Korea Plans to Choose Linux City, University

thefirelane wrote to mention an ambitious plan in the works by the South Korean government. Work is underway to choose a city, which will become a place where open-source software will become the mainstream operating system. From the article: "The selected government and university will be required to install open-source software as a main operating infrastructure, for which the MIC will support with funds and technologies. In the long run, they will have to migrate most of their desktop and notebook computers away from the Windows program of Microsoft, the world's biggest maker of software. 'The test beds will prompt other cities and universities to follow suit through the showcasing of Linux as the major operating system without any technical glitches and security issues,' Lee said. "

Comments

Universities and schools

[pubjames]

Personally I don't understand why universities and schools all over the world aren't switching all their desktops to Linux. How many billions of taxpayers money is being spent on Microsoft software that could be better spent elsewhere?

Re:Universities and schools

[flacco]

Personally I don't understand why universities and schools all over the world aren't switching all their desktops to Linux.

because they get enormous discounts to keep them on windows. at our university, microsoft charges us about 10% of list price. a year or two ago, every employee at our university was given free upgrade to the latest version of windows (i believe that was not only for their university systems but their home systems as well).

microsoft knows that universities with a computer science or engineering school could go linux if they wanted to, so they accept huge cuts to make the cost of software a non-argument.

Re:Universities and schools

[Bert64]

But training is the purpose of a university...
Surely you want people at university to be trained and to learn new skills, it worked fine a few years ago when university systems were all unix or dos based. I know lots of people who read their mail using pine at university, it may not have looked very pretty but it worked very well and was problem free.

Re:Universities and schools

[elrous0]

I don't understand why universities and schools all over the world aren't switching all their desktops to Linux

I used to work IT in research center at a major university here in the U.S. and I can tell you many reasons why *I* stuck with Windows. First and foremost is the practical matter of professors coming to you saying "I need this particular piece of software installed on my computer." Telling them "Sorry, there is no Linux version of that available" simply was NOT an option, and would likely have gotten me pink-slipped pretty damn fast.

Hell, we used to upgrade professors to new computers just to run a *single* piece of software they wanted (often software that wasn't even related to their work). They weren't particularly interested in the why-and-why-nots of why they couldn't get something that they wanted, only that they couldn't get it. Many of the profs I worked with had the emotional mentality of 3-year-olds wanting a piece of candy.

-Eric

Re:Universities and schools

[ajs318]

That's right, training will be enormously expensive. GNU/Linux PCs have a totally different keyboard layout to Windows ones. When you want the cursor on a GNU/Linux PC to move up, you have to move the mouse sideways. In OpenOffice Writer, when you want to make text bold you have to select "underline" and if you want to underline text, you have to select "right align". In OpenOffice Calc, you can't use the numeric keypad; you have to spell out all your numbers in words, like "seven hundred and sixty four thousand, one hundred and fourteen".

Oh, wait a minute, that's bollocks. The keys are in the same place, the mouse moves in the same directions, the options all have similar names and things generally work fairly similar. Anyone who learns like an adult and sees the abstract concepts behind actions, rather than learning like a child and blindly parrotting actions, will have little trouble adjusting.

The one big thing that catches people out is that rebooting a GNU/Linux PC almost never cures it of a fault, because GNU/Linux applications don't very often go unstable for no reason; so if anything is wrong, it is likely to be deliberate {as far as the computer is concerned} and if you didn't actually change any settings, the problem will still be there next time around. That's what we call "repeatable behaviour".

Re:Universities and schools

[drinkypoo]

because they get enormous discounts to keep them on windows. at our university, microsoft charges us about 10% of list price. a year or two ago, every employee at our university was given free upgrade to the latest version of windows (i believe that was not only for their university systems but their home systems as well).

If list price is $500, and you get it at 10%, then it's still $50 more than linux.

The only thing keeping Microsoft going is momentum. That's it. They're not the best at anything except leveraging their monopoly through the use of anti-competitive business processes, and escaping being smacked down for it by the U.S. government, probably through some sort of not-explicitly-illegal funds transfer or something.

Schools in particular are not going to linux because educators are fucking lame. I am not making this up. These people can barely handle using Windows. If you change things so that certain items are in different menus, they will never ever find them. The really sad part is that pretty much every college specifies skills with Microsoft Office (For example) in the job description, yet they will hire people without any skills in this area whatsoever. But wait, it gets ten times better. These are schools we're talking about. They tend to have classes in this stuff. Do they require their staff to take the classes, and become educated? Fuck no.

When I've been in IT anywhere, I've always taken any chance to bring linux in as a server platform, pushing out NT at the slightest provocation. When I can, I support open standards, open source, and free software, because I think they're better for everyone (except billy G and the chair throwin' posse) and because I simply despise everything about Microsoft, especially their inability to produce a secure, reliable product.

But anyway, it has nothing to do with cost. If you could just get the users to buy into it you could eliminate the hours and hours of headaches from virii and worms, and you'd start saving money from the moment you converted the first machine (you'd start with whatever machines were stunk up with malware and having issues...)

Re:Universities and schools

[Blakey Rat]

you could eliminate the hours and hours of headaches from virii and worms

And add hours and hours of headaches from people who can't figure out what to do, glitchy software, or having to use a crappy clone of some Windows product that works better.

UNIX used to be the norm

[TheRealDamion]

It's only the past few years that Windows has started to take over UNIX use in universities, certainly from my experience in the UK. Linux was used by many during this when it arrived over a decade ago, along with many who stuck with all the other UNIX flavours, I can't believe people who are new to this (7years experience with Linux) don't spot the same trends. Actions like this are far too little too late, the war was won a long time and ago and what's needed is a cleverly crafted resistance movement not pretending Linux is new and starting to make inroads.

Kudos to South Korea!

[Rob T Firefly]

That's quite a big step, and seeing it actually taken (by politicians of all people!) warms this old jaded heart. Assuming all goes well, this is going to serve as one hell of a shining example for the OSS community.

Now, cue the distro wars...

Is that the way to go about it?

[mytec]

The selected government and university will be required to install open-source software as a main operating infrastructure

Since when is forcing adoption the right thing to do? Is this forced switch really in the best interest of the students? What applications might they have to give up that don't have the equivelent in the open source world.

That is no better than MS forcing their software upon anyone they can. Not because it's necessarily better but because they can.

Re:Is that the way to go about it?

[tmossman]

Don't go reaching for your gun just yet. The summary was a bit misleading, choosing to quote parts with words like "required" and "have to". No one is being *forced* to do anything. The government decided to throw some money to a city and university if they were willing to make this change in infrastructure. From TFA:

`We will start to receive applications next week. After screening candidate cities and universities, the test beds are likely to be decided by late March,'' MIC director Lee Do-kyu said."

If a city or university doesn't want to have a chance to participate, they won't apply. It's not as though the gov't is just picking a town at random and saying, "YOU MUST USE LINUX!" Also from TFA:

Lee said that the project will be kick-started just after the decision of the city and university, toward which end the ministry earmarked 4.1 billion won for this year alone. ``Already many universities and local governments have shown interest in the project. We expect big-sized entities will join it,'' he added.

For reference, 4.1B won works out to just over $4.2M USD according to www.xe.com. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Right Tool for the Job?

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

The selected government and university will be required to install open-source software as a main operating infrastructure, for which the MIC will support with funds and technologies.

I thought the spirit of FOSS [or at least of /.] was supposed to be: USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB!!!

So what if M$FT Windows and M$FT Office ARE the right tools for the job? [Gasp! Horrors!! Oh the Humanity!!!]

How then would it be helping people to shove the wrong tool down their throats?

Yeah, yeah, bring it on: -1 Troll/Flamebait blah blah blah...

Oh Hellz Yes!

[ThoreauHD]

Asian girls and Linux? Where do I sign up? WHERE?!?

No technical glitches!

[daBass]

showcasing of Linux as the major operating system without any technical glitches

Linux? No technical glitches? And he already proclaims this before the trial?

Boy, is he in for a shock...

Disclosure: I love Linux (for servers) and wouldn't choose anything else. But I sure have seen my share of "glitches"!

Not the right way...

[winchester]

It should be all about choice, about what tool is the best for the job. Not about mandatory use of certain operating systems for perhaps totally unsuitable tasks.

Re:Not the right way...

[ajs318]

That's what all the Microsoft paid shills are saying ..... "choice", "right tool for the job" and so forth. Conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the time there is no choice.

• When did anyone ever have a choice of what OS comes on a new PC? For instance, have you ever tried to buy a GNU/Linux notebook?
• How often is it in the interests of an employer to offer employees a choice of operating systems? Only in a few, very specialised cases.

Also, "the right tool for the job" may well be something beautiful but expensive that requires a great effort to make locally, if part of "the job" specifically includes keeping money in the local economy rather than sending it to a foreign corporation. Remember, no matter how much you have to pay them, local programmers pay local taxes, drink in local pubs, spend their money in local stores, take their friends and family to visit local tourist attractions, and generally benefit the local economy.

good move!

[slackaddict]

Think about it - what if suddenly Linux/Unix/BSD was the mandated operating system for an entire country? Drastically reduced costs not only for the operating system itself, but also for all of the extra crap you need to keep Windows limping along. Wow... Maybe more money for teachers, schools, computers(!!), roads, healthcare, etc...

I say if Microsoft is the answer to the question, it must have been a stupid question. Go Linux!! :-)

Re:good move!

[colinrichardday]

From Best Buy, Harbison, SC. Prices in American dollars:

SUSE Linux 10.0: $59.99
Microsoft Windows XP Pro: $199.99 (upgrade), $299.99 (full)

Where do you get that they cost the same?

Missing out on free software...

[coastin]

Don't they know they will be missing out on all the free software you get when you plug a Win PC into the Net? ;-)

Whoa!

[mkswap-notwar]

The test beds will prompt other cities and universities to follow suit through the showcasing of Linux as the major operating system without any technical glitches and security issues.

Waaiiiit a minute. Be careful S. Korea. While some would say Linux is "better" than Windows, nobody said it was perfect. No techinical glitches and no security issues, IMPOSSIBLE.