Public administrations using open source software help make the country more competitive and lay a foundation for a creative economy. Consequently, the South Korean government wants its public administrations to consider free and open source software alternatives, according to its national open source competence centre, presented at a workshop in the capital Seoul, on 3 June.

South Korea wants to increase its participation in global projects and to grow its domestic communities of open source developers. "This is crucial for adopting cutting-edge technologies, and to foster talented programmers", the open source centre writes in its presentation. It aims to convert to open source its national research & development projects, involving large industries, universities and think tanks, so that solutions can be shared and re-used by all.

International boost

The country's Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning is considering creating a software repository, to speed up the take-up and sharing of these solutions. Korea should boost internationally some of its open source projects, including the national Computing and Information Agency's governmental cloud computing and virtualisation projects. The country also wants to increase cooperation with global open source software companies and organisations.

South Korea's open source resource & competence centre was created in 2009. It assists the country's public administrations in finding, comparing, testing and migrating to open source solutions. The centre is also building-up expertise on licensing issues and encourages public organisations to switch to using open source.

According to the resource centre, open source is increasing competition between software vendors and ICT service providers. The demand for open source is growing in many companies, including those in the aviation, automotive and transport sectors, and at finance, medical and healthcare firms. Boosting Korea's role in open source projects will therefore help create jobs both inside and outside the country.

The French Gendarmerie and the Dutch municipality of Ede also made presentations at the workshop on 3 June.

More information:

OSOR news item on Gendarmerie

Osor news item on Ede