[ The opinions expressed by authors on Linux Today are their
own. They speak only for themselves and not for Linux Today.
]
By Randy
Leganza, Special Korea Correspondent for Linux Today
Korean Government Support for Linux
A most promising development for the free software movement in
Korea is the government’s Ministry of Information and
Communication announcement in late July that it will “provide
government support for the development and proliferation of Linux.”
The Korea Herald, among others, reported
that the ministry “will establish a Linux consultative body
composed of software experts from the government, academic and
industry sectors to standardize Korean versions of Linux and
develop a variety of programs based on the operating system.”
At the forefront of the Korean government’s support for Linux is
the Electronics and
Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). According to Kim
Hae-jin (family names are first in Korean), who is heading the ETRI
Linux project, ETRI’s plan is to “provide a highly scalable, highly
available, single system server image cluster [technology]…
adaptable from Internet [servers] to [the] mission critical
enterprise.”
A non-profit organization called the “Linux Council” has been
established. Four committees within the Council have been
designated:
- Standardization — standardize Linux’s Hangul terminology and
documentation - R & D — promote research in and development of Linux
software - Supply and Support — support Linux in end-user markets,
schools and government offices - Education and Training — promote Linux education and
training
Kim adds that they will also sponsor more Linux forums like a
recent one held in July 1999, which was attended by Linux
International’s John “maddog” Hall.
A Long History of Free Software Use
Korea has been involved with the free software movement for over
twelve years. An obscure reference on
the GNU web site reveals that in April of 1987, Richard Stallman
visited the Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in
Taejon.
More recently, in May of this year, Tim Ney of the Free Software
Foundation visited Korea with a Massachusetts Software Delegation
and “met with a number of young software start-up companies…”
According to Tim, “many of the companies [he] saw were
predominantly writing software for the Windows platform, yet
responded quite positively when [he] spoke about free software and
opportunities with GNU/Linux.”
Free Software Projects
Ongoing free software projects in Korea include:
- Hanterm 3.1 from
the KAIST, a Korean language (Hangul) xterm - OpenHWP, reported to be an
almost defunct Korean free word-processor - And a team of at least four package maintainers contribute to
the Korean Debian Project.
The Korean Debian project has members from both the academic and
business communities. Park Chu-yeon, current
leader of the project, is working on the Korean Debian Bible with
other project members. They maintain nearly 50 Korean
Debian packages.
Linux is not the only project associated with the free software
movement in Korea. FreeBSD also has a following. Choi Jun-ho is the leader of
both the Korea FreeBSD Users
Group and the GNU Free
Translation Project. Choi reports that he first used GNU/Linux
in 1993, then moved to FreeBSD in 1995.
Korean Companies That Market Linux
Products
WebDataBank
Choi is developing a unique Linux distribution, qLinux, at his
company, WebDataBank. According
to Choi Jun-ho, qLinux will be bootable from a large ext2 file
image on an existing Windows FAT partition via a loop-back device.
He says qLinux will also be able to “utilize” the Windows Registry
to configure X Windows, network cards, etc. WebDataBank is in the
Linux Internet server hosting and groupware development business.
They will soon release a Korean version of TurboLinux 4.0.
MIZI Research
Another Korean company, MIZI
Research markets MiziOS, its own Linux version and HWPX-R4, a
Linux/Unix Hangul word processor that is a close cousin to Hangul
and Computers (H & C) Hangul Windows version (Hangul
means the “Korean written language”). MIZI’s head, Seo Young-jin,
was the UNIX HWPX-R4 team leader at H & C before H & C
decided to drop the UNIX version in 1997 and focus on their Windows
version. Seo then licensed HWPX-R4’s source code and started
MIZI.
Microsoft’s subsequent failed attempt to shut the H & C
Hangul word processor out of the Korean market was a pivotal event
in the rise of free software in Korea. See Free Software in Korea:
Part One — The Microsoft Connection.
HWPX-R4 is included on the MiziOS CDs, as either a demo version
or an official bundle.
