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Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows
Spy der Mann writes "Noticing the Microsoft threat to withdraw Windows from South Korea, the Linspire CEO, Kevin Carmony, just offered to license every computer in the country with Linspire, for just $5m. This would be around 10 cents / person. 'South Korea could save around a quarter of a billion dollars. More importantly, however, it would break South Korea loose from the monopolistic grasp of Microsoft, which the country currently finds itself under,'"
While I'm sure the slashbots will shout and cry about the virtues of linux (despite being Linspire), it sounds more like a grab for attention than anything serious. While I'm sure Carmony could make a bundle on the deal, could he really support all of South Korea? I wonder if he even has a team of translators for the major world languages to begin with!
Cool, just do it
click
Really, that is all it is. I like Linux as much as other people, but I don't think South Korea, as a whole, is going to jump on this just as I really don't believe MS will pull out of South Korea. It's all marketing and jocking for positions. There is no way that MS will leave South Korea, one of the most advanced industrial nationas around and a lot more advanced than USA. Oh no, MS will never leave South Korea, it means too much to them.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Linspire will replace crippled Windows with Linux - cheap
...This is about as close to a Linux port as WoW is gonna get I think...
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He's going to provide support for 50 million computers at 10 cents each? Would be quite tough.
If there is no support involved, I'd like to provide South Korea with Linux for 50 million computers in the form of either CentOS, Fedora or Ubuntu for free and free with "community support".
What's the deal?
Banu
Almost any korean website seems to be made for IE, and especially things like clubbox.co.kr, those only work with ActiveX plugins ... doubt koreans are really ready to change their oses ...
... only old people will keep using MS Windows.
If this goes through all sorts of new fact bending ROI ads are going to turn up.
... idle sensationalism to me... But then again, I am known to be cynical...
I'll give you South Korea.
Where do I sign up?
Misa no botha with yousa.
I don't think that will even work, as far as I know korea people like to play a lot, so I doubt they will just drop windows, yet someone should introduce linux to korea :)
I'm a cookie monster!
Korea is too tied to MS for anything like this to happen any time soon. Ironically, with the exception of the Xbox, and MS Office, just about everything else Microsoft has a strong grip here. Major websites are designed for IE, Palm is hardly popular, Apple is only used by some 20K people, etc etc etc. There will be repercussions if MS has to back out of the OS market.
they have starcraft for linux
only the blind, deaf and dumb people will be using MS Office!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Just look at Mozilla and Firefox and you see what a difference a little marketing can make.
I take it you hold MS Windows to be a user friendly operating system. Sp does that mean if (thought experiment) Windows were to be open-sourced it would suddenly become user-unfriendly?
Or were you just trolling?
the layman's guide to computer science
This would be around 10 cents / person. 'South Korea could save around a quarter of a billion dollars.
Right, and how much would be the cost of Win->Lin transition? Training thousands of people? Porting millions of lines of code? Translating all the stuff? and so forth. Whoever told this must take a look my signature!
... only old people will keep using MS Windows.
Yeah but, S. Korea is the worlds 2nd oldest society now. And getting older. Planned parenthood here in S. Korea actually ENCOURAGES having more children. Also the number one application here is probably Starcraft, doesn't that require windows? They love MS here, I have only met one person who knew what linux is.
Or does hatred of all things Microsoft trump this forum's hatred of monopolies and for-profit activities? Because as we all know, Linspire is making a money grab - they are not doing it to "further the cause". Seriously, do we really want governments mandating the use of a particular OS? That *cannot* be a good thing. I can't help but wonder how much howling would there be in these parts if the headline read:
...
Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, just offered to license every computer in the country with Windows
Besides, as someone else on this board mentioned, PC gaming is really big in S Korea, so it's all just idle chatter anyhow.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
That's my experience, too. Even if they don't require ActiveX, very few Korean websites will actually display properly in another browser - even fewer if you use a pop-up blocker. I don't think that anyone tests on anything else.
Korean computer culture seems to be even more homogenised than it is in other countries. Everyone uses Windows; everyone's on MSN Messenger; everyone has a Cyworld Mini-hompy[1]. My iBook received interesting responses: those that had heard of Macs thought that they were tools for graphic artists.
