Indonesia Adopts Java Desktop System on Linux

UltimaGuy wrote to mention a DesktopLinux.com article discussing Indonesia's adoption of a Java Desktop System on Linux as a national OS. From the article: "This desktop software will be a major component of the new Indonesia Goes Open Source (IGOS) program that aims to help eliminate the "digital divide in the world's largest archipelago," the ministry and Sun Microsystems said in a joint announcement. The ministry said it will develop its own IGOS-branded software stack using JDS on Linux as the base platform. The agreement with Sun -- for an unspecified number of years -- has the goal of installing copies of the open source-based desktop across Indonesia, beginning with its government-affiliated offices, the ministry said."

Comments

Informative Link

[TripMaster Monkey]

Here's an overview of the Sun Java Desktop System from sun.com.

Re:Informative Link

[AKAImBatman]

The long and short of it is that the Java Desktop System is a GNOME desktop that has been modified to function much like a Windows Desktop, but with Sun's own "flavor" of styling. (I hope you like purple.)

Up until recently, JDS has been a commercial product intended to provide a common desktop across all of Sun's OS products. This ranges from Solaris Sparc, Solaris x86, to their own brand of Linux codenamed "Mad Hatter". Now that the OpenSolaris project is in full swing, Sun is releasing the JDS source code to allow their desktop to be portable across their OpenSolaris line as well. These steps to complete openness are probably what interest Indonesia the most, as they can have all the support of a big company like Sun, but none of the concerns about the product line being dropped tomorrow.

(P.S. TMM, you need to do better than a quick link to something everyone already knows. Otherwise you're just karma whoring. You can do better than that! :-))

Re:More of this is inevitable...

[AKAImBatman]

Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

They're not. Sun has apparently released the changes to the GNOME source code used by the JDS desktop to support the OpenSolaris project. What that means is Indonesia will get 100% open source software, but have the commercial backing of a large, international computer company. Should Sun ever go "bye bye" (not as likely as Slashdotters would like to think), Indonesia can dust off the source and continue to maintain the software with help from the OSS community.

Official Website

[karvind]

Official Indonesia Go Open Source website. (in english)

IGOS weblog

INDONESIA GOES REMOTE SENSING OPEN SOURCE (IGORSOS). Not in english.

A quick google search also pointed to SUN Microsystem's press release regarding this effort.

Re:Taking bets on when it'll be reversed...

[MrWiggum]

Now this may not count but I work at Novell and we are transitioning to being an all linux company every one in my department is running NLD or Suse 9.3 Pro. and have been for almost a year. Obviously we are a linux company and you would expect that we used linux for our desktops. But it just goes to show that a large corperation can do it.

Following other OSS moves in Indonesia

[linumax]

More on Indoneia's open source efforts could be found here
http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/Indonesia.html
They are one of the most active in ASIA but they usually do it on their own while others like Japan, Korea and China are workng together on nice things like Asianux

Re:Open source?!

[benjcurry]

Ummm...because Java Desktop System is the name of Sun's Linux distribution. Parent ain't insightful.