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North Korea's Own OS, Red Star
klaasb writes "North Korea's self-developed computer operating system, named 'Red Star,' was brought to light for the first time by a Russian satellite broadcaster yesterday. North Korea's top IT experts began developing the Red Star in 2006, but its composition and operation mechanisms were unknown until the internet version of the Russia Today TV program featured the system, citing the blog of a Russian student who goes to the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang."
Does it count as fulfilling the obligations required by the GPL if you make your source code freely available and downloadable but your entire country is behind a firewall and no one can access it? :)
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Ironic how super-strict North Korea uses Free Software, while South Korea is totally in thrall to Microsoft.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Does it count as fulfilling the obligations required by the GPL if you make your source code freely available and downloadable but your entire country is behind a firewall and no one can access it? :)
Most of North Korea doesn't even have electricity. I'm not sure they need a firewall.
Putting moderation advice in your
It is just the smart thing to do. I expect more nations to switch to Linux as their desktop operating system to save the dependency on "Red Mond". I mean, monoculture is dangerous for their national security. Linux is very strong in Latin nations for egovernment purposes. The nation to switch first is able to create a very sustainable Linux eco system and it is able to get the Microsoft political benefits as well. Win!
OTOH, we're free to copy anything coming from North Korea as well. Not quite sure how much is worth copying.
Our govt is desperately copying their civil rights laws...
Some of our corporate-govt propaganda is about as bad as their govt propaganda...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
and I cannot stop myself of thinking - this russian student in NK that revealed the secret to the evil world - what happens to this poor soul? I mean either he was f.g silly, the regime told him to do it or the regime is already falling apart and everybody (in NK) can see it. Well I personally opt for silliness.
After all, North Korea is not known for its high technology or modern infrastructure. Well, as I'm sure the Mozilla team can tell you, developing a high quality modern browser is not a trivial task. Takes a lot of work and a lot of expertise. They have that, and have many years of code to build on. NK doesn't. So, what do they do? Rip off someone else, of course! That way they can have their own high quality browser with a minimum of effort. There's also little risk of their citizens finding out it is a ripoff and not original work because of course they have almost no access to the outside world.
If any one was actually expecting a real, home grown, innovate OS the were kidding themselves.
We have a greater percentage of our population in prison than North Korea does.
Their entire country is a prison.
Yeah, and I'm sure that the cars in N. Korea have a wheel to steer, pedals on the floor for accelerator, clutch and brake, and a lever to shift gears... Just like a Chevy.
So what?
North Korean standards of "new". It takes their engineers a decade to completely remove all of the NSA and Chinese backdoors from the hardware.
Ya, executions do tend to keep the prisoner count low...
Life is not for the lazy.
Does it count as fulfilling the obligations required by the GPL if you make your source code freely available and downloadable but your entire country is behind a firewall and no one can access it? :)
Since North Korea is a sovereign nation, I dont think that they have to abide by US copyright laws...
Does it count as fulfilling the obligations required by the GPL if you make your source code freely available and downloadable but your entire country is behind a firewall and no one can access it? :)
Isn't this kind of a modified version of one of the thought experiments from the Debian legal team? If you suppose dissidents in dictatorships should be allowed to improve and use the software without the need to put themselves in danger of exposing the fact that they have the software in their possession, then the licenses should only require sending source code and patches to people who specifically request them. (Incidentally, GPL doesn't require you to advertise your forked versions or send your modifications upstream. It just requires that if you distribute binaries, you should also make the source available upon request.)
Heck, the people who came up with this thought experiment probably never thought the same principle could be actually used by dictatorships to conceal the program from the outside world...
amerika has executions too y'all
Even assuming their entire country is a prison, the US -still- has more people in prison than North Korea does.
//(Technically wrong by a factor of 10, but still likely to hit +5 funny before it hits -5 troll).
In N. Korea, you don't operate system; system operates YOU.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Actually, it just looks like a default KDE desktop. I've seen the Chinese Linux that emulates the look of XP, and someone spent a lot of time on that copying the appearance down to the small details. This, on the other hand, isn't very customized.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Yeah, awesome, those Korean programmers! They can make Linux look almost identical to Windows ... by using the almost un-altered default theme of KDE3
Really? How do you know? Most lists I've seen of imprisonment rates have the US with the highest listed, but North Korea with no information, because most are based on government reports and/or reliable NGOs, and North Korea doesn't report data or provide the kind of access from which NGOs could produce anything like a reasonable estimate.
Rather that than the enterprise controlling government with an iron fist, like where I live.
Yes, like Germany for example
Yet another retard author who hasn't actually used or seen any operating system outside of OSX or Windows, it's blindingly obvious that it's pretty much the default KDE 3.5 setup.
Only on Slashdot would we worry about a country violating the GPL without discussing their violation of most international treaties, common sense, the Bible, nuclear test ban treaties, and the basic human rights of their own citizens.
I'm Argentinian. born, raised and living in Argentina ... a big part of the US population consists mostly of racist, irrational, ego maniacal, selfish pricks
Perhaps you should leave Argentina once in a while and actually get to know a few more of the people you're describing.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.