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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."
Here's an overview of the Sun Java Desktop System from sun.com.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.
Why any developed country would want their critical infrastructure and national security owned by a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me. If France really hates us, why on earth would they want to be locked in to MS?
As countries develop and take control of their own infrastructure, I wager they will actually want to control it, which means access to the source code.
Java is part of Indonesia :-)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
http://incubator.apache.org/projects/harmony.html
;-)
... ok, well this one I doubt :x
For those who does not know it is Apache incubation for creating a complete Opensources implementation of the Java Standard Edition platform.
So let's hope this will boost FSF in improving resources to GNU's Classpath as well
And maybe one day RMS will stop Java bashing
Common, seriously ... OP has given a valuable link for this discussion. How is this trollish?
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
As with all major Linux rollouts, it'll eventually be scrapped. Anybody care to suggest when it'll be formally announced that the project is a failure? Of course, this post will be modded as a "troll", but it's true. Every major "Linux rollout" article that I've seen here has been reversed anywhere from a few months to a year or two later. Of if they weren't scrapped entirely, then they were perhaps "re-evaluated" or "put on the back burner indefinitely". It'll be *real* news when some large company or government has implemented something like this, and stuck with it for at least a year.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well since their opening everything, why not try opening a few more body board bags! Its just like opening this on a closed source system, you'll never know what you'll find.
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
Whoever modded this "Troll" was evidently indulging in some "one handed browsing" and selected the wrong option during a moment of reduced motor control. Please rectify.
I expect they have lots of old hardware, pentium (586), even 486 and thus Java does not seem to be a good choice.
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.
I wonder if beacuase Java is major Indonesian province had anything to do with it.
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
centralized control of any technological system promotes inherent inequality.
the best example is soviet heating systems, mammoth gargantua that stretched across cities, and left thousands freezing in the middle of the russian winter.
the PC revolution was a revolution of decentralization. the internet revolution was the same thing. both revolutions have been misunderstood or ignored by unix zealots, obsessed with efficiency, control, and maintaining the status quo between 'experts' and 'lusers'.
the indonesian, and any other government established computer system, is doomed to failure in the face of decentralized citizen adopted technology.
microsoft desktop division has always understood this. microsoft server division doesnt, and it will fail as it tries to compete with commodity solutions from other vendors. however, microsofts server division, in that it can serve the needs of small offices who want to decentralize and simplify their servers, will succeed.
unix will not succeed at any of this, because its philosophy is based on centralized top-down control, and in the paternalistic view that users are stupid, evil, and need to be protected from themselves.
the next revolution is wiki, or user-managed content systems.
unix will be left behind on this front too, for its products are all difficult to use, and view advancement in ease of use as an enemy.
Maybe its just me and a few others out there but I'm still not a fan of Java. Everytime 'java_vm' gets loaded on my computer(s) it seens to lag it to hell and back. For example: I was using the the 'Upload Applet' in the rather nice Gallery2 web pages. The use of the applet is nice, I uploaded 677 images into one album but after posting several images into all sorts of albums, it would just stop uploading. I had to close firefox and kill off all the running java_vm processes. Then I could open firefox and post more images.
My co-worker has similar problems with java as well. So I know its not just my computer. Anywho thats my 2 cents.
Excuse me, but how does Sun's proprietary Java offering fit in an "Open Source" strategy?
...or was i just dreaming about that press release?
i thought they were going to concentrate on jds on solaris.
Microsoft may survive a long time because they are reaching out to new markets but their monopoly has shaped the next decade. People want freedom and they'll get it by whatever means they can.
I couldn't help but wondering: What do you think President Bush uses? Gentoo?
I think that this is very exciting stuff. Indonesia has been going through all sorts of gymnastics trying to get off of pirated software, and moving to OSS makes big sense. And, there are tons of Linux enthusiasts there too. I do wonder whether choosing a Java GUI implementation might lock out the tons of older machines extant - but afaik, the declaration doesn't call for exclusion of any other distros, but rather means to be the first step in standardising government implementations - moving away from the closed source addiction. I say, congratulations and good luck! Selamat! Dirgahayu!
