Korea brings homegrown open source to schools

Source: News.com

The project, called the New Education Information System, is built on a Korean-developed version of Linux that already services 190 schools in the heart of capital city Seoul.

"The information will be transferred from school to school when a student moves and when they enter university," Hyun said. "The next phase is to make that nationwide. The pilot project was built on Linux."

This move was not an attempt to snub Microsoft but to help the country develop more of its own software.

The reason for their inclination towards Linux are

• first because of security issues and budgetary concerns.
• Local support--most applications will be our own developments. If we get the software vendors to do this, where will be the local support?

Korea was working closely with the Chinese and the Japanese to create an Asian version of Linux that would read any program from the three countries: "The government has dispatched Linux as a preferred platform. The open-source movement is very strong here--we have a separate dedicated group working on it."

A very neat initiative by the Korean Govt. Very valid points on the advantages of Open Source and its reach.

Category: Open Source