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?"

Comments

Not too bad

[soniCron88]

"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.

One more convert...

[WilliamSChips]

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...

Pandering to the Chinese?

[shanen]

Well, not sure how far they'll really go with it, but I feel like their motivations are suspect. The Japanese government has pretty much made peace with Microsoft. The only reason I can see for them supporting OSS is because the Chinese seem to be going away from MS, and Japan is thinking about who's going to be most important to Japan a few years down the road.

Think of it as another form of distributing their investments away from dollars...

Re:Pandering to the Chinese?

[RoLi]

Why is every positive Linux movement badmouthed?

It doesn't matter why they did it, also being at "peace" with Microsoft doesn't prevent you from supporting Linux. The important fact is that they did a big Linux commitment and that that commitment is helping all Linux users.

Goverment funded OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Government should not be funding OSS

[Shivetya]

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.

Re:Government should not be funding OSS

[sboss]

I agree and disagree. I dont think the goverment should give money to be giving money. But I do like it when the goverment (our hard earned tax dollars) are given to specific OSS projects (and is stated this is a one time shot of money). The lottery in GA (yeah I live here too) gives a wad of cash to schools and are told this is a one time deal/single shot of cash. Once it is gone it is gone. period. Granted the lottery has been back to give more money but they make sure everyone knows that you can not count on anymore money from them. If the goverment (or even the lottery) wants to fund some OSS projects that way I am all for it.

You just had to

[kevin-cs-edu]

You just had to give me another reason to move to Japan.

ARGH!!!

Repeat of the 1970's

[ites]

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.

Re:Repeat of the 1970's

[beacher]

I disagree wholeheartedly. The japanese kicked our ass in the auto industry in the 80's and 90's but detroit adapted and learned how to make a better product. More and more american cars are finding their way into consumer reports top 10's and that's something that benefitted the population at large.

Competition fosters a better quality product. If Japan wants to help make Linux a better product, then I'm all for it.

Adapt, evolve and pass the strong genes on ;)
B

Tax-Based Funding

[Evil W1zard]

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!

I'm METI Certified

[Mad Geek]

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.

As a citizen I am concerned

[briancnorton]

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.

m17n

[pamri]

The m17n library funded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan is probably, IMO the most exciting thing to come out of the whole process.

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.

local government

[kerp11]

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.org

[Doc Ruby]

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?

OSS != Linux

[mamladm]

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.

IPA == Japan.inc++

[mamladm]

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.