Korea brings homegrown open source to schools

And why not? The price is right and most of all - it works. I think that as the price on software continues to border insane, we will see more and more countries looking to Open Source alternatives.

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.

Jin Ko Hyun, president of the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency, or KIPA, which is behind the project, said it has taken schools two years to test Buyeo, the Korean version of Linux.

“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.”

Hyun added the move was not a deliberate attempt to snub Microsoft but to help the country develop more of its own software: “There’s no hostility towards Microsoft. We did this first because of security issues and budgetary concerns. “The third reason is local support — most applications will be our own developments. If we get the software vendors to do this, where will be the local support? This means local vendors will be given the chance to support their schools.” [Read the rest]