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Indonesia Adopts Java Desktop System on Linux 141

Posted by Zonk from the it's-nice-when-a-country-and-an-os-can-get-together dept.
UltimaGuy wrote to mention a DesktopLinux.com article discussing Indonesia's adoption of a Java Desktop System on Linux as a national OS. From the article: "This desktop software will be a major component of the new Indonesia Goes Open Source (IGOS) program that aims to help eliminate the "digital divide in the world's largest archipelago," the ministry and Sun Microsystems said in a joint announcement. The ministry said it will develop its own IGOS-branded software stack using JDS on Linux as the base platform. The agreement with Sun -- for an unspecified number of years -- has the goal of installing copies of the open source-based desktop across Indonesia, beginning with its government-affiliated offices, the ministry said."
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Indonesia Adopts Java Desktop System on Linux More

Indonesia Adopts Java Desktop System on Linux

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  • Informative Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday September 16, 2005 @08:50AM (#13575465)

    Here's an overview [sun.com] of the Sun Java Desktop System from sun.com.
    • Common, seriously ... OP has given a valuable link for this discussion. How is this trollish?

    • Re:Informative Link (Score:3, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) *
      The long and short of it is that the Java Desktop System is a GNOME desktop that has been modified to function much like a Windows Desktop, but with Sun's own "flavor" of styling. (I hope you like purple.)

      Up until recently, JDS has been a commercial product intended to provide a common desktop across all of Sun's OS products. This ranges from Solaris Sparc, Solaris x86, to their own brand of Linux codenamed "Mad Hatter". Now that the OpenSolaris project is in full swing, Sun is releasing the JDS source code

      • Re:Informative Link (Score:2, Informative)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) *
        P.P.S. Here's the source code [opensolaris.org] for JDS. I knew it was around here somewhere. :-)
      • I was under the impression that sun was dropping the linux version of JDS. Version 2.0 was linux and 3.0 was based on solaris 10. (release 2 = version 2)

        i wanted to buy a license but found that it was now solaris awhile back. You can download solaris 10 for free including the JDS for ia32. it doesn't have good support for my video card and no support for audio (radeon aiw 9600 xt and sb audigy)

  • More of this is inevitable... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MarkEst1973 ( 769601 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @08:51AM (#13575473)
    ...though maybe not the JDS, but open source certainly.

    Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

    Why any developed country would want their critical infrastructure and national security owned by a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me. If France really hates us, why on earth would they want to be locked in to MS?

    As countries develop and take control of their own infrastructure, I wager they will actually want to control it, which means access to the source code.

    • Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

      They're not. Sun has apparently released the changes to the GNOME source code used by the JDS desktop to support the OpenSolaris project. What that means is Indonesia will get 100% open source software, but have the commercial backing of a large, international computer company. Should Sun ever go "bye bye" (not as likely as Slashdotters would like to think), Indonesia can dust off the source and continue to maintain the software with help from the OSS community.
      • They're not.

        That was his point: "Foreign-owned commercial entity" was beating around the bush about Microsoft, I gather.

      • When the grandparent said "Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me", they were referring to Microsoft, not Sun.

        Open Source projects never really die; if for any reason the maintainer stops working on a project, the next person to discover and repair a bug will become the de facto new maintainer. In fact, the only way that an author of Open Source code can ever possibly be forgotten is when the point is reached where there are no
        • I fail to see how using a proprietary desktop (Sun/Java) gives them much benefit. Sun keep posturing as if they are commited to Open Source, but have yet to back it up by actually opening their source.

          So the choice Indonesia has made, while cheaper than Microsoft, leaves them with a similar corporate dependence.
    • Yes. While I'm not one of the zealots who scream that Linux is better in all situations (although I admit I prefer it in mine), I think that the upside to adopting Linux for developing countries far outweighs any benefits of sticking with Windows.

      Using Linux empowers, rather than disempowers the country giving them control over their machines at a very basic level, all while creating jobsfor feature implementation, etc. without the MS tax.

    • Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

      I've never understood this. Why does it matter in which country the company is incorporated? Do you think Microsoft would be any less Microsoft if they were headquartered in Indonesia instead of Washington?

      • rather than *in* or at least staying in a country?

        Would you, personally, want all your personal IT, your company's IT, and your country's IT controlled by, say, a company in Russia or Germany?

      • It wouldn't, but MS, being an American company, brings money to the U.S.

