Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Govt Boosts OSS Developments
Final Samurai writes "Information-technology Promotion Agency(IPA,
in pdf),
an extra-departmental organization of
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan has been supported open source software development.
Some efforts are now available:
framework for printing,
Samba internationalization,
a tool for hacking Gtk+,
ssh in Java,
manuals for OpenOffice.org, and
GRASS internationalization.
Though IPA doesn't announce the support program strongly, we can find the name, `IPA' in
each project page. Does your government have such a plan to fund OSS developments?
How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)?
If you have a chance to be funded, what kind of software will you develop?"
As an English teacher (and native English speaker) living in Japan, allow me to apologize for the poor English in the article write up. My organization (JET, Japan Exchange and Teaching) has been working directly within the Japan school system more than 15 years in an effort to increase the English ability of Japanese public school students. Currently more than 3,000 native speakers from around the world are living and working in Japan, employed by local school boards and teaching the youth of Japan in teams with native Japanese.
However, during these past 15 years, a new technology called "the Internets" (developed first by Vice President Gore but later expanded to a plurality of networks under President Bush) has developed. As a result, I and my thousands of colleagues have spent our time checking our email, reading slashdot, downloading graduate school applications, and clicking links randomly while staring vacantly at the clock in the corner of the taskbar instead of developing lesson plans. The result of these activities can be seen above.
Sorry!
I swear, just one more article, then it's nose to the grindstone! For real this time!
"How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)?"
Would be sorta cool - they we could all start hating the OSS software creators like we all hate MS, right? I mean, we'd be paying them money with our tax dollars, so we can bitch when they don't get security holes plugged weeks before someone announces them, and all that good stuff, right?
Right.