Source and GNU tools would be a great first step in the cultural revolution taking place in workplaces across Asia.

    For example, the apt-get software is a key tool in the system administrator's arsenel. It has a relatively simple command line syntax, but it is obviously in English, and therefore would pose a problem for Japanese, Chinese or Korean administrators wanting to come rapidly up to speed. What would people think about tools like apt-get being re-engineered to include a language abstraction layer, so locales could be exchanged like plugins, to customise the tool for new countries? In fact, this type of localisation need not be limited merely to language changes. Entire cultural paradigms could be replicated via a plug-in system. For example, in Chinese markets the apt-get package management model could be described as a yum-cha cart, bringing tasty morsels of .deb packages to each table, or system. The package database would be the little card the attendant checks when you receive each plate, or in this case, .deb package

    I look forward to the community's response!

  7. I'll believe it when I see... by wsxyz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll believe it when I see Korean websites that are actually usable for people running Linux. In the Korean web, IE6 on Windows is pretty much required to do anything useful at all.

    Korean Ebay is IE6 only, Korean banks offer internet banking only to IE6 users, Many Korean government websites don't function properly with anything but IE6, etc. etc.

    I've been seeing articles about Korea's "committment to Linux" for a long time, but I've yet to see any evidence that the Korean web is anything other than completely and utterly owned by Microsoft.