In addition, there's a big limitation in that SEED, a Korean 128-bit encryption system used in online banking since the days of US 40-bit-only export restrictions, is only supported in IE; although there are moves to port it to Firefox, it hasn't been completed yet, as far as I know.
1. Mini-homepage, a sort of personalised blog/music/photo-sharing site. They are literally miniature, too: even on a large monitor, the 'mini-hompy' is limited to a few hundred pixels in each direction in the centre of the page.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Just what linux needs a bunch of commie supporters, I dont think so.
That's about the stupidest comment I've read on Slashdot this year. Where are you from, Mars or something??
How many windows do they have in South Korea? I just had seven fitted for 500 quid. I think South Korea is getting a bargin!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
... especially a friendly open source one, why not stand on his shoulders instead of trying to compete with him? Isn't that the point of all this, to make better technology?
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Turbolinux or Red Flag linux would make more sense. And what would make even more sense would be the government helping to partially fund any local Korean distros that are basing themselves on Asianux (which is turn is based on DCC I believe, so it should be a pretty solid system).
In general, I hope countries around the world try to move to localized distributors of Linux. This is the real strength of Linux.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows
It definitely sounds like an interesting idea, but how is South Korea going to run on my machine? Plus, having the whole country installed on my drive sounds like it will take up a _lot_ of space...
Posted from the wireless couch.
GP would be stupid enough it the article had anything to do with North Korea, but being that it's about Linspire's offer to SOUTH Korea's government just makes it ridiculous. /. was a safe haven from redneckry...
And I thought
Three tings I hate about stars: -Wars -Treks -Gates
That is one generous offer by the Linspire CEO. I give up Windows and he will give me South Korea? I would take him up on the offer but I would be kind of nervous about North Korea blowing it up. Plus Windows probably has a lower cost of operation than entire country of South Korea.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
More importantly, however, it would break South Korea loose from the monopolistic grasp of Microsoft, which the country currently finds itself under
if there is another product for sale (linspire) then MS does not have a monopoly.
It was a bold move, and it did not cost him a penny to do it. If he pulls it off he'll be 5m ahead of where he is right now, since his market share in ROK is pretty much zero. If he pulls it off he also gets to use it as a precedent to go country-by-country offering blanket licenses, which will make Linspire some good money and will royally piss off Microsoft.
Regardless of the merits of Lindows v. all the other Linux distributions out there, this is all about marketing, and it was the right thing to do. Microsoft cannot even afford a counter offer, since this will set the same kind of precedent and every government in the world is going to demand a blanket license like that.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Nope, installed it on OS 9, and they now even support a Carbonised version: http://www.versiontracker.com/php/search.php?mode= basic&action=search&str=starcraft&plt%5B%5D=macosx &x=18&y=3Starcraft on versiontracker.com.
Back on topic: is Linspire localised? In all the possible dialects Korea has? That could give them one hell of an advantage.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
It doesn't come with GCC, you do everything as root and are dependent upon the company for updates. Linspire is horrible shit, it's leeching off the OSS idea while pretending to "promote" it.
Korea is largely considered, next to Japan, to be one of the gaming capitols of the world. If they all dump Microsoft I wonder how the game publishing/programming houses will react?
This could be a good thing.
C17H21NO4
I'm currently studying abroad in South Korea and there's no way Koreans would give up Windows. The whole society LOVES Windows. Internet Explorer and excessive use of Active-X are king. Everybody here has Cyworld (a Myspace type deal) and you can't access about half of its content without using Internet Explorer on Windows. Plus Nespot, the nation's largest free wireless service, requires you to be running a Windows machine to use their client. PC Bangs all use Windows as video gaming is huge here and every game runs off of Windows.
Hell, almost every machine at Space 9 (a huge technology store) comes with the latest Vista beta installed. It's going to take a lot more than offering Linspire to the whole country to make a switch like that. I agree it's just free marketing.
Well it's better than those capitalist pigs!
A roll-out that size always has big problems, and the only thing will be remembered by the media is that this linux roll-out had big problems. It would be much smarter to transition little by little. It is good press for Linspire, but thats about it.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great is they did move everything over, for no other reason it would be a great case study for the world. The only problem I see is the speed at which it would be done.
