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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.

19 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Alliances... by MrRTFM · · Score: 5, Funny

    so here are 3 countries which have tradionally been 'not too friendly' with each other that can agree to standardise on a single installation of Linux...

    This is cool, but the $24,000 dollar question is - will they go with KDE or Gnome as the default ??

    Surely this should be a slashdot poll!

    Asian distro defaults...
    (o) Vi and Gnome
    (o) Vi and KDE
    (o) Emacs and Gnome
    (o) Emacs and KDE
    (o) Cowboy Neal is my interface and text editor, you insensitive clod!

    --
    You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
    1. Re:Alliances... by I+Be+Hatin' · · Score: 4, Funny
      You can run Gnome and KDE on top of Emacs?!!! Is there anything Emacs can't do these days?

      Load in under 10 seconds?

      --
      I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
  2. 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?

    1. Re:But will it be OS by spectrokid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They can tell the FSF to go **** itself, but they would shoot themselves in the foot. Keeping their source closed would lead to a fork, meaning they would gradually start losing compatibility. All those free and fresh updates available at SF and kernel.org would gradually grow more and more incompatible.

      --

      10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  3. 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 gus+goose · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The parent is such an absurd remark. Firstly, they can not control the OS. They can Contribute, but that is it. They can legislate, enforce, or whatever. The only thing Linux is going to do is possibly make the governments more efficient at being oppressive.

      You will find that all governments (especially the US government) feel "pissed" when they are not "in control", and will use whatever tools at their disposal to gain as much control as possible. The US Govt is a prime example. Look at how they have used tech to gain control of their environment.

      So, The advancements that China/etc can make to Linux to make it a better tool for them are going to be used to the collective benefit of ALL linux users, (and I imagine that the BOFH Firewall admins will be especially happy). As for how the tech is used in China as opposed to the rest of the world, well, that is for the Chinese to determine.

      So, a government, whether Chinese or not, will always want control... it is their job. Linux, whether modified by the Chinese/etc or not, will be better for the experience.

      As for human rights, etc. Well, first you have to ask yourself ... who knows most about human rights?

      gus

      --
      .. if only.
    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?

      --
      tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  4. 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.

  5. Re:Yay! by TwistedSquare · · Score: 5, Funny
    now the easter countries

    I'm just hoping Christmas Island joins in too.

  6. Re:Yay! by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 4, Funny
    Linux is starting to get serious government atterion that it deserves here in the US.

    This is horrible news! With Sweden claiming the world's richest business man owning IKEA here , Bill Gates needs all the support he can get to jump back on top. If we all work together and pledge to purchase a copy of Windows XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro we can make the dream happen... we can put Bill back on top and win one for America!! Down with crappy swedish furniture manufacturers and up with global monopolistic software giants! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

  7. 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.

  8. 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!

  9. Re:Yay! by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These 3 countries are out to save a buck ...

    Nothing wrong with that.

    and at the same time try to get a bit of traditional American IT industry, OS making.

    Since Linux is not traditional American IT industry software, there is no technological drain happening here. This decision does however have the potential to shrink the market share of a certain technologically stagnated and sloppy American OS vendor but that is only to be expected when this American OS vendor's product sucks bigtime. Another factor is the simple fact that given the USA's obsession with intelligence gathering nobody trusts this American OS vendor not to cave into the pressure to spike its product with backdoors

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  10. Another example of Microsofts big fear. by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Things getting to a point where no one wants them.

    Kind of an interesting analogy. This could be similar to the Big Iron vs PC issues that happened during the 80's. Everyone wants the speed, responsiveness, and immediate feedback of the PC. From a core OS standpoint, Microsoft just doesn't provide this. If you want a change, such as how it handles your system of written communication, you either pay the big bucks and DIY or wait for them to do it for you. Security issues tend to take longer with Microsoft. Etc, etc...

    Microsoft won't ever go away. But I fee that they will become less relevant.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  11. At least... by OpenSourced · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At the very least, given the big number of hardware companies in those countries (added those of Taiwan that probably wasn't in the agreement because China doesn't recognize it, but whose interests lie in the same line), this agreement will help improve Linux driver support.

    That's good news and no mistake.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
  12. 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.

  13. 3 countries have different causes by News+for+nerds · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For Japan, the most wanted goodness in Linux is security, which is considered higher than that of MS Windows. Money is not that big issue for Japanese government, as Japanese electronics giants such as Fujitsu which are close to the governemnt are traditionally big for their SPARC servers. Migrating to Linux may be short loss for those companies but killing license fee to MS and Sun will offset it.

    For Korea, the most wanted is cheapness of Linux, that will help the country to grow without paying licence fee to the US company.

    For China, to kill rampant piracy to meet global standard, Linux is ideal solution, and of course it is free of security backdoor that may be present in software made in the US as GNU/RMS repeats it. You may worry about China use Linux as a tool to suppress free speech, but considering this is a project of 3 countries, such aspect won't be in its contents.

    Though 3 countries have different causes, as the initiative of so-called Open Source development is still in the hand of the Western people and internationalization of current OSS is poor, it is no wonder those countries start their own movement.

  14. Re:Can we please stop saying MS has a monopoly? by hyphz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, it's not that.

    Microsoft are considered to have a monopoly because any new OS is caught in the chicken-and-egg problem: nobody will use the new OS because it doesn't support hardware/software, but nobody will code hardware/software support for it because - since nobody is using it - doing so doesn't gain them any customers.

    Microsoft may not have acted to create that monopoly, but that isn't necessary for a monopoly to thrive. The last mile problem is still grounds for monopoly regulation of telecoms even though the telecom firms didn't invent the problem.