Korean government showing interest in Linux

These two articles deal with an interesting issue that made a little bit of noise in 2006, but since Microsoft has recently released Vista, it will become relevant again.

The heart of the issue deals with the choice of which operating systems the world’s computers will run. Windows naturally owns the largest share of the OS market, but there are several curious issues that cause concern among countries that consume large amounts of these products, such as Korea.

Without digressing into an open source vs. proprietary software debate, there are several potential problems for Korean consumers of Windows, whether individuals or governments. The first and perhaps most serious issue is that Windows is not transparent: the source code for Windows is not viewable users. This is hardly a problem for personal use, but this may be an unsatisfactory policy for government agencies that use this software for critical issues. When these article were written, a sizeable portion of Korean Windows users were operating on Windows 98, and an announcement was made that Microsoft would no longer be offering security updates for this platform. This created a serious security issue for anyone using Windows 98, with very little recourse other than buying a more recent (and expensive) version of Windows. Lastly, all proprietary operating systems are embroiled in an endless battle with the latest malicious software being written all over the world. There is thus a small, but growing demand for an alternative, open source operating system.

The Korean Ministry of Information and Communication has developed a pilot project dubbed the Linux city/university. In this, they are attempting to increase the interest in open-source projects, which benefit from grassroots style development which allows anyone with programming knowledge to contribute. This is not a panacea for the problems listed above, but it bypasses the most serious issue of relying too heavily on what essentially amounts to a black box. Open-source systems are still a long way from becoming mainstream, but they are gradually gaining visibility.

While I personally cannot foresee myself using an open source OS in the near future, I can absolutely understand the desire of the Korean government (or any government) to shun the use of opaque software. There were some conspiracy theories when Vista came out about how it had some contingencies to allow the CIA/FBA/NSA etc… to monitor activities. This is an unlikely scenario, but any governmental system that handles sensitive or potentially secret information should naturally be suspicious of anything other than an open source OS.