South Korean Gov't. Advocates Linux

Anonymous Coward writes "Korea has now taken the plunge on the Linux operating system, and is now starting to advocate Linux for use in government and public sector applications. South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communications announced the move today, which will result in decreased Microsoft market share in the region." According to the article, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication "will provide a total of 3 billion won (US$2.95 million) for government agencies which want to use the Linux and other open-source computer programs this year."

Comments

Re:US in trouble ?

[mirko]

Oops, I meant not in but from Dollars to Euros.
And no, it was not meant to be a flamebait but just a question.

Way cool

[Dorsai65]

Now to get a few more governments to see the light!

$2.95 million is a small step

[Anonymous Coward]

That 2.95 million dollar figure from the article seems very tiny. Wouldn't be surprised if they still pay orders of magnitude more for proprietary stuff.

Re:$2.95 million is a small step

[RoLi]

What more do you want?

Of course it will be impossible to completely rot out Windows in all South Korea, but Microsoft has very good reason to be worried.

The best way to get discounts from Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably just a price negotiation tactic.

Seems the best way to get a price break from Microsoft is to announce that you're advocating Linux.

I'm shocked at countries that *Don't* use this strategy.

so..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?

I wouldn't say Advocates, but the DPRK seems to

[millisa]

Just browsed around their site a little bit and I see lotsa positive open source-ish things.

The Korean Friendship Association USA branch on the DPRK official site uses CMSimple . .which is open source and sits on Apache (though it *could* be run on Win32 or Linux).

This Trip thing they are talking about here has a bit at the bottom of the page that "This webpage and its images is released to the internet community under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" (with link). Not a Linux endorsement, but definitely in the right ball park.

I doubt they'd ever come out and advocate something that isn't homegrown . . . you don't hear much about DPRK linux users, but somehow I bet they are out there since there's lotsa open source type stuff sitting on their primary web presense.

Or I could be wrong . . . but I'd bet there are some communist linux boxes out there . . .

Americans seeing Anti-Americanism everywhere...

[aendeuryu]

Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?

Erm... no. The South Korean government is pretty friendly towards the US compared to other countries, both in Asia and internationally. The population gets a little annoyed with the excesses of some of the soldiers here and the United States government's abrasive approach to North Korea, but that in no way is going to translate to the South Korean government, in a country historically devastated by war that's now more than happy to take slow, gradual steps when it comes to international diplomatic situations. As such, suggesting that Korea is dropping Microsoft as some symbolic slap in the face is a really silly way to look at it. Even if the average young- to middle-aged Korean would like to tell the U.S. where to get off, the government isn't going to. Besides, the average Korean also LOVES their Windows-based games. Linux has very little fame over here.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that a long-term relationship with Microsoft involving Windows XP might seem too expensive for the government. Windows 98 is still the popular OS of choice over here, so if they're worried that dropped W98 support means migrating to either an updated Windows or another OS, it might be worth throwing a few million at Linux to see if it can be adopted on a broad scale.

As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?

Re:Americans seeing Anti-Americanism everywhere...

[DarkSarin]

It's interesting that this should come up.

I am currently in a cross-cultural psychology course (of sorts), and we had a guest speaker speaking about France and why some folks think that the French hate Americans.

His take was simple--Americans and French are the only two cultures that think their culture is the best and want to impose it (in some fashion) on everyone else. Naturally then, like any time you have two folks who think they are the best, bar none, us Americans have butted heads with the French.

I'm not saying that I agree, but I suspect that he has some of that right. (As an aside, he is an American that has spent a number of years in France--and got his PhD in French Medieval Literature from a French University (not the Sorbonne, although he did spend time there, and occasionally lectures there) that I can't remember the name of (and couldn't pronounce when he told us, let alone spell!).

Now, since we have strayed so far off topic, let me just say that I hope that every country wakes up and sees that the smartest way to run things is on software that they have the source for and can modify themselves. A small business can get away with relying on someonw else to write their software (especially the OS), but a gov't has the resources and the time do it right themselves, and they should. Why? Because of security concerns. I wouldn't trust confidential data of the sort that most gov'ts keep to a host of proprietary OS boxen. (Never mind that they shouldn't be keeping some of the data--that is a different debate).

(maybe) Sort of old news

[ihavnoid]

Actually, KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency), an organization funded by the Korean government, switched all its desktops to Linux, and that news was around about 8 months ago. I remember, that the purpose KIPA switched all its desktop to Linux (around 100+ desktops), was to test the possibility of Linux desktop in Korean goverment agencies. The biggest problem of using Linux in government agencies, was the vast amount of in-house tools plus special applications that didn't exist for Linux, and staff training issues. I remeber a KIPA staff screaming for help on a LUG webboard, due to l10n issues. They seemed to have some problem because of inadequate Korean support in Linux.

Something that may be ironic, is that KIPA's current president, Hyun Jin Ko, is the former president of Microsoft Korea. :)

There is hope!

[Walkiry]

High Linux userbase in South Korea woud mean more games ported to Linux. It's the only thing that keeps windows in my machine.

I want to be freeee!

Re:So now the North will use Microsoft? :-)

[taj]

"I guess this means North Korea will have to use Microsoft?"

http://www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/Korean-night .html

You can already see the difference between Microsoft in North Korea and Linux Sourth Korea.

Given that South Korea is one of the most

[MerlinTheWizard]

technologically-active and innovative country in today's world, that should say something... and give hope to all of us who think OSS in general is closely linked to technological innovation, freedom and actually more commercial activity overall.

Re:US in trouble ?

[RoLi]

The USA cannot maintain an enormous trade deficit forever, so the devaluation of the dollar is just a matter of time.

Re:So now the North will use Microsoft? :-)

[Alsee]

I find this image far more impressive, though it does have the "problem" that people actually need to be able to locate North and South Korea on a globe.

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