JDS may be open source, but Java's not. How can having an open source desktop based on a non-open source platform be truly considered open source?
Open source, hogen force... whatever...
Do they really think they are saving money by switching to open source linux? They're paying Sun like they would be paying Microsoft for their products. They want to implement this over a couple of years, by that time maybe something new comes up.
Waste of money. It's going to cost a lot of money to train indonesians to use linux. Support is going to cost a lot too.
Oh well, I think this is for the good. We don't need any of that Microcrap software anymore. The revolution has begun!
$5 says this is just a ploy to get discounted windows vista licenses.
Critics have raised concerns that the decision to go with the the rickshaw-powered design will deprive the citizens of Indonesia from reaping the full benefits of the internet. The openness of the rickshaw platform prevents users from achieving the level of privacy that is typically required to enjoy some of the more popular internet prOn sites.
For more information about the rickshaw powered design, you can check here :
http://www.iitk.ac.in/MLAsia/infothela.htm
I don't know that I would call a desktop OS 'critical infrastructure.' When I think 'critical infrastructure,' I think of data routers and switches, or DMS100s or ESS switches. Power circuit relays in electrical substations might be better termed 'critical infrastructure,' vice 'Microsoft Windows.'
That being said, your underlying point, 'Why would any rational country depend on foreign suppliers for their critical infrastructure needs' is open for debate. Perhaps there is no domestic supplier for such items or services. Perhaps the domestic equivalents to foreign goods and services are anything but equivalent. Or, perhaps the foreign company has a domestic 'arm' which muddies the waters as to what is domestic and what is foreign.
Is a desktop OS (we're talking about JDS, remember) really 'critical infrastructure?' I'm not convinced it qualifies as such. But, that may just be me.
-- .sig or not to .sig, that is the question.
To
Would you, personally, want all your personal IT, your company's IT, and your country's IT controlled by, say, a company in Russia or Germany?
I know where to find the Java island in Indonesia, so I understand their swith to Java, but I don't seem to find any island named Linux, how comes they switch to that too ?
From the SUN JDS home page:
"Java Desktop System is a major component of the Solaris 10 Operating System, x86 and SPARC architecure editions, and an earlier release is also available with a Linux OS."
JDS has very little to do with Java. Let me know if I'm wrong. I'm sure you will. :)
BenCurry.net
coNtributed code With THOUSANDS of
I wish my president had balls as big as the Leader of Indonesia.
Of course, there's no other distribution more appropriately named than the Java Desktop System for Java, Indonesia. :)
w00t
But what about my T-80s and Javelins? If I'm stuck learning a new damn environment, who will satchel-charge the incoming Strykers for me?
One of the 187.
One could argue that the exchange of sensitive documents is critical bureaucratic infrasctructure. While I agree that possibly some countries may not have on hand the skilled laborers to do the work required to switch to Linux, I believe that more and more nations will begin to jump at the chance to bring alot of tech work in house, creating a more empowered and educated work force while gaining more contorl over their data...all for potentially less than other options. Linux' supposed superioriy is not a necessity to this argument.
BenCurry.net
i'm rather hoping that the internal preference lies with SUSE............?
If you like slow and buggy, why not just use Windows?
I thought JDS was at least semi-officially dead. Seems kind of late to pick it as a desktop.
Much better to choose something like Ubuntu.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2423661653
From this article:
Seriously, "sun's just work better"?
Sun for whatever reason has moved a great deal of its software to a "Java" title. For example, anything that used to be under the "Sun ONE" moniker has since been renamed to "Sun Java System". There is no more reliance on Java than at any other time.
In fact, the only time that Java is used for their Directory Server package is during the inital configuration and when you use the administration tools. Right now on our very active Directory Server v5.2 system I am showing absolutely no Java or Java-related processes running. It's all in the name.
This kind of word play is nothing new. Look at Starburst "Fruit" Chews. (quotes mine) The candies include AT MOST 3% fruit juice as per the packaging. So, yeah, you're getting juice, but that juice is not the major component.
