* Linux wins over Windows in some government camps
While there has been debate and conflicting studies on the cost-effectiveness for businesses to migrate from Windows to Linux, government agencies abroad continue to pave the way for large-scale rollouts of open source.
Recently, the South Korean government announced plans to push Linux PCs to 10,000 schools throughout the country. The New Education Information System project uses a version of Linux developed by the South Korean government, built specifically for educational purposes. The goal is to get computers distributed broadly to schoolchildren in order to make students more computer-literate at an early age.
The project leaders decided that developing a version of Linux internally, instead of buying tens of thousands of educational discount Windows licenses, would make this easier. The government said the decision was nothing against Microsoft; it just wanted to try developing its own systems.
Almost 5,000 miles away in Norway, more open source upheaval is going on; this one is less-cordial towards the Washington-based software company 4,500 miles away.
Without naming product names, Norway’s Minister for Modernization has said that the Norwegian government will move off of “proprietary” systems by the end of 2006. Citing a growing dependency on “proprietary” spreadsheet and presentation software “that everyone uses,” Norway plans to move its government agencies to open source. This is part of a more ambitious strategy to roll out a national online identity system for citizens, and upgrade the country’s IT infrastructure overall.
