Just a few months after the end of support for Windows 7, the South Korean government plans to switch to Linux instead of continuing with Windows 10, an option that seems logically less painful given the operating system's accounting.
Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced a few days ago that it will test Linux before implementing more open-source operating systems in the government, if the tests are conclusive.
This decision follows concerns about the maintenance costs of Windows 7, given that Microsoft's free technical support for the operating system will expire in January 2020.
The transition to Linux and the purchase of new PCs is expected to cost around $ 780 billion. But the head of the ministry's digital services bureau, Choi Jang-hyuk, said that they expect cost savings through the introduction of the open source operating system and also want to avoid relying on a system of
The pre- adoption check for Linux by the whole government will consist of verifying that the system can run on private network devices without security risk and that compatibility with existing websites and software designed to run under Windows is guaranteed.
This is surely an operation that will be followed very closely , not only by Linux fans, but also by those who, for different reasons, believe that migrating from Windows to Linux is an absurd decision.
It is not only to change the system, but also to adjust to the needs
Migrating from Windows to Linux sounds good to many administrations and localities, but in practice it is a difficult procedure.
If switching to Linux is supposed to save money in the long run, any change has costs, sometimes very high, that must be assumed in the short term, including teaching employees how to use the system, which requires training expenses.
Munich a case to learn from
Even so, it is necessary to estimate these costs from the beginning, which would not have been the case in the example of Munich, this city, announced as a pioneer of open source, decided to return to Windows from 2020.
It's important to remember that users are resistant to change. Therefore, it's crucial to provide them with adequate support so they can easily adopt this new change; otherwise, failure is guaranteed.
In the case of Munich, en route, it was reported that 20% of LiMux users (their Linux distribution) were dissatisfied or did not understand the use of the new system, while other reports spoke of 40% instead.
This could be explained, on the one hand, by the fact that user support was not directed correctly.
And, on the other hand, the fact that it was difficult to exchange documents with other administrations in Germany.
According to a German policy, documents were supposed to be provided in an open format, but Munich regularly received documents in proprietary formats. So installing an open source system and training people to use it is not enough.
All these factors, among others, make the risk of failure significant. Proof of this is that after Munich, a major migration from Linux to Windows was announced in Lower Saxony, a federal state of Germany.
In fact, Lower Saxony has decided to follow in Munich's footsteps and migrate, in turn, thousands of computers from Linux to Windows.
The authorities explained this decision by the fact that many of Land's field agents and helpline services were already using Windows and as such, it seemed quite logical to carry out standardization.
Therefore, one wonders if South Korea will be the first to follow and best fit into the success stories of a Windows to Linux migration process.