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. "

MIC=Ministry of Information and Communication(n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

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.

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?