Right. It's just what Linux needs, a bunch of kids who work longer hours, hold down 3 jobs, beat us on all our SAT's, and beat us at ping-pong. I loved that S. Korean kid at school, beating him at anything was harder than heck but worth every moment of the effort.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
This is not funny. This is true. You can joke all you want, "Starcraft kekekeke," but it doesn't change the fact that computer games are a major part of life over there, and even after all these years, Starcraft is still king. If Microsoft pulled out of Korea, their popular culture would be sent reeling.
Well, for about six months. After six months, all the game manufacturers start pushing Linux in a big way, since there's no way any of them would leave Korea of their own free will -- and they sure as hell won't let Microsoft pull them out without a good fight.
South Korea's got some 17 million PC gamers. How many does America have? If you count consoles, it's probably no contest, but I'm under the impression that PC gaming is a bit of a niche market in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if South Korea has more PC gamers than the entire US, even with only 1/6 the population.
No, the day Microsoft pulls out of Korea is the day that Blizzard and NC Soft shift focus to Linux. Once that happens, the hardware vendors start writing decent drivers for Linux, and all of a sudden Linux doesn't suck as a gaming platform anymore, and Windows becomes an "also supported" platform.
This is a bluff, and Microsoft stands to lose a lot from it. They've set the charges and are pushing the plunger from inside the parking garage.
(despite being Linspire)
.jpg) is beyond their realm. All of these users will be more or less indifferent to their operating system as long as it boots up and the internet works.
I agree you have a point here, but I think if you could move an entire country over to Linus, for even a little while, it would be a huge step in the right direction. Even if it is a terrible distro, I think a lot of people would be willing to switch from Linspire to another Linux distro. The switch from a crappy distro to a good one would certainly be easier than individuals switching from Windows to Linux on their own.
Hell, maybe everyone will use it and decide to go back. Fine. Just raising awareness is plenty enough. Most people still don't know what Linux is. "Is it like a computer?" "Is it a program or something?" Hell, I would be willing to bet maybe a quarter of computer users don't know what an "Operating System" is, much less know that there even is one that isn't Windows. Giving the average non-technical user the insight that there is a world outside of Microsoft is a step in the right direction, even if the whole plan turns out to be a disaster.
Next, there are extremely non-technical users. Namely my mom, grandma/grandpa, etc. I'm talking "I don't know, I just click on the e" people. Generally, these people use their computers for email, internet, and maybe instant messaging, but thats about it. Even simple photo editing (I'm talking rotate/crop/save as
Sadly, I think the above-named group represents a LOT of people. Not only will they have simpler problems (could you imagine your grandma complaining that she can't install Mathematica?), but will probably ask friends/family members before hounding support techs.
Ultimately, Linspire is probably biting off a bit more than it can chew, and will probably have to pay a lot more support dollars than it was planning on, which may prove to be a fatal flaw. On the other hand, maybe it would get some very, very generous government grants?
The bottom line here is that if they actually pull this off, it'll obviously be a REALLY rocky road for quite some time, but I think it'll be at least feasible. Porting apps (performance-intensive ones that won't run well on WINE or similar) will probably be a disaster for quite some time. But in the long run, it'll probably generate more of a market for Linux apps, which would be huge for the rest of the world.
Now, we wait and see. Go Roh Moo-hyun.
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
"Microsoft gets tons of media for doing very mediocre things. I don't see why Linspire can't." Amen! PS: Eventually ofcourse we'll roll out Redhat or Asianux.
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
*vamping* Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down! Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down!
The headline currently reads "Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows" which led me to wonder:
Is S. Korea Linspire CEO's to offer?
Is S. Korea a viable alternative to Windows?
Are there any benchmarks on S. Korea's performance on general desktop tasks?
Isn't this solution a bit excessive?
Evidence of a correlation between inability to spell and inability to get laid? :)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
But Starcraft runs under WINE, so there's no reason not to switch to Linux!
