Asian open-source standard eyes June release

Subject: [bytesforall_readers] Asian open-source standard eyes June release
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:28:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Aadish Shrestha <hacker_adu@yahoo.com>
To: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com

Asian open-source standard eyes June release

With the open-source movement gaining momentum regionally,
software developers from Korea, Japan and China said they
are nearing the completion of a compatible open-source
operating system that will be promoted as an Asian
standard.

Korean software developer Hancom Inc. is working with
China's Red Flag Linux Co. and Japan's Miracle Linux Co. to
develop Asianux 2.0, which will be promoted as the standard
open-source system in the three countries. Asianux is ahead
of time in development and will be released in June, two
months earlier than planned, according to Hancom officials.

"By June, we will be able to come up with an open-source
system that is comparable to Suse and Red Hat," said a
Hancom spokesman "The date of release was rescheduled
considering the Korean government's adoption of NEIS, a
database of the country's high-school population, which
will be around the second semester next year, apparently a
huge opportunity to introduce a new open-source solution."

Open source describes software for which the source code is
freely available, allowing programmers to develop the
system independently.

Asian governments have been intensifying their efforts to
promote the development of open-source software, attempting
to gain independence from the dominance of U.S. software
developer Microsoft Inc.'s Windows operating system on
desktops and servers.

In April, government authorities from Korea, Japan and
China reached an agreement to support the joint development
of an open-source operating system in the private sector
and to set compatible platform standards for the
alternative technology.

The open-source software market has been growing rapidly in
Japan and China. In Japan, the market for open-source
software is expected to grow 20 percent annually through
2008 when it will have a market share of 17.8 percent among
operating systems, compared to 9 percent in 2003.
Government officials in China believe the open-source
market will grow 46.7 percent annually over the next five
years.

Microsoft has withheld the source code for its programs
since the 1970s and based its business model on proprietary
software ever since. The Windows operating system runs on
more than 90 percent of the world's desktop computers and
is frequently the target of malicious attacks.

It remains to be seen to what degree alternate technology
will affect Windows' dominant hold, with open-source
software having a limited reach worldwide in most corporate
sectors.

However, some industry insiders predict that more companies
will take a chance on open-source software if the
technology is backed by sufficient financial and
administrative support, which could neutralize the fear of
betting on an unproven project.

Linux, the world's most successful open-source program, was
developed in 1991 and is used by multinationals such as
Merrill Lynch, Verizon and Boeing. Companies like IBM,
Hewlett-Packard and Dell have also done well in the U.S.
market selling Linux servers.

(thkim@heraldm.com)

By Kim Tong-hyung

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