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?"
"How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)?"
It wouldn't be much different than the library system. Sharing knowledge for "free" is never a bad thing.
Digital Sailor
Another convert to the array of corporations and governments supporting and using Linux. Soon, the only major corporations not supporting Linux will be Apple and Microsoft...
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Think of it as another form of distributing their investments away from dollars...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I know that the the french government is increasingly pushing free software.The police will soon use OpenOffice as the official suite.An hardened version of Mandrake Linux is beeing used in the army and the standard Mandrake Linux in some part of the administration.Well, Id'l like to see gnu/linux used in other places than army and police, but there are many others examples. Goverment support gives OSS a lot of credibility.
Unless it is under contract to provide an immediate service that is needed. Just putting money out there for funding development would be wrong and we would have nothing more than the waste of taxpayer money that funds "art".
In other words, if there is a purpose/need for the software then by all means fund it under contract for that purpose. This could include changing educational programs to only use OSS for teaching of students on how to program. If however the reason is just to buy votes, keep unemployed "artists" from starving, or there is no need then do not use the taxpayers dollars on it.
I just want to avoid a situation like what we have here in Georgia where one local county spent more on art than their roads. Boy does it show. Want to find a government building - just look for the ugly art or a building that looks more expensive than a bank. I used to think it was just a saying.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You just had to give me another reason to move to Japan.
ARGH!!!
With a budget of 240,000 NIS it's a small step but one in the right direction. http://www.maor.gov.il/english/open_office.asp
Remember Big Steel, Big Auto, Big Air... large monopolies subsidised by the State, inefficient providers of substandard goods... being eventually driven to the edge of extinction by cheap foreign competition, surviving only by embracing modern practice and competing equally?
Remember how world leaders turned to world losers in just 15 years, unable to change with the times?
We're rapidly entering the same phase with software. Big Software in the US (and to some extent in Europe) is largely dependent on its monopoly position, bolstered by State support, using the argument "we pay taxes and create jobs" (both false) as blackmail.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is rapidly evolving to use modern practice (which means open standards and open code) so that they can compete against the previously unassailable US Big Software giants.
It's going to happen exactly the same way. Trauma, crisis, mass layoffs, and finally, when it's almost too late, an understand that Big Software sees that it cannot fight the commoditization of its industry through marketing, politics, or blackmail.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
If the government starts to really push OSS funding from taxes then I would want to see a big push for security-related products. Because broadband/always-on connections are growing there is a real need for free/open-source security solutions for home users who don't really know anything about security and might not be inclined to go out and spend the money on firewalls, anti-virus and etc (and a good advertising campaign for use of freeware security products since there are already many out there, but many people just have no idea they exist or where to find them.... And why we're at it they can also develop an freeware version of VMWare as well please!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
I'm a METI/ITA/JITEC certified Systems Administrator, and they've always been vendor neutral in their exams and included question about opensource for many years. The shortest
exams are still 5 hours long, and are available in the spring and autumn.
Even if they are mostly standards centric, you can see a preference towards open source. They even require knowledge of the GPL in their recent exams.
In Italy LUGs get funded by the government. More or less everything they spend for hardware, room rentals for courses, etc. gets a refund.
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
Not to disrespect the OSS developer, but I have serious concerns about the level of professional financial management that these projects have. I don't want my tax-dollars going to buy a foosball table for an OSS company that will go out of business before their product is delivered. No offense, but follow-through has been a serious problem for OSS. Look at how many projects in freshmeat are at at version 0.5 and haven't been touched in a year.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The m17n library allow you to view and type complex text languages like Indic, Arabic, Hebrew and other languages. While this is possible by using QT3.2+ & GTK2.0+pango, this restricted one to just 2 toolkits and to two heavyweight desktops(XFCE4 is the exception though). The library is also a good compromise between a toolkit dependent solution like pango/QT3.2 and Server based solutions like the doomed Indix and STSF.
The screenshots here show firefox and magicpoint, applications that use different toolkits displaying multilinugal texts. I have even seen but not used windowmaker rpms compiled with m17n support.
A very practical example would be something like Damn Small Linux, which is a pretty lightweight live CD in both disk size (~50 MB) and Memory usage (runs on 64 MB RAM). This was ideal for a school near my place that wanted to use it as a teaching resource but wanted it in their native language. I finally am settling for XFCE4 and GTK2 applications like OO.o, Firefox.
The keyboard solutions were too rudimentary, in the case of xkb for phonetic keymaps for indian languages or too buggy and complex, in the case of IIIMF. M17n was a joy to use from day one and rpms for Mandrake 10.1 & debs for Ubuntu/Debian unstable are available.
"How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)?"
Taxes are meant to fund means and services that are for public service and need, or rather, for different groups of people. This includes roads, traffic signs, also considering the handicapped.
Anything that services a society, technologically, economically, including educational institutions, healthcare, etc. justified governmental funding.