Isn't this a cheap stunt? It's not as if there's the remotest chance of South Korea accepting the offer. And if they really want Linux, there are plenty of other flavas to choose with no license fees attached at all. I guess I'm just surprised that this guy didn't throw in a bearded lady, a two-headed cow and Rocky the giant raccoon. I guess the South Koreans are too well mannered to have suggested to him where to go.
After all, Microsoft is a bully. If they are going to beat up a country, it will be an impoverished and obscure one where there is minimal loss involved, not an important one in a part of the world that supplies a large chunk of high tech and helps to underwrite the US budget deficit.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The quesion is, can a single company do as much as an entire country can on it's own? I doubt it and so does Microsoft. Why else would they buy off their competition? They should have all confidence they will prevail without such tricks. The trend outlined above indicates they have no such confidence and can't really keep up.
The screenshots above speak for themselves, even if your browser does not support the characters a default install of Mepis does. The Microsoft programs are unmodified English language programs. Free software has Korean character support and translations that Koreans are giving themselves. It's difficult to see how M$ can maintain dominance without doing more than writing korean language how-to's.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Its a nice publicity stunt by Linspire. But lets be serious here; a 100% to Linux (Linspire) would be devastating for S.Korea (and for Microsoft's image abroad). It won't happen.
Besides S.Korea has a huge gaming culture and within 12 hours of moving to Linux you would have thousands of teenagers shivering from game withdrawal symptoms.
Anyway, Microsoft is an easy target to push around and this is another money EU-style money grab. I mean, first it was the media player that was the big problem, and now MSN Messenger (or rather the really crappy Windows Messenger as MSN has to actually be downloaded). I'm still waiting for the SP2 Firewall lawsuit and the Disk Defrag lawsuit. Why not? Its Microsoft after all and, everything is fair game. Ridiculous.
"Although the basic GNU/Linux system is free software, most of the GNU/Linux versions now available include a small amount of non-free software--just enough to spoil them as a way to attain freedom. But Linspire is in a class by itself; large and important parts of this system are non-free. No other GNU/Linux distribution has backslided so far away from freedom. Switching from MS Windows to Linspire does not bring you to freedom, it just gets you a different master."
-- Richard Stallman
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Very popular over there. Unless Linux can get every popular games running NATIVELY, then it is not going to happen.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Realisticly we'd probably be looking at government and edu pc's replacing Windows, with hobbyists or poor, law abiding citizens maybe using it for the computer basics Linux is perfectly capable of (aside from the already mentioned ActiveX snafu's some would experience). The rest will still be able to A) pirate (like a lot of the rest of the world) or B) purchase abroad.
Personally, I think its a great idea. I can be used in a lot of places and the real-world $$$ savings would significant. But everyone dumping their gaming/msn client/etc is silly. As I understand internet cafes for gaming (and gaming in general) are quite popular, Linspire won't be a big hit there.
Quack, quack.
an SKLinux (South Korean Linux) distro that they can create for their own needs in conjunction with a couple of the leading linux distros? Imagine the forum for SKLinux... What was the population of South Korea now?? I'd go with Slackware (stability) + Debian (security and -a national- apt-get) + Ubuntu (user friendly) + opensuse (user friendly) + Gentoo (for some other reason) + Torvalds (ehue)
I remember reading articles about the internet cafes and net culture in South Korea (check this out http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/10/07/korea .onlinegameaddic.ap/)
South Koreans love playing online games. Not for nothing, but at this point, Linux just doesnt have that kind of support for games. This sort of thing would never fly in South Korea.
I can't imagine that Linspire will be supported by US techs. That's sort of ridiculous, actually, considering the shift from US-based support to foreign even within the US.
I think that if you follow this through, it will create jobs in S. Korea. Not only will it create support jobs surrounding this OS, but it will create programming jobs to fill the gaps that it currently leaves.
Presumably they won't hire one tech over here who speaks Korean, but rather they will hire a group over there who know the issues in current Korean computing. This may be way off base, but I can only assume that the standard wage over there is lower than the US or UK/EU and that hiring talented people there would be cheaper and more efficient in terms of language and locality.
There is plenty of talent in SK that could be trained to do a lot of the work, a whole hell of a lot cheaper than if you tried to ship techs over to do it or try to support it remotely.