      • Re:More of this is inevitable... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hcdejong ( 561314 ) <`hobbes' `at' `xmsnet.nl'> on Friday September 16, 2005 @09:32AM (#13575785)
        Apart from the economical reasons other posters mentioned, there can be strategic reasons as well: the wish to have complete control of vital assets is not uncommon. One example is the defence industry many countries maintain, even if this is more expensive than buying equipment abroad.
        If you end up on the wrong end of a trade embargo, using foreign software could mean you're up shit creek.
        • surely if a governement ended up under almost total trade embargo it would have no good reason not to pass a law rendering foriegn copyrights totally unenforceable.

          once that was done being unable to purchase software licenses would no longer by a problem. and if they wanted windows source i suspect they could get thier hands on it somehow loads of universities etc have people with access to it, it can't be that hard to find one thats bribeable.
          • For strategic goods, it's not the copyright you worry about, it's the contents of the software. With open source SW, you can know for sure what you're running. With closed source, you never know what backdoors the foreign devils have planted.
      • Many reasons.

        Espionage or sabotage. Who's to say that, if relations soured between the US and [any given country using products therefrom] that these products wouldn't be used as a channel for espionage or sabotage? Even when relations are good, everyone capable of doing so spies on everyone else. If US products are going over there, American company representatives are going over there, and I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of people gathering intelligence to some degree.

        At the very least, in the even

        • Exactly. (Score:3, Informative)

          by abulafia ( 7826 )
          Someone is going to call me a tinfoil hat wearing nutcase for this, but anyone can simply google around for evidence of the U.S. [bbc.co.uk] and France [iht.com] being engaged in a low-level commercial information war, Israel [whatreallyhappened.com] being fairly invasive [cryptome.org] with intelligence efforts in the US, and, well, just go look at some of the stuff that was going on with Inslaw [wired.com].

          Commercial involvment (willing or not) with spying for nation states is alive and well. I know nothing on the topic, but would be very surprised if Microsoft hasn't at lea

    • Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

      That's why they (those dependant on foreign owned resources, like the US on Arabian (turm)oil) keep clamouring for 'globalism and free trade', and all 'isolationists' are invaded and plundered.
    • ...Why any developed country would want their critical infrastructure and national security owned by a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me...

      I don't know that I would call a desktop OS 'critical infrastructure.' When I think 'critical infrastructure,' I think of data routers and switches, or DMS100s or ESS switches. Power circuit relays in electrical substations might be better termed 'critical infrastructure,' vice 'Microsoft Windows.'

      That being said, your underlying point, 'Why would any ra

      • One could argue that the exchange of sensitive documents is critical bureaucratic infrasctructure. While I agree that possibly some countries may not have on hand the skilled laborers to do the work required to switch to Linux, I believe that more and more nations will begin to jump at the chance to bring alot of tech work in house, creating a more empowered and educated work force while gaining more contorl over their data...all for potentially less than other options. Linux' supposed superioriy is not a
      • I don't know that I would call a desktop OS 'critical infrastructure.' When I think 'critical infrastructure,' I think of data routers and switches, or DMS100s or ESS switches. Power circuit relays in electrical substations might be better termed 'critical infrastructure,' vice 'Microsoft Windows.'

        I have to disagree with you, just as an example, in Mexico there is some government organism called "IFE" which translates to something like Federal Electoral Institute, which is in charge of managing all the proc
    • I wish my president had balls as big as the Leader of Indonesia.
    • Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.

      as far a being foreign owned, that's inevitable it today's world.

      as far as being a commercial entity, companies want 1) service folks to come in and deploy the solution for them and 2) they want a phone number to call when things are broken. sure, you can pay someone to deploy an open source solution, but i don't think the average company cares as long as they get #1 and 2.

    • For that matter;

      Why would any Democracy want its electronic voting systems on a closed-sourced, unaccountable, private companies software?

      I think the answer is that companies can get politicians to NOT act in the best interest of their people. I can understand using Microsoft to some extent because it is in the workplace -- but when you get a highly developed technology infrastructure, shouldn't you have tech grads creating software for the country? I mean, how much resources would it take to adapt an open

  • Well D'oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @08:55AM (#13575489)
    Java is part of Indonesia :-)

  • All we need is .... Harmony :) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16, 2005 @08:55AM (#13575491)
    http://incubator.apache.org/projects/harmony.html [apache.org]

    For those who does not know it is Apache incubation for creating a complete Opensources implementation of the Java Standard Edition platform.

    So let's hope this will boost FSF in improving resources to GNU's Classpath as well ;-)

    And maybe one day RMS will stop Java bashing ... ok, well this one I doubt :x
    • Ummm... I hate to break it to you, but Java Desktop has nothing to do with Java, except the name and a common company.

