South Korea plans Linuxville
By Simon Aughton
Posted on 20 Feb 2006 at 10:04
South Korea is planning to build a Linux city and university which will be used to test whether the open source software can succeed Windows as the principal operating system.
The scheme was announced last week by the country's Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) which invited existing universities and local governments to apply to host the Linux enclaves.
'Already many universities and local governments have shown interest in the project,' said MIC director Lee Do-kyu. 'We expect big-sized entities will join it.'
The MIC will provide funding for the project - totalling 4.1bn won (about £2.4mn) in the first year.
The city and university will be required to run most of their computers on Linux.
'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 told the Korea Times.
Currently, fewer than one per cent of PCs in Korea run Linux, lower than the global median of three per cent. The Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency wants to raise this figure to five per cent, and to 40 per cent on servers, around a fifth of which currently run the open source OS.
It believes that the country cannot become a global software power if it does not have access to secure source code.
'We cannot achieve the goal under the command of dominant closed-source programs,' said Ko Hyun-jin, the Agency's president.
Germany was the first country to experiment with Linux, when Munich announced that it planned to migrate from Windows to the open source OS.
From around the web
advertisement
- Chrome's shine getting lost in translation
- BytePac: the cardboard hard disk enclosure
- How tech loosens our grip on reality
- Hokum watch: Safer Internet Day
- Why I'm deleting Adobe from my PC
- Prepare to be patronised: it's Safer Internet Day
- Dear Sony, Samsung and every other tech company in the world: stop trying to be Apple
- Will Apple's Final Cut Pro X update placate the pros?
- Smartr Contacts for iPhone review
- Switching to Office 365's Outlook Web App
- Why virtualisation hasn't slowed the growth of data
- How to make Google AdWords work for your business
- The curse of sloppily written software
- Paying for your crimes with Bitcoin
- Behind the scenes: tech support for Formula 1
- The security risk of fat fingers
- Why Windows Phone 7 isn't quite ready for business
- When will Microsoft stop fiddling with Windows 8?
- Flash down the pan?
- Metro Style apps vs desktop applications
advertisement
