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.

So now the North will use Microsoft? :-)

[BerntB]

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

A marriage born in... well, never mind. :-)

Re:US in trouble ?

[gt_swagger]

If anybody is in trouble it is Microsoft. Aside from a FUD campaign, they have done nothing but encourage Linux growth with their strong apathy towards the end user they so often crap upon and insistance of keeping a brutal EULA and locking their users into a product cycle.

Microsoft is failing to compete, and thus their market shares are declining. It's simple buisness here. What... do you want them to get a federal subsidy? Those poor innocent submarine patent people...

They're making a big mistake.

[gt_swagger]

Didn't they read that report by those two professors that got Microsoft funding about how Linux is plagued by security holes, higher ownership cost, and a swarm of locusts? I hope they can right the ship before it's too late.

$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.

Tactical move

[Anonymous Coward]

Next we hear about this is that they have signed a 5-year contract with Microsoft to update all the state administration machines to latest Windows, after long and hard negotiations with M$. The price will not be disclosed.

Re:US in trouble ?

[dabigpaybackski]

Last month, they converted some of their assets in dollars, now they are getting away from USA's most fortunate software company ? Is there some policy here ?

Yes, I believe it was once known as "enlightened self-interest."

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. :)

Re:Damn communists!

[Anonymous Coward]

No communism is the utopian society where no state or opression exists of anyone - society of ultimate freedom - wich some people think can be reached by the dictatorship of the proletariat (russia, NK, etc). But others believe in other ways to reach the communist world through a evolutionary process. There has not yet been any country/society that has been communist. All examples many people have (north korea, soviet russia, china, cuba, etc) are in fact not communist only totalitarian states with "goals" to reach the utopian communist society - however, this "goal" is more or less just a smokescreen to make the people happy.

Soo, free software is pretty much like the communist society where everyone just lives in harmony with eachother - "to each according to need, from each according to ability" - just as OSS. However, free software is nothing like totalitarian dictatoriships, of course, which in turn has nothing to do with a communist society.

Re:so..

[houghi]

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?

No. This can be the resukts of any of three reasons:
1) They calculated and saw that in the long run Linux is cheaper. Governements look normaly at longer periods.
2) They want to promote IT development in their own country. This will be good for finances. Instead of sending money out of the country, it stays inside.
3) They do not want to be dependent on only one company to deliver to them.

If there is any thought about Nationalities, it will be more pro-themselves then anti-anybody.

It is just that M$ is the only one having a monopoly (did I really write that?) and they are American. If they were Canadian, English, German or Navaran, they would do the same. It is left to the reader to think if there would have been a monopoly in those cases and if not, why.