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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
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.
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.
Yeah please mod this guy up, by reading his sig,, you know that you can trust |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
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
...or was i just dreaming about that press release?
i thought they were going to concentrate on jds on solaris.
Ummm...because Java Desktop System is the name of Sun's Linux distribution. Parent ain't insightful.
BenCurry.net
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?
Do you mean to say that the "Java Desktop System" does not contain a Sun JDK?
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 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.
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.
You see, that's the point. They will have to spend money to train people to use any system, no matter whether it's linux, windows, os-x or something else.
In short term, they wouldn't save money no matter what they choose. I think they realize that, and are hoping that by going with a mostly open source system, they will save money in long term.
In addition to saving money, I also think there are other motivations, like not making the whole country completely dependend on a US corporation. They are buying from Sun, but since most of the system is open source, it makes them much less dependend on Sun then they would be on MS.
AccountKiller
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.
yup, they should call it the C++/ORBit desktop system, 'cause Java sure isn't what's making it go.
waiter: " 'ow about our gnome, staroffice c++/orbit-corba based java desktop system? that's not got much java in it"
woman: "but I don't want any java"
chorus: jav jav jav jav, jav, jav, jav, jav Sunny Java, Unbiquitous java!
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.
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?
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.
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.
As I have had the exact opposite experience - Java running with virtually no problems across a wide range of platforms, I would be curious to know what the problems are.
It is interesting to note that major Java applications - NetBeans, Tomcat, JBoss - have no problems running exactly the same code on a wide range of platforms - indeed, NetBeans - a Sun product - will run fine on other companies Java implementations - even clean-room (non-Sun code) ones like HP's.
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...
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