2004.04_Norwegian Teachers, Lindows War, Iranian Open Source.pdf

NEWS

World

World News

Tax Office under Fire for

not Supporting Linux

Dutch citizens who wish to file income

tax returns electronically need a PC run-

ning certain versions of Microsoft

Windows. Other platforms will not be

supported until there are at least 50,000

installations.

How the tax office actually counts is

uncertain, and hence the “Christen-

Unie”, a right-wing, Christian party,

asked the responsible minister for clarifi-

cation in parliament. MP André Rouvoet

suspects that the required number of

Linux installations has already been

reached. Backed by the unanimous vote

for more Open Source support within the

Dutch government in 2002, the parlia-

ment feels it’s time for action.

Meanwhile Dutch Macintosh support-

ers have launched an online petition to

demand tax software for several plat-

forms.

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Iran Proudly Presents its First Open Source Project

Tw o years of work it took, and now it’s

going operational: The provincial unit of

the Iranian Ministry of Industries and

Mines in Kerman has deployed a new

internal IT system based on Linux and

other Open Source software. It’s the

country’s first homegrown project in this

field, providing a paperless automated

office workspace and a secure telework-

ing system via Internet.

The system, named WISA, provides E-

forms for more than 30 separate

applications and supports the decision

workflow within the organization online.

A glance under the hood reveals Apache

web servers and MySQL database

servers. Most applications were written

in C++, PHP and Perl, with some in

Python and Ruby. “We tested more than

40 Linux distros, from Red Hat to Knop-

pix, and decided to use customized

combinations of different distros on our

servers. But the future plan is to build

our own distro from scratch!”, project

initiator Davoud Seyedin Boroujeni told

Linux Magazine.

While employees use Linux thin

clients with KDE, the development team

consisting of Mr. Seyedin Boroujeni,

Miss Atefeh Hasibi, and Miss Shima Sha-

ban, has further plans: a WAP gateway

that allows users to access some services

via mobile phones.

The decision for Open Source software

wasn’t merely based on monetary con-

siderations in contrast to comparable

projects in other countries. Similar, but

commercial, solutions run on Windows,

and using Windows in Iran is illegal as

Microsoft does not sell its products to

“axis of evil” countries like Iran.

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http://www.macfreak.nl/

Forbidden to Choose Linux

When pupils in the Norwegian capital,

Oslo, use their new computers at school

they are probably unaware of a serious

choice that might soon confront them:

Would they prefer to keep the Microsoft-

based equipment or rather a teacher? In

the startup phase of the city’s IT for

schools scheme worth 110 million Nor-

wegian Crowns (about 12.6 m Euro), the

software company provided system

administration services free of charge.

But now schools are expected to pay.

In times when most of them are short

of funds, many principals have started

looking into alternatives. And they are

already there – in the form of Skolelinux

(see Issue 37 p10), a Debian-based Linux

distribution developed for Norwegian

schools. In Oslo, there are already two

schools using it.

But schools wishing to move over to

Skolelinux in 2004 seem to be out of

luck, as the city’s school department

won’t allow them to. In an interview

with the country’s biggest daily newspa-

per, “Aftenposten”, the department’s IT

director Bjørn Marthinsen said: “At the

moment we have to comply with the

contracts we’ve signed. But we’re going

to use this year to find out whether we

will consider a Linux-based solution in

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Survey Suffers from Translation Problems

Europe, the USA, and Japan have already

had theirs, and now Asia can look for-

ward to its own comprehensive Free and

Open Source Software (FLOSS) study.

The Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI),

Japan, is conducting the survey, which

started December 1 2003 as part of a pro-

ject called “Survey on Human Resource

Development for Open Source Software

Developers”, supported by the Japanese

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Indus-

try.

Its objective is to provide a source of

valuable information for the FLOSS com-

munity, for businesses and policy

makers. Questionnaires are available in

five languages: English, Traditional (Big-

5) and Simplified (GB2312) Chinese,

Korean, and Thai. However, by the end

of January, MRI had received only 130

responses. The researchers believe the

main reasons for the poor response rate

to be lack of promotion and inconsistent

terminology caused by translating the

original English questionnaire into local

languages. Language barriers seem to

have prevented local developers from

fully understanding the survey. However,

the researchers are confident that the

responses will shed some light on FLOSS

trends in Asia.

The results will be published in April

2004. More FLOSS surveys will be con-

ducted in Asia this year, for example one

in cooperation with the Software Libera-

tion Association in Taiwan (SLAT).

■

http://oss.mri.co.jp/floss-asia/index-en.

html (FLOSS-Asia)

http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/

(FLOSS-Europe)

April 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

■

World

NEWS

the future. This, we weren’t able to do in

the past as Oslo city council has been

bound to standardization rules. Hence

we had to use Microsoft products.” But

that might change in the future: The city

board asked the school department to

evaluate whether Linux might save

money and whether schools might run

programs they’ve used in the past on

Linux.

to be held at New Delhi”, as the website

claims.

Unlike Linux Bangalore, the confer-

ence held at New Delhi’s Indian Habitat

Centre does not focus on Linux and

Open Source technology, but on how to

do business with it. Hence, the list of

speakers mainly features CEOs, CTOs,

and other managers, both national and

international, among them Keynote

speakers like Apache’s Brian Behlendorf

and LynuxWork’s CEO of Indian origin,

Inder Singh, both from the US.

Beside the Keynotes, the three other

tracks include talks on how to use FLOSS

within an enterprise, how to build an

enterprise around Open Source software,

and FLOSS in government and society.

The “Technology Workshops Program”

feels a bit out of place against this back-

ground: The three-day workshop aims to

teach people how to perform basic sys-

tem administration tasks on Red Hat

Linux.

Microsoft at World War

with Lindows

The Lindows vs. Windows battle contin-

ues, and it doesn’t look good for the

Linux company: When Microsoft finally

took the trademark dispute to European

courts, temporary restraining orders that

prohibit Lindows to use the Lindows,

Lindows.com, and LindowsOS trade-

marks were issued in Sweden (see Issue

39 p14) and Finland.

In the Netherlands, the judge ordered

Lindows.com to stop distribution to deal-

ers and shut down access to their

websites for 90 days. This court order is

valid in Belgium and Luxembourg, too.

In the US, a jury will hear the argu-

ments of the combatants during a two

week period starting March 1st. If Gates’

and Ballmer’s testimonies are convinc-

ing, Lindows.com, who claim that

Windows is just a generic word, will

have to change its name. If not,

Microsoft has some serious issues with

the MS Windows trademark.

■

New Delhi to Beat

Bangalore?

Three days long and four to five parallel

conference tracks “wide” – this is how

the organizers of “Linux Asia 2004” are

trying to challenge Linux Bangalore’s

reputation as the subcontinent’s biggest

Linux show. By the time this magazine

goes to press (February 11–13) the num-

ber of visitors will have shown whether

the first edition of this ambitious new

conference has fulfilled its promises to

“be the largest Open Source event in the

whole of Asia” and “the biggest IT event

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http://www.linuxasia2004.com/

■

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