I imagine that spoken English is fairly common there, but you still create a language barrier if you're trying to do phone support that you wouldn't have if you hired Koreans to do it.
Why even bother charging people at all when if they want to install software on it they have to pay for a subscribtion to Click-n-Run. Free as in "pay us monthly to install software that we didn't create". If MS made you pay a free to install things like winamp, firefox, etc. there would be public outcry. I really doubt the people of Korea would be any better off with Linspire.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Ya' know, I wouldn't have thought that South Korea would be an adequate substitute for Windows. I had foolishly assumed that an operating system would be the best alternative. Who knew?
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
Headline: Windows has a lower TCO than S. Korea
CmdrTaco says "Finally, a Gartner report that I can believe."
--- Dan
How much time does it take to hunt down all the software, check for dependancies and install via the command line? How much time would it take for a non-geek? How much is your time worth? How much is the time of someone with a high paying business man worth?
Was hunting down the software yourself really cheaper? Even if you discount your time to be worthless, how much did it cost you in terms of electricity and wear on your machine? I would guess that it cost a great deal more.
This is even more ridiculous than some cheapskate spending money on gas to drive around town to save a few cents on vegetables while using up many dollars worth of gas.
Some of you people need to learn the difference between price (how much something costs) and value (what something is worth in terms time and productivity/enjoyment). I'm a mac user because I feel it is worth paying money for things that save me valuable free time. Nothing is truly "free" as in beer. You either have to spend money or give up more of your time. Which you choose depends on which you value more.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
We got a lot of comments about gamers in South Korea, and how 'devastated' they'll feel once Windows is gone. My question is - what will really happen? Do you think that if MS really gets outta there, all the existing copies of Windows will automagically vanish too, and all the gamers will suffocate in agony?
;-)
... this is obviously not a cheap process.
Absolutely not! MS goes, the gamers stay, what's the big deal? Sure, they won't be able to play the newer games... But then, take StarCraft for example - even my grandma's teapot is performant enough to run this one
I think that most likely it will become a legal problem:
- assuming Windows is gone;
- people stick to it and use pirated copies instead;
- MS understands that and asks the South Korean government to take measures [if nothing happens, they'll sue the country, whatever..]
So, I think MS will stay, but not because of the gamers, but because the country's leaders are smart enough to figure out what's going to happen after a few moves. It'll be much cheaper to stick to Windows rather than try to go against the flow and support all the consequences.
Gamers? give me a break. They'll have to grow up one day.
The saddest poem
Mind you probably about 3/4 of all personal computers in korea are probably used for gaming, and unfotunately there aren't any incredible nice open source games to play. (comptuer without starcraft/lineage/ragnarok online/couter strike = not a computer to most koreans) -__- sorry Linspire, but it's just not going to happen.
A second-hand PCMCIA 10Mbit Ethernet card can be had for just a few bucks. In fact, it'll save you more than its purchase price in aspirin you'd need otherwise! Or how about a USB 5.25" enclosure and an old CD-ROM drive you have lying around? Once you've got a base system installed from floppies (kernel, some tools), you can use both those tools much more easily than the wireless item.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Where are you from, Mars or something??
Commie-haters can't be from Mars, it's the Red Planet!
kekekekeke
Give me $3m and install Debian.
You know that using 'M$' completely discredits everything you have to say, right?
Scared?
emt 377 emt 4
I also play Animal Crossing (not so secret now, huh) and on December 10th... I may have to buy a DS. I think there are actually a great many adults that do (as you mention, provided no one is looking) :-p
:-D
I also play Puzzle Pirates (ahoy!)
Now, to re-establish my Y-chromosome, I also love GTA and Dawn of War! (and Zeldas, and Final Fantasies, and Castlevanias, and Onimushas, and Quakes, and Half-lifes, and and and...). Er, please to note that there's no reason that ladies can't love these same games (when they aren't playing Diner Dash, haha).
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
You really should take the time to find out something about the subject of your post before submitting it here. Time is in fact money - we need people who post content which is up-to-date. Sorry to have to say it, but I think you'd better go and play in the sand-box with the others. Have a good day anyhow.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Oh shush you, devourer of pigs!!
Here, piggy piggy piggy, here piggy.
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