As such, tax funded OSS projects would be a good thing. Given that the solutions are beneficial for a large enough part of society. How that's weighed is a different issue, but just like which roads or traffic signs or schools need more or less funding.
i think its very important that local government start initatives like this, as they are able to put money back into the local economy rather than giving it to large corporations, often in the case of europe - in other countries. this is a win-win situation as far as local government is concerned, local employees providing local services. re-investing back into the community they are supporting.
Japan's central industrial planning, through MITI, has tried many times to snatch the global computing lead from the US. But every time, the strategy has been to fund large corporations to execute a central, multi-year plan, with a specific revolutionary goal. This IPA is completely different: it doesn't pick the end result in advance, it doesn't have a specific timeline, it doesn't even have a revolution in the specs. And it doesn't seem to be a state capitalist (friendly fascist) program for transferring taxes to corporations. Could this be the way that Japan Inc. finally pulls it off - as Japan.org?
--
make install -not war
With all due respect, you are talking nonsense.
First, the IPA does not expressly support Linux. Its progam is to further the use of open source software in Japan. And in fact you will find that many government sponsored research projects in Japan are based on BSD and not Linux. A prominent example is the KAME project (IPsec and IPv6).
Second, Apple has embraced open source software and it is supporting and contributing to open source projects. Some of the work Apple is contributing directly supports otherwise Linux centric projects, for example KHTML.
Also, it should not be forgotten that Apple sponsored and contributed most of the work on MkLinux. In any event, the impression you try to create with your wording, that Apple is in one boat with Microsoft in resisting open source is nothing more than spin.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Brazil is all talk with the Free Software, with the Lula government and what not, their big bruhaha forums, their highfalutin' Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and speeches about "empowerement and technology transfer", but no action. No action, that is, except the government hiring consulting firms full of sysadmins that are making big bucks installing FOSS.*
The Brazilian government AFAIK is spending zilch, nada, on developing the code base that will save them millions. It's an exploitative mentality: you use, deploy widely, but don't give anything back. Except to the consulting $ysadmin$.**
I would like to see the Brazilian government spend money on the development of software they'll use. This would be money well spent. It's the sort of investment that actually saves money, becauses it creates better products and tools, and eases installation, deployment, and integration. FOSS depends on having a solid code base. If you're going to use that code base, you might as well pay something for it.*** This goes for individuals and governments, in particular governments who like to shout out loud their support for Free Software. The Japanese government is an example for all to follow.
---
* Many of those guys are, strangely, acquaintances of the individuals on the government. If there's a scam, I don't know, but it sure smells funny. I should know, I know some of them.
** In fact, I'm lying a bit here: there's a small bunch of government employees developing some stuff. But they're too slow, small in numbers and lacking in expertise. And also, there are small research grants. All this sums up to almost nothing. How many times have you read about a big project the Brazilian government funded on FOSS (except the usual replacement of Windows desktops?) For instance, there is a huge opportunity for KDE and GNOME usability studies, a huge oppportunity for office integration via OO.org. Where are they? Not to be found...
*** How much money have _you_ donated to a FOSS entity like GNU or OpenBSD this year, even though _you_ use their software on a daily basis?
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
You are greatly mistaken.
The IPA is a Japanese government agency and as such every bit as bureaucratic as anything else going in Japan Inc.
I know of quite a number of cases where the IPA has turned down to fund interesting open source projects, the kind of projects most Slashdot readers would be very much in favour of.
If you are a small or medium sized business in Japan and you want money from the IPA's program to develop open source, you have to go through a lot of hoops to actually get funded. Most of the money the government has alotted for this progeam isn't spent and it is not for lack of applicants.
If you do decide to apply, you have to prepare an application that most SMEs won't have the expertise to do. They will need to spend $$$ on ex-government officials turned consultants to prepare the application for them.
Then if you do get invited to present your application at the IPA, you will find yourself with 3 or 4 employees of your company in a room with about 15 to 20 Japanese government officials, every one of whom will ask questions that are pretty humiliating for small and medium sized companies.
The tenor is pretty much like "Who the heck are you guys? Is three people all you can muster? How big is your company? Have you done this before? Have you got any backing by big corporations with recognised names and brands?"
The smaller your company, the more likely your application will be judged not on its own merits but on prejudice against anything small and without a big name.
The IPA program may look different on the outset but under the surface it is just the same old way of Japan Inc.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Well I for one believe that Governments should develop nothing but Open Source products. As a taxpayer I'm paying the wages of the coders so I should be able to utilise the fruits of their labour.
;) ?
Not to mention the fact that once one government has developed something all governments can benefit from the work too. Maybe this will lead to lower taxes worldwide
My personal view is that all Govermnets activities should be fully accountable and a citizen should have access to all information held by the Government. The only exceptions being data relating to current military activities, ongoing criminal investigations, and the identities of witnesses in past criminal cases. If someone is hiding something it's because it's dodgy. Full stop.
Being a UK citizen I view this in the same way that I view programming created by the BBC. I've paid for the work to be performd (via the licence fee) so I should be free to download them when I like, reencode them to new formats etc. etc.
If I'm paying for something I have the right to use it. If not don't ask me to pay for it.
And speaking of the BBC the first episode of the new Dr Who is on tonight. Fantastic !!!
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !