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All of Vietnam's Government Computers To Use Linux, By Fiat
christian.einfeldt writes "The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an administrative ruling increasing the use of Free Open Source Software products at state agencies, increasing the software's use both in the back office and on the desktop. According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009. The regulation also sets benchmarks for training and proficiency in the software. Vietnam has a population of 86 million, 4 million larger than that of Germany, and is one of the world's fastest-growing economies."
It's time to take the FREEdom out of FREE software!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Microsoft offers a new deal to Vietnam. Vietnam goes with Windows for 5 more years.
I may be skeptical. Using the Linux card is a great way to get a better deal from Microsoft. The bigger you yell the better the deal.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Penguins?!? in Vietnam? It's a cold day in hell boys!!!
Also, this bodes well for Open Source everywhere. Eventually all other countries will follow suit and the people will have government systems that work best for their diverse cultures, tailor made UIs and logic, that can also extend inventive solutions.
Also knowing what is in the source code helps identify potential threats to national security.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
don't worry, it's much more likely that cousin X will talk to cousin Y and cousin Y will pay off department supervisor Q and the entire Northeastern half of the country will get a 5 year "extension" for switching
Good for them! I can't wait until the USA makes this same decision.. Might help out our shitty economy
IMO, this is not necessarily good. Forcing free software on someone is not going to generate all good comments. In fact, forcing someone to use something, especially if they aren't used to it, usually generates more complaints - not because the new thing is actually worse, but simply because they are being FORCED to use it.
I dunno. I like using Linux and I think it's a good alternative to Windows, but forcing people to switch doesn't really show Linux to be a "good alternative," doesn't make people want to use it on its own merits, etc... it makes it look more like a financial move, not a "This is better software" move.
I think open standards are much more important than open source software. The ability to use your favorite program to get a certain task accomplished without having to worry about compatibility problems is worth much more than wether you use open source or not. I would much rather use Pages instead of OpenOffice if it only would support ODF, for instance.
-- Cheers!
Who forced them to make this decision? As far as I can tell (with the article so short on details) the Vietnamese government came to this decision of their own free will. Yes, they're allowed to decide what software to install on their own computers.
As for the psychological effects, it shouldn't really matter why they chose Linux. The fact that they chose it indicates that it's better for some reason. It could be for security reasons. It could be for philosophical reasons. It could be for financial reasons. It could simply be that they were tired of dealing with licensing (or the risks of lacking licenses). All are excellent reasons to switch.
I applaud their decision and hope that others make the same decision, at the personal, business, and governmental levels.
Agreed. This is why Peter Quinn's sovereignty argument for OpenDocument in MA was so apt. It's not about Linux, but communicating lofty ideals like Free Software to government types is difficult. When you start talking about the ancient political documents like a constitution though, and government responsibility to preserve them in a neutral format, things become a lot clearer. Add in the Peruvian arguments for an openly competitive economy based around open standards in software, and it's clear that government's absolute responsibility is to choose free software and standards. So no, Linux should not be forced, but yes, free software should. Our taxes should not prop up individual corporations -- especially when that monopolizes their power and cripples other parts of the economy.
When the government is only allowed to use is Linux, then yes, you've created a monopoly within that specific market segment. And governments are large markets in most economies.
And the Microsoft monopoly bit is pretty tired by now. There's Linux, OS X and a variety of smaller OS variants that are available. Using political force in this manner is worse in my opinion than any "unfair competitive practices" Microsoft has done in the past.
I wonder when 'Le Doan Hop' the Minister of Information and Communications, is going to be relieved of his job and trashed in the press.
"I'm sure you'd like to hear from Peter Quinn, formerly CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts"
davecb5620@gmail.com
I write this as chairs are being thrown in another part of the world: Kudos to Vietnam! I hope that more governments and businesses around the world will realize the savings that can be had because when costs are cut at these types of organizations, it means higher efficiency and lower prices. Software is a great area to cut costs, and the free software packages that Vietnam will adopt are mature, stable codebases.
They've been talking about this for years. I worked in Vietnam for a year three years ago and still visit a couple times a year and they were talking about it even then.
But so far I have never seen a computer running Linux there that I or a Linux user friend of mine didn't set up myself. And I am completely unable so far to find the actual text of the proclamation that says that they will use Linux. Nor have I been able to contact anyone who knows anything about it. They are probably just looking for leverage against Microsoft.
Why is it that nobody ever links to the actual text of the legislation or proclamation?
I really do hope they mean it.
Dumbasses tagging this 'communism' - it's nothing to do with communism - more like COMMON-SENSE-ISM.
you had me at #!
IIS7 is remarkably performant, even compared to Apache2, and I haven't seen a significant security update come down the pipe for it or ASP.NET in quite some time.
The initial cost outlay of a Windows machine is higher, of course, but did you consider the other costs? Maintaining an application written in .NET is a lot easier than doing the same in, say, Perl or PHP (unless your staff is universally comprised of language virtuosos, which strikes me as unlikely). Their development teams may already be proficient at .NET. I know that the common wisdom around here is that a good programmer should be able to pick whatever the hell they need to use and be able to get up to speed, but a lot of programmers aren't good but are nominally productive with what they already know. And the support Microsoft offers to big companies is really, really good. (Red Hat and Novell offer good support too, but neither are the same kind of behemoths that Microsoft is.)
There are good reasons to pick something that isn't what you personally like, whether it's proprietary or not.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Lets remember that as part of becoming integrated into the economy - Vietnam will be told taht they have to crack down on piracy.
Do they crack down on piracy and push up the cost of doing business in Vietnam by having all departments use Windows + Office, and thus all those who interact with the government having to have said software - or is it smarted to start off using opensource software now given that they are pretty much starting from a clean slate? They've made a good move - and I'll put money on it people will be looking in and asking their own government why Microsoft is given multi-billion dollar contracts when Vietnam's public service is just as productive (if not more) using Linux/OpenOffice.org as they would using Windows.
Your an idiot. Do you see a difference between what people see on the street, and what the government buys?