http://www.techlearning.com/article/13976
These are articles that talk about the South Korean government. They want to switch over to open-source software. This was supposed to happen in 2007 but these articles were published before this time so I'm not sure if they ended up switching or not. The South Koreans want to switch to programs like Linux and have the Mozilla web browser. There was some controversy over the issue of switching because although it might be cheaper at first (saving about $300 million dollars/year), it would cost more in the long run for "maintenance and management costs". It sounds like there would be a lot to accomplish in organizing this switch. Major agencies in South Korea, like the banks and government, only support Windows and Internet Explorer (as of 2006).
The second article says that there are 3 reasons for the switch: "(a) open source software is free of licensing expenses, (b) it tends to have fewer security flaws, and (c) as its components are free of restrictive licensing, the code may be inspected and modified by anyone, opening the possibility for local development and support." South Korea is on its way to show the world how open-source software will be beneficial for education. It is a very competitive world with technology and education. It would be interesting to know how well or not well creating an open-source software for everyone would work out.
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