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South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

koreaherald.com

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Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#31

Post by kijin »

Yeri wrote: post #8

I used to support our office in S. Korea. It's true they depend super heavily on ActiveX and other weird applets/software that runs only on Windows and/or IE. A lot of the communication with the government (yearly tax submission) as well as banking software would not run on our Linux or OSX devices, and so we had these 'loaner' windows 'tax machines' that got reimaged every few days that people could use to do their…

The word processor by Hancom is actually pretty nice, especially for composing Korean-only and mixed Korean-and-English documents. I've been using it since before I even knew that MS Word existed, and I still prefer it to MS Word for anything that contains CJK characters. The proprietary file format is a PITA, though.

Hancom did release a Linux version of their office suite a few years ago, and regularly updates the OSX version. Moreover, Hancom has been dabbling in Linux for over 20 years. They even maintained their own Red Hat-based distro at some point. They also support OpenDocument and OOXML fairly well. In short, Hancom has been hedging their bets very thoroughly. So if the government adopts Linux by any chance, it won't be difficult for them to go fully cross-platform and keep their lucrative government contracts.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#32

Post by Grollicus »

beefhash wrote: post #27
Grollicus wrote: post #19

Hope that works as well for them as the switch to Linux worked for Munich

Except that Munich switched back[1]. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/13/munich_committee_sa...

After Microsoft moved their german headquaters to Munich, which of course had nothing to do with their decision to switch back.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#33

Post by swiley »

jimmaswell wrote: post #21
robertAngst wrote: post #14

What does 'Linux OS' mean? Various Linux desktop distros? If so, have mercy on anyone who will be using Ubuntu Desktop for the first time. I hope they aren't afraid of using Terminal, because the internet will shout them down for wanting a GUI solution. Love Ubuntu server, but could never get into linux desktop.

The elitism can be absurd. Sometimes I wonder if it's stockholm syndrome. "You want to configure things with a GUI with discoverability? Not read a dissertation-length man page and edit config files whose syntax changes between versions so you can't even rely on google results? Go back to winbl0ws"

Most of the config files are (IMHO) much more discoverable than most GUIs, usually the default config has the default settings commented out along with a block of comments explaining them. A lot of GUI apps I've used have really crappy settings dialogs that don't explain things well and aren't searchable. But it's really the individual app, both can be done nicely or poorly, config files are often easier to implement and copy between machines and app versions (at least that's the feeling I've gotten.) And at least with config files there's something to google. GUIs change even more often (there are even fewer reasons to keep them stable than config file syntax.)

Also you're not really supposed to read through the entire man page for an app that you only touch once or twice, you're supposed to just search for what you need and leave.

My personal opinion is that GUIs are often less user friendly, they just look friendlier. GUIs make it easier to sell software, not to use it. Free software isn't being sold and that's why it tends to not have a GUI.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#34

Post by darkhorn »

kijin wrote: post #18
bootlooped wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even after ActiveX was on the way out they still had some pretty wacky practices. Korean websites requiring users to install proprietary security software was not uncommon.

> Korean websites requiring users to install proprietary security software was not uncommon. It still is common. They just replaced ActiveX plugins with native Windows apps because ActiveX has a bad rep. It's still Windows through and through, and most of those "security" apps are borderline spyware. I have to use Korean banks and government websites daily for business, and I keep them safely segregated inside a VM.

Easy; run Windows XP, IE, ActiveX in a virtual machine. Use Linux as your main OS.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#35

Post by rakoo »

dictum wrote: post #11
tooltalk wrote: post #3

> ... as Microsoft’s free technical support for Windows 7 expires in January 2020. they are still on Windows 7? ouch!!!

Maybe I got older and life lost some color, but the difference between Windows 10 and Windows 7 doesn't feel like the difference between 7 and XP. Seems like most of the action (outside gaming and Office power users) has moved to browsers and browser wrappers.

Same for me, although it might be because I also switched to Linux in parallel. XP was just perfect and there was no reason to change, yet 7 came along and if you want the best protection you need to be up to date. While 7 didn't bring anything for me beyond different skins, it did its job.

Windows 10? Man I feel like I'm on an ad-infested website and I need to be careful of where I click. But I'm definitely not objective here.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#36

Post by thewhitetulip »

zzzcpan wrote: post #20
thewhitetulip wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be too much work. Why not use well maintained existing distros?

Why would that be too much work? I expect total cost of ownership for the government distro to be way less, than using those "well maintained" ones.

If I understand correctly, we are talking about taking a well maintained distro and continuously updating it? Why? If the idea is to save money why would the govt build its own version? And I don't mean a Korean theme, I mean a full version

Building a one time theme or anything of that sort is okay, I think. But it'll be costly to maintain a distro

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#37

Post by a-afterglow »

kijin wrote: post #31
Yeri wrote: post #8

I used to support our office in S. Korea. It's true they depend super heavily on ActiveX and other weird applets/software that runs only on Windows and/or IE. A lot of the communication with the government (yearly tax submission) as well as banking software would not run on our Linux or OSX devices, and so we had these 'loaner' windows 'tax machines' that got reimaged every few days that people could use to do their…

The word processor by Hancom is actually pretty nice, especially for composing Korean-only and mixed Korean-and-English documents. I've been using it since before I even knew that MS Word existed, and I still prefer it to MS Word for anything that contains CJK characters. The proprietary file format is a PITA, though. Hancom did release a Linux version of their office suite a few years ago, and regularly updates the…

Have you been using it since its first release? I find it surprising you hadn't heard about MS Office if you were already using Hancom.

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#38

Post by kijin »

darkhorn wrote: post #34
kijin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Korean websites requiring users to install proprietary security software was not uncommon. It still is common. They just replaced ActiveX plugins with native Windows apps because ActiveX has a bad rep. It's still Windows through and through, and most of those "security" apps are borderline spyware. I have to use Korean banks and government websites daily for business, and I keep them safely segregated inside a VM.

Easy; run Windows XP, IE, ActiveX in a virtual machine. Use Linux as your main OS.

Windows 7 with IE11 currently seems to be the sweet spot. Even in Korea, using XP has been frowned upon for a few years now :)

Re: South Korean government to switch to Linux: ministry

#40

Post by thewhitetulip »

kijin wrote: post #23
thewhitetulip wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be too much work. Why not use well maintained existing distros?

Because this is Korea, and there's always someone trying to milk the taxpayers' money by offering to develop a "Koreanized" product that is "specialized" for government tasks. Even if it's just Ubuntu with a custom theme and slightly different Wine defaults. I'd bet 5,000 won that they won't even contribute their translation fixes (i.e. their only positive contribution to the world) upstream. They will also rather go…

Okay. Maybe a theme would be good. A full blown distro would be costly
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