Same thing with the Java Desktop System. Java is in there, but it's not the core of what you're getting.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The idea of rebranding such a collection of tools as a system is such a joke. Sure, java apps now look pretty good in gnome with the gtk look and feel, but there is hardly anything that differentiates the java desktop sytem from a standard gnome install with a jre and openoffice.
Don't they know that they are now working on a desktop that is slower then X and crashes more than windows?
Sheesh the garbage collector really has its job cut out for itself now.
to deal with this problem now.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
As Microsoft alaways says... Linux=Higher TCO, which means... more taxpayer money to spend, more to take home
I don't know that I would call a desktop OS 'critical infrastructure.' When I think 'critical infrastructure,' I think of data routers and switches, or DMS100s or ESS switches. Power circuit relays in electrical substations might be better termed 'critical infrastructure,' vice 'Microsoft Windows.'
I have to disagree with you, just as an example, in Mexico there is some government organism called "IFE" which translates to something like Federal Electoral Institute, which is in charge of managing all the processes around selecting new governors, presidents and any other political job which worker has to be seelcted by voting. It does some other smaller things also.
The thing is, they use propietary Microsoft and other brand software and I think it would benefit to use free software.
I have a friend that works there and, she offered me a Senior-Programmer/IT full job, she asked me to make a software to handle certain kind of data.
Now, after looking at the requirments for the program I realized that almost any IFE office on Mexico would certainly beneffit from the software. Ultimately I didnt accepted the job (as I got a scholarship to make a phD) but I thought it would be great to make that program (with other programs used by that office or other governments office) Open source, and that ran over an OSS platform. That way, I could, lets say, start and pubilsh the project in sourceforge and all the other IT managers from the offices in the other cities could have contributed to the software. And of course all the community.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Sun announced back in June that it was putting JDS on the low priority list. That alone makes this deal surprising. More than that, getting Indonesia to switch to JDS is quite a feat considering what a failure JDS has been to this point.
... wait ... wrong list ...
Failure #1: Bad PR from Sun's own supporters that the first JDS came out not on Solaris, but on Linux. It is also rejected by a great deal of the Linux crowd because they already know how to get just about everything that JDS provides, short of Star Office, which is of course the Linux crown simply replaced with Open Office.
Failure #2: Sun partners with a virtually unknown PC company to sell JDS-installed PCs to the masses. The problem is that the PCs were sold only through Wal-Mart's web site. I don't know who the brain was who thought such a distribution method was viable, but I hope that person is now unemployed. Who the HELL would possibly think that tech-minded people who are looking for a Windows alternative would think, "Oh, yeah! Let's check out Wal-Mart! They're just so techie! Hey, get those Best Buy, NewEgg, and Circuit City web sites of my screen!"
Failure #3: PROFIT!!! Er
Well, I certainly hope that this works out for Sun. I love Sun hardware and Solaris. But thus far their foray into the "Windows desktop replacement" genre has been a great deal less than admirable. These Asian deals are their third attempt at raising this phoenix from its ashes. If JDS doesn't pan out this time, Sun needs to enforce a "three strikes, JDS is out" rule.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Who thinks they were influenced by it being named after one of their islands?
Huh? A Java system that seeks to deliver on the original promise of running everywhere? Who the hell wants that? ;-) [OK, I do.]
I have easily 20-30 languages installed on my several workstations, most of them not boasting great portability yet running just fine. The only language ever to refuse point blank to install and run on 75% of the attempted platforms is Java, the alleged run-anywhere language. Java's problems *in practice* exceed those of any other language I've used (and that's many dozens of them), by an order of magnitude.
Why this is so I have no idea, since in theory the opposite should have happened owing to VM abstraction. Alas, something went horribly wrong right across the Java community in their approach to portability, and not one of the various implementations I've tried is free of hassle and works everywhere. It's odd, and very frustrating.
I hope that Harmony remedies this. It's sad when such a great concept as Java is let down across the board by utterly inadequate implementations.
Excuse me, but didn't Sun drop JDS as a standalone product? As of release 3, they integrated JDS into Solaris. I didn't think JDS was available anymore just on its own.