    • Rooting for Harmony to deliver on Java promise (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Huh? A Java system that seeks to deliver on the original promise of running everywhere? Who the hell wants that? ;-) [OK, I do.]

      I have easily 20-30 languages installed on my several workstations, most of them not boasting great portability yet running just fine. The only language ever to refuse point blank to install and run on 75% of the attempted platforms is Java, the alleged run-anywhere language. Java's problems *in practice* exceed those of any other language I've used (and that's many dozens of
      • I have easily 20-30 languages installed on my several workstations, most of them not boasting great portability yet running just fine. The only language ever to refuse point blank to install and run on 75% of the attempted platforms is Java, the alleged run-anywhere language. Java's problems *in practice* exceed those of any other language I've used (and that's many dozens of them), by an order of magnitude.

        As I have had the exact opposite experience - Java running with virtually no problems across a wide r

  • Official Website (Score:5, Informative)

    by karvind ( 833059 ) <karvind@NoSPAM.gmail.com> on Friday September 16, 2005 @08:59AM (#13575525) Journal
    Official Indonesia Go Open Source [igos.web.id] website. (in english)

    IGOS weblog [igos.or.id]

    INDONESIA GOES REMOTE SENSING OPEN SOURCE (IGORSOS) [lapanrs.com]. Not in english.

    A quick google search also pointed to SUN Microsystem's press release [sun.com] regarding this effort.

  • I wonder if beacuase Java is major Indonesian province had anything to do with it.

  • Following other OSS moves in Indonesia (Score:3, Informative)

    by linumax ( 910946 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @09:03AM (#13575563)
    More on Indoneia's open source efforts could be found here
    http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/Indonesia.html [asiaosc.org]
    They are one of the most active in ASIA but they usually do it on their own while others like Japan, Korea and China are workng together on nice things like Asianux [cbronline.com]
  • ...or was i just dreaming about that press release?
    i thought they were going to concentrate on jds on solaris.
  • I think that this is very exciting stuff. Indonesia has been going through all sorts of gymnastics trying to get off of pirated software, and moving to OSS makes big sense. And, there are tons of Linux enthusiasts there too. I do wonder whether choosing a Java GUI implementation might lock out the tons of older machines extant - but afaik, the declaration doesn't call for exclusion of any other distros, but rather means to be the first step in standardising government implementations - moving away from the
    • Would Indonesia's Ministry of Research & Techonology be able to enforce this task of replacing every desktop in all of the government offices with this JDS? Any goals? I don't buy vague press announcement. I really like to see results.
  • JDS may be open source, but Java's not. How can having an open source desktop based on a non-open source platform be truly considered open source?
    • JDS [wikipedia.org] has very little to do with Java. Let me know if I'm wrong. I'm sure you will. :)
    • It is an open well-understood standard with a lot of support in the community and a variety of implementations (with varying degrees of completeness granted) are avilable. The OSS rubber-stamp might not be the most important thing here.
  • Open source, hogen force... whatever...

    Do they really think they are saving money by switching to open source linux? They're paying Sun like they would be paying Microsoft for their products. They want to implement this over a couple of years, by that time maybe something new comes up.

    Waste of money. It's going to cost a lot of money to train indonesians to use linux. Support is going to cost a lot too.

    Oh well, I think this is for the good. We don't need any of that Microcrap software anymore. The revolutio
    • You might pay more INITIALLY to train everyone on Linux, but once everyone is trained, you have a free system *forever*. You might pay a bit less in the short-term if you stick with Windows, but you'll pay that same amount over and over every few years, *forever*. It's the old "teach a man to fish" story.

      They might be paying Sun now, but the actual "investment" is in Linux, not Sun. With their Linux skills base, they'll be free to choose from literally hundreds of different and highly competitive (hence, ma
    • Do they really think they are saving money by switching to open source linux? They're paying Sun like they would be paying Microsoft for their products. They want to implement this over a couple of years, by that time maybe something new comes up.

      Waste of money. It's going to cost a lot of money to train indonesians to use linux. Support is going to cost a lot too.

      You see, that's the point. They will have to spend money to train people to use any system, no matter whether it's linux, windows, os-x or someth
    • Do they really think they are saving money by switching to open source linux?

      yes, probably. sun positions the JDS package as a cost saving alternative [nwsource.com] to MSFT. i'd have to assume that they did some homework and validated this, in their case at least, to be true. sun is not known for having great sales persons, so it's unlikely that they won such a deal by bamboozling the client.

