9
Jan

Wow, Vietnamese Government to use OpenSource

   Posted by: Chip   in Overview

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A funny news I read today:

“The Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an instruction on using open source software products at state agencies” - Vietnamnet

“100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009.”- Slashdot

“Accordingly, by June 30, 2009, 100% of clients of IT divisions of government agencies must be installed with open source software; 100% of staffs at these IT divisions must be trained in the use of these software products and at least 50% use them proficiently.” - Vietnamnet

then 50% of those IT staffs don’t need to use them proficiently…

You can check for more details on Vietnamnet Bridge or Slashdot.

Wow, you see, how geeky Vietnamese government is!!!

Actually the idea of OpenSource is not bad at all. But I just wonder how Vietnamese government will handle with that. The plan requires 2 years for all staff at these agencies (ministries’ agencies and local state agencies) to be able to use opensource softwares at work. How much money, effort, time would be wasted during those 2 years? According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Vietnam ranks 121 out of 180 countries and territories, which means that corruption is a very critical problem in Vietnam. It reminds me of 112 Project (e-government process - another IT upgrading plan of governement just several years ago) failed with the total loss up to hundreds of billions Vietnam dong (tens of millions USD).

Compatibility is another problem. What if my computer at home uses Windows and my computer at work uses Linux?

“Sounds like Vietnamese government is trying to take freedom out of free softwares.” A comment on Slashdot should be perfect for a conclusion. Well, totally agree! Any obligation will lead to some negative reactions. Let’s wait ‘n’ see.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 11.02 am and is filed under Overview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 comments so far

Rebyn
 1 

How much will the money be if we still use paid softwares?

2009-01-09 at 12.44 pm
ePi.Longo
 2 

I don’t think compatibility is the prob, Chip. They can access Internet, read/send email, using OpenOffice (compatible with M$ Office).

2009-01-09 at 1.32 pm
Chip
 3 

@Rebyn: I don’t know. Noone really knows how much is really wasted in VN.
@Longo: If only agencies staffs know how to do all those stuffs. I’m not the best one to talk about it, but hope that someone will come over and leave a comment.

2009-01-09 at 2.33 pm
Anh Hung
 4 

The machines talk to each other through protocals, Windows and Linux have these kinds of protocols to make sure users on each side can talk to each other. They can log in the same network, share the same resource, and since Linux is a powerful networking OS, there’s no problem at all.

On the work side, as Long said, OpenOffice is perfectly ok.

2009-01-10 at 7.15 am
Chip
 5 

Thanks Hung. You guys are right. I need learn more before actually blogging. Then the only prob left is the way our beloved government handles with that.

2009-01-10 at 10.34 am
Anh Hung
 6 

Yeb, Tim, my project advisor, also shared the news item with me. I told him a bottom-up approach was better but he said top-down was sometimes necessary. Open Source is an example. It’s good when the guy from the top knows what needs to be done. :)

2009-01-12 at 7.20 am
ekspekt
 8 

interesting post, will come back here, bookmarked your site

2009-07-01 at 4.29 am

2 Trackbacks/Pings

  1. Global Voices Online » Vietnam government to use OpenSource    2009-01-16 / 2009-01-16:

    [...] of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009,” the Vietnamese government ordered. Chip 2.0 sees nothing wrong with this plan but questions the time and resources the government [...]

  2. Chip 2.0 » Blog Archive » Great movement in IT and e-Government status in Vietnam    2009-04-08 / 2009-04-08:

    [...] software and digital content industry from now to 2012, of which VND-88.6bln (~US$5.2) is for open source, “304 billion dong will be spent on surveying and collecting information on IT industry, [...]

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