MIZI also supports the Free Software movement with:
- ManIM, which enables Hangul fonts in Netscape on X
- a Hangul font server
- some document viewers that will soon fall under the GPL
- four Korean TrueType fonts under the BSD license
MIZI’s decision whether to publish under the GPL or a commercial
license is level-of-effort based. According to Seo Young-jin, “Some
software is attractive and fun and others [requires] endless
maintenance. The latter [we license] commercial.”
Under commercial licensing, MIZI is currently working on an
architectural CAD application that will be available in Hangul and
English. Seo said that he hoped to “shareware” the English version,
explaining that part of the code was licensed from another company
and MIZI needed to recover the cost.
Zion Systems
Zion Systems develops Accel, a
Korean distribution based on Red Hat. In developing Accel, Zion
Systems uses the latest kernel version and libraries, builds their
packages optimized for Pentiums and is working on a Korean GUI
installation package.
In partnership with Samsung, Zion Systems markets a line of high
availability Alpha and Xeon SMP servers that can support clustering
and further plans to market a sub $1,000 Linux PC in October.
Currently Zion is working on GPLing their audio drivers and high
availability management software.
Zion is also setting up an “after service” center for its
product line.
3R Soft
3R Soft produces MailStudio, a
Linux/Unix Web-based e-mail server. MailStudio’s user interface
runs inside the Web browser, like Netscape and Yahoo’s mail
servers. MailStudio is compatible with Sendmail, SMTP, POP, and
qPopper. In their upcoming 3.0 version, 3R Soft plans to offer
IMAP, LDAP, and spell checking support. While 3R Soft does not
produce any GPL software, they are compatible with Red Hat,
Caldera, TurboLinux and Apache.
Other Korean Linux Companies
At least three other Korean companies produce seperate Korean
versions of Linux:
- Linux Korea markets
the Power Linux distribution and the Netspirit 2000 and 3000
Linux-based servers. - Korea Linux sells the
Alzaa Korean version of Red Hat. - ClassData offers the Class 6.0
Enterprise Linux distribution, which has an interesting glass
bottle logo and the catchy slogan, “stop paying your Bills.”
In addition, Informix
Korea has a series of
Korean pages devoted to Linux, including links to downloads.
Linux Use Growing Rapidly
According to Denis
Havlik:
“I have been witnessing an enormous growth of
“registered Linux users” in Korea for quite some time. (Take a look
at “the Linux Counter“, under
“Denis Havlik’s report”…) The growth is not so dramatic any more,
but still rather fast: 156% annually.”“Registered users” probably account for less than 1% of the
Linux user base(*) — currently there are more than 3,000
registered users. Therefore, my estimate is “more than 300,000
Linux users in South Korea” today. Greater than 500,000 would not
surprise me, either.”
The Fight for the Linux Trademark
Sadly, all the positive news about Linux in Korea is not without
its controversy. The last week of August, a fight broke out over
the Linux trademark, when a lawyer for Kwon Yong-tae, who holds a
Korean trademark for ‘Linux’, demanded that the Kyobo Books
bookstore stop selling books with Linux in the title. Three days
later, the incident became a hot topic on Korea’s popular Linux bulletin board and it
made the English Linux news sites the following weekend.
Allegedly, the trademark was applied for in 1995 and granted in
1997. Korean publishers, business and other interested parties are
still working to resolve the issue. For those interested, Lee
Kyong-ho is maintaining an event time line at the bottom of his
Web page on the
problem, with a link to an English version of a petition.
[ Also by Randy Leganza: Free Software in Korea:
Part One — The Microsoft Connection ]
Randy lives in Taegu, Korea and is on his third,
most fun and least stressful career. He’s the QA/Test guy on a
small team supporting a large Solaris WAN integration project, with
a few Linux boxes scattered about. He gets to play with computers
all day and intentionally break them — then complain about it, and
usually see things get fixed. When he can, he likes to fly
airplanes, lift weights, hunt and fish.