      They want to implement this over a couple of years, by that time maybe something new comes up.

      first, it takes corporations ye

  • bait and switch (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $5 says this is just a ploy to get discounted windows vista licenses.
  • I know where to find the Java island in Indonesia, so I understand their swith to Java, but I don't seem to find any island named Linux, how comes they switch to that too ?
  • Of course, there's no other distribution more appropriately named than the Java Desktop System for Java, Indonesia [wikipedia.org]. :)

  • Why? (Score:3)

    by cascadefx ( 174894 ) * <morlockhq@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday September 16, 2005 @09:42AM (#13575869) Journal
    I thought JDS was at least semi-officially dead. Seems kind of late to pick it as a desktop.

    Much better to choose something like Ubuntu.

  • Another interesting link (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <(gustgr) (at) (gmail.com)> on Friday September 16, 2005 @09:47AM (#13575926)
    Following the links I end up here:

    http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2423661653. html [desktoplinux.com]

    From this article:

    The major applications have tweaks that Sun added to make JDS special. The key productivity applications include StarOffice, Evolution, GIMP, Mozilla and gaim. They compete with Microsoft Office and Outlook, Adobe Photoshop, Internet Explorer and AOL Instant Messenger. You can find versions of these applications in other distributions but Sun's just work better.


    Seriously, "sun's just work better"?

  • Gnome with a purple theme, staroffice, and a JRE?

    The idea of rebranding such a collection of tools as a system is such a joke. Sure, java apps now look pretty good in gnome with the gtk look and feel, but there is hardly anything that differentiates the java desktop sytem from a standard gnome install with a jre and openoffice.

    • yup, they should call it the C++/ORBit desktop system, 'cause Java sure isn't what's making it go.

      waiter: " 'ow about our gnome, staroffice c++/orbit-corba based java desktop system? that's not got much java in it"

      woman: "but I don't want any java"

      chorus: jav jav jav jav, jav, jav, jav, jav Sunny Java, Unbiquitous java!
  • to deal with this problem now.

  • JDS the Phoenix? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @10:18AM (#13576191) Homepage Journal
    Sun announced [builder.com] back in June that it was putting JDS on the low priority list. That alone makes this deal surprising. More than that, getting Indonesia to switch to JDS is quite a feat considering what a failure JDS has been to this point.

    Failure #1: Bad PR from Sun's own supporters that the first JDS came out not on Solaris, but on Linux. It is also rejected by a great deal of the Linux crowd because they already know how to get just about everything that JDS provides, short of Star Office, which is of course the Linux crown simply replaced with Open Office.

    Failure #2: Sun partners with a virtually unknown PC company to sell JDS-installed PCs to the masses. The problem is that the PCs were sold only through Wal-Mart's web site. I don't know who the brain was who thought such a distribution method was viable, but I hope that person is now unemployed. Who the HELL would possibly think that tech-minded people who are looking for a Windows alternative would think, "Oh, yeah! Let's check out Wal-Mart! They're just so techie! Hey, get those Best Buy, NewEgg, and Circuit City web sites of my screen!"

    Failure #3: PROFIT!!! Er ... wait ... wrong list ...

    Well, I certainly hope that this works out for Sun. I love Sun hardware and Solaris. But thus far their foray into the "Windows desktop replacement" genre has been a great deal less than admirable. These Asian deals are their third attempt at raising this phoenix from its ashes. If JDS doesn't pan out this time, Sun needs to enforce a "three strikes, JDS is out" rule.

  • Show of Hands (Score:1, Redundant)

    by kwiqsilver ( 585008 )
    Who thinks they were influenced by it being named after one of their islands?

  • Didn't they drop this as a standalone product? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jim Hall ( 2985 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @10:38AM (#13576415) Homepage

    Excuse me, but didn't Sun drop JDS as a standalone product? As of release 3, they integrated JDS into Solaris. I didn't think JDS was available anymore just on its own.

    From http://www.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/ [sun.com]:

    Release 3 of Sun Java Desktop System is shipping now as part of the Solaris 10 Operating System. Release 2 for Linux OS, which includes an integrated Linux operating system, is also available.

    Okay, so release 2 is still available on its own. But Sun's site seems to imply the standalone version is a dead-end, not developed anymore as a Linux distro / platform, that JDS has been wrapped into Solaris. I wonder why Indonesia went with a dead-end product?

  • ...not going to go over too well with the Sumatrans and the Sundanese...

  • Strange to me to have all this talk about Java, and the "Steaming cup-o-joe" icon for this story when JDS has NOTHING to do with Java. Other than the fact that it's assembled by Sun so they have the right to stamp "Java" onto it .. as they've done with many of their recent C/C++ offerings.
  • JDS is not all that much about Java. It's funny /. also bought Sun's marketing hype.

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