From http://www.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/:
Okay, so release 2 is still available on its own. But Sun's site seems to imply the standalone version is a dead-end, not developed anymore as a Linux distro / platform, that JDS has been wrapped into Solaris. I wonder why Indonesia went with a dead-end product?
...not going to go over too well with the Sumatrans and the Sundanese...
Commercial involvment (willing or not) with spying for nation states is alive and well. I know nothing on the topic, but would be very surprised if Microsoft hasn't at least talked to someone from a TLA.
I forget what 8 was for.
Strange to me to have all this talk about Java, and the "Steaming cup-o-joe" icon for this story when JDS has NOTHING to do with Java. Other than the fact that it's assembled by Sun so they have the right to stamp "Java" onto it .. as they've done with many of their recent C/C++ offerings.
This is probably as much a response to Microsoft's amnesty program in Indonesia. The Indonesian government would rather phase-out MS than start paying when the amnesty runs out.
The BBC reported it here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4076982.stm
JDS is not all that much about Java. It's funny /. also bought Sun's marketing hype.
Linux is surprisingly popular in Indonesia - considering the abundance of pirated software.
It's not uncommon that one comes across a linux shop or training centre while going around.
The choice of JDS just shows the value of being a major vendor - a lesson for any new distro - Sun generally has a good support reputation, contrary to Ubuntu etc...
When i went to Sun Microsystem's JavaOne conference in SF, all of the Linux JDS systems we're all running the 2.4 kernel, Gnome 2.2, Open Office 1.0, Mozilla 1.4 (no Firefox).... very old. According to DistroWatch, Sun hasn't done an update on JDS since 5-4-2004. How serious are they about JDS?
For that matter;
t ary_vehicle.html. There is a lot of savings to using consumer products. Ford makes a lot more vehicles than the military, so they get more economies of scale. It seems the Military always spends 90% of the money to make something 10% better.
Why would any Democracy want its electronic voting systems on a closed-sourced, unaccountable, private companies software?
I think the answer is that companies can get politicians to NOT act in the best interest of their people. I can understand using Microsoft to some extent because it is in the workplace -- but when you get a highly developed technology infrastructure, shouldn't you have tech grads creating software for the country? I mean, how much resources would it take to adapt an open source word processor that was "good enough" in respects to Word and that would be used by a few million government employees. The costs with these numbers are huge--this is without mentioning the security of the OS.
On the other hand, certain things are better with "off the shelf products." GPS and 3D cards in computers are off-shoots of Al Gore's push to make the military push more of its technology to the economy. Recently the US Military tapped NASCAR Engineers to design a new combat vehicle http://www.livescience.com/technology/050913_mili
So, I'd be hard-pressed to give an absolute answer that would say it makes sense for governments to do all "roll your own" or all "off the shelf" products. The places where it seems the government should be sponsoring creating the technology themselves, is when business has no incentive to make something secure or in making it cheap and efficient. I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that Election credibility and accurate voting are an issue of national security. There is a built in incentive, given the lobbyist and fundraising aspect of our current government model, for corruption. I suppose a government could pay a University $200 Billion to produce a voting kiosk and somehow the machines would constantly re-elect the thoughtful politician who approved funding increases...
So, perhaps what I'm saying is that it isn't whether open or closed is always better -- it's that decisions made by un-corrupted people will usually be better. In this case, nobody was paying this government to make bad decisions, so they went with open source.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Would you, personally, want all your personal IT, your company's IT, and your country's IT controlled by, say, a company in Russia or Germany?
Or, for that matter, India or China?
Don't forget that we in the US are in a similar situation...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
While we are on this topic.....
Java is the most populous of the islands in Indonesia and home to the two largest cities (Jakarta and Surabaya). My wife is from West Jakarta BTW (I don't mean Tomcat either). Indeed I think that most Indonesians live on the island of Java.
Jakarta has an official population of about 10M, with locals saying that as many as 10M poor and/or homeless may not be included in this number. This gives a credible population to Jakarta of around 20,000,000 people.
Java and Sumatra used to be the same island before Krakatoa blew.
Hope this helps....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP