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Korea Plans to Choose Linux City, University 207

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. "
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Korea Plans to Choose Linux City, University

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  • Maybe now, the North Koreans will have a byte [sic] to eat.

  • by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:47AM (#14741524)
    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?

    • But as most PC's are only supplied bundled with Windows and MS's VLK schemes for universities etc aren't as expensive as some make out then I'd imagine not alot.

      Now if you can get rid of the MS Tax on new PC's then the balance would be restored.

    • by flacco ( 324089 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:01AM (#14741613)
      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.

      • 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

        As the Softies are quick to point out, purchase costs are small parts of TCO. All the free beer in the world won't make up for time wasted on daily anti-virus runs, difficult place keeping due to short run times and an inadequate GUI. Even with co-operation of other M$ partners, the environme

        • All the free beer in the world won't make up for time wasted on daily anti-virus runs, difficult place keeping due to short run times and an inadequate GUI.

          All the free beer in the world could make you too drunk to care though :)
      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday February 17, 2006 @11:54AM (#14743096) Homepage Journal

        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...)

      • because they get enormous discounts to keep them on windows. at our university, microsoft charges us about 10% of list price.

        Actually, I believe MS hand out a number of their products as freebees to universities in order to get the students hooked (along with free or heavilly discounted software development tools).

        ISTR that the Swansea University Computer Society [sucs.org] (with it's quite well known connections to Linux) was offered freebee licences a few years ago on the condition that they ran Windows on _all_ the
        • Via the MSDN Academic Alliance, almost any university gives away free licensed copies of software such as Windows XP Pro, Visio, Visual Studio.NET or whatever, MS Virtual PC, MapQuest, UNIX Services for Windows, etc... to all its students.
    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:09AM (#14741656)
      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

      • So let me get this straight. Unless you installed every single program that any professor asks you will be fired?

        Wow, please tell us the name of the university, I want to make I don't send my kids there.
        • Unless you installed every single program that any professor asks you will be fired?

          Well, unlike most IT departments, mine actually had to keep in mind that we were there to *serve*.

          -Eric

    • Because out in the *real* world of work and the office, microsoft unfortunately rules the roost. You can't just create a little linux based utopian world inside schools and release people into the big bad world of M$ software. I can't imagine employers taking somone very seriously if they'd never used Microsoft Office plus outlook, never used windows explorer, set up a windows network, used a windows based printer driver, never used Sage- and those are basic office functions without any specialisation, such
      • I think Korea is looking at this as more significant than just a "we can save money on MS licenses" project. From TFA:

        ``In order to become a genuine software powerhouse, Korea has no choice but to secure source technologies. We cannot achieve the goal under the command of dominant closed-source programs,'' said Ko Hyun-jin, president at the state-backed agency.

        They are hoping to get more people using, developing, perhaps even vending OSS programs. Exciting potential partnerships for OSS developers in t

      • Because out in the *real* world of work and the office, microsoft unfortunately rules the roost. You can't just create a little linux based utopian world inside schools

        We're talking about universities, not evening schools. If you need to learn MS software, there are plenty of "For Dummies" books you can read over a weekend -- don't waste your probably one and only shot at higher education learning how to operate a black box that will be obsolete in two years.

        • I'm talking about the real world of millions of offices who don't have computers as their main business and who need smart office workers who can use computers. The parent poster for my comment said that all schools and univerisites should move to linux for everything to save money, but if business, science and design students, plus the general highschool populace (who tend to learn very little about computers anyway) come out of the education system having only learned about linux, then they're going to wa
          • I'm talking about the real world of millions of offices who don't have computers as their main business and who need smart office workers who can use computers.

            And learning to use a Linux desktop would make them stupid office workers?

            if business, science and design students, plus the general highschool populace (who tend to learn very little about computers anyway) come out of the education system having only learned about linux, then they're going to walk into a brick wall when they start their first

        • We're talking about universities, not evening schools.

          Actually, even (especially) in schools I think it would be massively beneficial to have Linux machines. I'm not advocating binning all the Windows machines. I've seen far too many people who have basically been trained how to use Windows like animals (i.e. "to start a word processor you click Start -> Programs -> Office -> Word") and can't accept a computer which is slightly different. Basically they haven't got any thinking skills.

          When I was
      • Linux is ok for openoffice, internet, mail and programming, but if you actually want to *do* something with the computer that isn't programming there's no wealth of professional grade software out there for professionals who are reliant on computer technology.

        There's a lot of professional grade software out there for professionals that runs as well or better on Linux than on any other operating system:

        • Pro Engineer
        • Various Cadence microcircuit design toolkits (schematic capture, mask layout, simulati
      • I'm an employer.

        If you've never used Linux, AIX, Lotus Domino, etc., you get books, On-the-Job-Training, and certification assistance. You don't get overlooked because you need a little training, that's just plain ridiculous. No employer works that way because if they did, they'd never be able to hire anyone.

        So, if that's the case with those tools, why would it be any different with Windows, MS Office, etc.??? It's not.

        We once had an Operations Manager who took 4 solid hours to learn how to look up a par
      • You can't just create a little linux based utopian world inside schools and release people into the big bad world of M$ software.

        Schools aren't about what we're using today. Schools are about what we'll be using tomorrow. Your suggestion to indoctrinate another generation of IT professionals is harmful to the industry as a whole.

    • As others have pointed out, Microsoft seriously discounts their products to universities. At my Alma Mater (and workplace for a while), individual departments paid nothing for Windows licenses. The only restrictions they had were that you had to go to a training class provided by Microsoft before you were allowed to copy the media the University provided. If the University is paying a lump sum anyways, the departments have little reason to worry about it. It's not coming out of their departmental budget
      • My university (University of Missouri- Columbia) has over 1000 computers over 50 labs. I'd say that about 75-80% of those are Dells and Gateways running only XP Pro. Most of the rest are 15" "lampshade" iMac G4s, with about 50 Dells running XP and RHEL 3 in dual-boot and 20 Dells running only RHEL 3. There are a handful of PowerMac G5s and iMac G5s in the newer labs.

        There are two labs that I use quite a bit on campus. One has about 40 computers in it, 30 are XP machines and the other 10 are the G4 iMacs. Th
      • Sounds exactly the same as my Alma Mater. Were you North Quad or South Quad, Mod Quad, or God Quad?
    • A lot don't spend much money on software licenses. The district I went to school in used (and is *still* using) Windows 98 on its machines. They paid for the license once and are using it until the AMD Duron 700 computers it runs on die. Most of those computers don't have MS Office or anything like that on them. Some have Word 6 on them, but most are just the W98 OS, a Web browser, and some specific apps (a reading-level test, library card-catalog search function, etc.) that the school really uses the compu
    • Thanks to Oregon speaker of the House Karen Minnis (R, Wood Village), Oregon is contributing $32 million/year to that in licenses to Microsoft alone. She fought in favor of Microsoft on that in shooting down the Open Source Bill.

      BTW, I live in Wood Village, and I'm looking to see if anybody else in the area would be willing to vote for me, should I run against Karen Minnis this fall for her house seat to become the first socialist state rep in Oregon.

  • by TheRealDamion ( 209415 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:51AM (#14741545) Homepage
    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.
    • I disagree; things have changed. Linux did exist 10 years ago, but what about the applications? It's OpenOffice and Firefox that matter, not the kernel.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    n/t
  • by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:53AM (#14741557) Homepage Journal
    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...
  • by mytec ( 686565 ) * on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:54AM (#14741563) Journal
    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.

    • Any organisation forces products upon it's staff, and there's no way to avoid that in this immature industry...

      The larger vendors don't bother following standards, so your stuck with very limited (or no) choice, and can't easily have a diverse setup.

      Consider in contrast to a company car, sometimes you get an allowance to obtain any car you can afford.. Your free to choose the car you want.

      Once the IT industry matures, and protocols/formats become standardised, it will be a lot easier and there will no longe
    • The "forced" argument is misplaced. If government can decide to use Windows, they can also change their minds and decide to use Linux. Switching govt. owned PCs from Windows to Linux is in no way some new act of coercion.
    • by tmossman ( 901205 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:26AM (#14741801)
      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.
    • Since when is forcing adoption the right thing to do? Is this forced switch really in the best interest of the students?

      RTFA. The cities and universities are applying for the program.

      "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.
    • 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.

      I dunno. What are the chances that they can get the equivalent application in Korean for Windows?

      Also, Koreans tend to have a bit more nationalist spirit than most western nations (remember the whole cloning stem cell debacle). If your choices were a home grown option versus an American co
    • 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.

      I know exactly what you mean! When I went to school, I was forced to adopt Windows and Office. I had to give up a lot of applications that don't have the equivalent in the Windows world.

      That is no better than MS forcing their software upon anyone they can.

      Perhaps, but it's definit

  • by mosel-saar-ruwer ( 732341 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:55AM (#14741568)

    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...

    • Bah. ACtually, the only way FOSS is gonna fly is by (forced) adoption by many large-scale consumers (aka Governments). Right now, you have a company that satisfies 50% of requirements (most of the time) selling to organizations around the world. Everybody puts their money in, and gets a tool that *sorta* works well enough. Only when large organizations start to see an advantage in having FOSS developers on the payroll -- to improve and to adopt what's already out there -- are you gonna see widescale adoptio
    • Because they cause lock-in, and it's _NEVER_ desireable to get locked in to a single vendor under any circumstances.
      This is a huge overriding factor for many people, and in any other industry would be a massive problem for businesses too and yet for some reason they overlook it when buying computers (?!?) or have already been screwed over by the lock-in and are now stuck.

      I would _NEVER_ lock my business in to a single vendor, that would be a grossly negligent act.

      And when a company's products lock users in,
      • Agreed. And what you're talking about is just for a business. Imagine how much more important it is to a whole country who may not be on good terms with the country producing the software.

        The enemy's products, whose source code you can't see, is the farthest possible thing from "the right tool for the job".
    • It's not like the goverment is picking some random city and university and commanding them to install Linux.

      Rather, cities and universities can (and do) apply for this project which gives them financial support required for their voluntary switch to linux.
    • Korea might have different usage scenarios from the US. And while new stuff is being built with Linux support, the others users can have a 3 year migration plan while the sysadmins get experience. Think longer term, and you might even see the logic.

      Hopefully, the Korean hardware manufacturers will improve their Linux support.
  • by ThoreauHD ( 213527 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @08:58AM (#14741591)
    Asian girls and Linux? Where do I sign up? WHERE?!?
  • by daBass ( 56811 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:03AM (#14741621)
    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"!
    • Disclosure: I love Linux (for servers) and wouldn't choose anything else. But I sure have seen my share of "glitches"!

      I love free software as a desktop and have seen fewer glitches there than under Windoze. I get better than sixty day uptimes running testing/unstable, unheard of in the Windoze world. Sure, every now and then something barfs but it never takes the system down and rarely even bothers X. The same server grade networking continues to churn and never has problems. I use free software on des

      • There is a difference between a glitch and an all out crash! Though I

        This also wasn't meant as a competition between Windows and Linux; I prefer OS X on the desktop. All the power of a unix (great for development) with a good looking gui that is more stable than Windows and more managable than all the Linux desktops I tried. ("things just work" isn't just a marketing slogan, I can testify) The only thing affecting my uptime there are updates that require a restart. (one every month, maybe)

        But it is a premiu
      • You don't have to use Korean IMEs and the pleasure that is 'Asianux' (think Lindows in its early days, and then try to imagine what must have been like 6 months before that).
        • You don't have to use Korean IMEs and the pleasure that is 'Asianux' (think Lindows in its early days, and then try to imagine what must have been like 6 months before that).

          As a Zaurus owner, I've used Hamcom software. It was OK in English, how bad could it be native?

  • by winchester ( 265873 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:06AM (#14741635)
    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.
    • it is volontary! (Score:2, Insightful)

      institutions volontarily sign up for this program, no one is forcing them (of course they do get a bunch of funding for it)

      From TFA (yes, I actually read it!):

      ``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.
    • by ajs318 ( 655362 )
      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 bea

  • good move! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by slackaddict ( 950042 ) <rmorgan.openaddict@com> on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:08AM (#14741647) Homepage Journal
    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!! :-)

  • by coastin ( 780654 ) * on Friday February 17, 2006 @09:22AM (#14741763) Homepage
    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? ;-)
  • Lemme guess, the mascot for the local football team....... a penguin?
  • Whoa! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mkswap-notwar ( 764715 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @10:05AM (#14742095)
    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.
  • by Random BedHead Ed ( 602081 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @10:06AM (#14742103) Homepage Journal

    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

    Calling Windows a "program" is a bit of an understatement. Remind me again how many gigabytes a minimal install of that program requires, and what OS it runs on. :)

  • A few years ago, Slashdot did a couple [slashdot.org] stories [slashdot.org] on Largo, Florida's use of Linux for municipal systems. Anyone heard from them recently? Are they still using it? Does anyone know of any other cities that have followed suit?
  • Getting linux to run the popular MMORPG's that Koreans play is probably the best way to get them to use linux.
  • South Korea is doing this not to thumb their nose at MS, or to move their country to Linux, but to move their software industry to Linux. South Korea is now targeting Software in the same way that they targeted automotive and later hardware. Considering that so many of the big and medium software houses are ignoring Linux, South Korea will end up with a HUGE advantage. I think that within 5 years South Korea will be competing against America software to the tune of billions. Think of how the Windows softw
  • Freedom be damned (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DigDuality ( 918867 )
    Look, IT departments, governments, managers who sit whacking off in cubicles all day make this choice every single day, regardless of what flavor or company they cater to. Be it MS, Linux, Mac, etc, etc.

    It's rarely decided by the majority of the users, but done on a cost/benefit analysis..or through lobbying.

    As it stands right now, most of the public schools in america (and a good many private ones.. from K- Uni)push Microsoft, Dell, Apple, etc. and at times this wasn't what was best for the job, bu
  • by blackest_k ( 761565 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @10:56AM (#14742525) Homepage Journal
    when you see uk goverment wants a backdoor into windows ( the US goverment probably has one already)
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/09/05/microsoft_ collaborating_with_us_spymasters/ [theregister.co.uk]
    (not an ideal link)
    It sure makes sense for korea to prefer to use something which is secure from foreign prying eyes.

    South Korea is taking an obvious first step in removing a dependence on Microsofts operating systems. Why should they not want to reduce the flow of money out of their country by developing a free workable alternative. Linux isn't a perfect windows replacement yet however if the south koreans address the issues as it finds them. It seems reasonable they will develop a fully rounded version of linux that can go onto remove microsofts grip on south korea's infrastructure.

    The really good news is if it works for them then it could work for the rest of the world too.
    If you look at trusted computing microsoft is being trusted and why should anyone expect that between microsoft and the US goverment they can be trusted with the IP of another competing nation.

    I am not being anti US here if you gave the keys to the worlds collective IP to any nation its a foregone conclusion that nation will use it to its own advantage.
  • through the showcasing of Linux as the major operating system without any technical glitches and security issues

    Now I like Linux as much as the next, but to say there will be no technical glitches or security issues is poor project planning.
  • * Possible Chamber of Commerce Video Dialog *
    Welcome to Torvaldsville, S. Korea! Home of Torvalds University, home of the Fighting Penguins! GO PENGUINS! * Hums the Notre Damne Theme. *

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