Weekly Edition
Return to the Press pageRecent Features
| |||||||||||||
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week)
Information Week reports
that South and North Korea are teaming up to develop a version of Linux,
tentatively named 'Hana Linux'. "People in South Korea speak of
folks in North Korea more as lost brothers than bitter enemies. Over the
years the two have made various rapprochements, but now it looks like North
and South are teaming up on a whole new kind of joint project: a
Korean-language Linux distribution."
(Log in to post comments)
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 8:09 UTC (Sat) by mmarkov (guest, #4978) [Link] """Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together?""" - no. The author has no idea what a totalitarian state is.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 10:20 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Yep. The only enemy here is the North Korean government. Get rid of that and they'll quickly unite.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 11:47 UTC (Sat) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] By no means this is that simple. The current North Korean government might not even be the biggest problem there. There are signs that they are slowly opening their communication to the world. The biggest problem is poverty and the lack of democracy experience of the people there. Living in Romania you can observe that having political freedom does not suddenly make the country a flourishing democracy. One second after the old regime is gone, the new one will be composed from ambitious people that have been favoured and had political influence in old regime. As North Korea had a longer dictatorship and people are way more poor than they were in Romania, I guess the transition is a long and extreme process.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 13:43 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] > The biggest problem is poverty and the lack of democracy experience of the people there. And the fault of whom is that? (hint: notth korean government. And possibly U.S. for giving up on the war and China for getting involved on the wrong side.) Now your confusing 'simple' with 'easy'. These are two entirely different things and although people often relate these things together, they most often are actually not. The concept is simple, the execution would be difficult. Right now the best thing that could ever possibly happen to the North Korean people at this point is if their rulers all of a sudden just sucked into the sun and dissapeared into it with a yelp and a flash of smoke. I cannot stress that strongly enough; The North Korean government should not show signs of opening up, they should show signs of extinction. Anything else is just extending the suffering. But it's not easy. Easy is something else entirely. In actuality Freedom is almost never easy. It's usually very very difficult, and usually the choice is between hard freedom and comfortable slavery and that may make things complex (for some people). But in this case it's hard eat-your-pet-to-live slavery so it's simple, but difficult. Think West Germany and East Germany reunification, not Romania. With South Korea, there already is a thriving and very wealthy country (3rd in Asia, 11th in the world) to the south with what appears to be a stable government. The adoption would be painfull for S.K., but almost certainly beneficial for the N.K. people.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 15:21 UTC (Sat) by pawnhearts (guest, #49367) [Link] > And the fault of whom is that? ... it does not matter whom. it's just a big problem. > And possibly U.S. for giving up on the war and China .. War could never bring freedom. It could only bring stuggle. Freedom cannot be achieved through violence. > .. if their rulers all of a sudden just sucked into the sun and dissapeared into it with a yelp and a flash of smoke. Not only rulers, but the whole system. Living in Russia i can tell, that despite switching to free market, changing ideology, etc. very few is changed inside military, police, education, bureaucrat systems.. Problem is with minds of those people. And it is almost impossible to change it. Yeah, soviet government tried, for 70 years - the only result than a lot of people had been in jail and only became worth. So you suggest genocide? Just execute/put into prison half of country? You really think it is a way to freedom?
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 21:57 UTC (Sat) by mmarkov (guest, #4978) [Link] """War could never bring freedom. It could only bring stuggle. Freedom cannot be achieved through violence. """ This claim, in one form or another, is accepted unquestionably by the leftist-liberals (my term). And is blatantly wrong. An obvious counter-example is Korea. The Republic of Korea has MUCH more freedom than the North Korean monstrosity a.k.a. PDRK. That freedom was granted to the people of the South by force and violence. Had the UN not acted to the invasion of the North Korea, all of Korea would be nowadays the concentration camp of the DearLeader.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 2, 2007 1:12 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] WWII is a pretty blatant example, as is any war consisting of a response to the military aggression of an authoritarian or otherwise grossly inequitable state. Thanks to a lot of people being violent to another lot of people in response to attempted (and successful) invasions, the nasty group that killed most of my grandparents' relatives aren't around anymore and their policies are pretty much universally reviled. WWI isn't an example (that was just colonialism: neither side was definitely `in the right'), but the response to the Napoleonic Wars may have been (not at first, but Napoleon got more and more unhinged as time went by).
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 2, 2007 1:32 UTC (Sun) by RobertBrockway (guest, #48927) [Link] > War could never bring freedom. It could only bring stuggle. Freedom cannot > be achieved through violence. Actually that's not true. In World War II many people gained freedom through the overthrowing of dictatorial regimes. This was achieved through violence. The term "never" is a tricky one as a single counter-example will disprove it. What I will say is that violence often brings very poor results but to say that it has never brought freedom is not true.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 2, 2007 18:57 UTC (Sun) by roel (guest, #41887) [Link] Often a totalitarian regime provides security to the people in general - except to those that oppose it. A war could bring freedom to the latter - if they survive it - but will cost a big price. War rages, wastes and lasts. Not all freedom is good. During war in the absence of law, anarchy rules. Those that can and are willing to use force it grants freedoms, and those that cannot live in fear because of this freedom. War, presented as an inevitability to bring freedom to the people, is often used as a cover to provide freedoms to the force: to steal diamonds, oil or other riches. After a war, when successful, there are new political opportunities, but also for those groups that have become law, using force, during the war. The totalitarian regime may well be followed by the next.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 15:41 UTC (Sat) by pawnhearts (guest, #49367) [Link] > choice is between hard freedom and comfortable slavery and that may make things complex (for some people) And.. What do you think slavery is? Proclaimed ideals for US and USSR were almost the same - democracy, freedom, human rights etc. Yep, economical system was very different, and (as a result) there were no free media and no way to became millionaire. But for now - all "free" press is in total economical dependency from few magnates who are controlling resources. So you see almost the same shit - just the polarity of their "opinions" had changed. For most people - it was much easier to get university education, interesting job, personal apartments(the last is almost impossible now).
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 16:23 UTC (Sat) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] I tryed to keep my last comment short on a technical discussion, that's why it may seem a bit vague. Making North Koreans free people (not talking about unification) is neither simple nor easy. I will sustain my last post making a variaton to what pawnhearts already said. As soon as the old regime is gone, ambitious people will take the lead. Ambititious does not mean they have the skills to lead a country, nor that their first goal is to make other people's lives better. After the dictatorship is gone other problems come: civil war, people that cannot adapt to the new law and from there to a high infractionality, mafia. I fear that a slow transition is better than a sudden evaporation of the current leaders.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 21:49 UTC (Sat) by mmarkov (guest, #4978) [Link] """The only enemy here is the North Korean government. Get rid of that and they'll quickly unite.""" As someone said, it is not that simple. Any totalitarian state inevitably possesses a coercive machine, like the NKVD/KGB of the former USSR for instance. I dunno what the North Korean analogy is, but sure they have one. When the totalitarianism starts crumbling, the officers of the coercive machine begin preparing for the new life - so that they are in control again, although with non-totalitarian methods. And when the wind of change comes and passes, things go wrong with the new democracy because - what a surprise! - it has turned into an oligarchy. This scenario is not inevitable but is possible. That is what happened in my country, Bulgaria. There is a negative correlation between the vitality of the civil society and the chances of the former thought police to coagulate into an oligarchy. In Poland, The Czech Republic and Hungary they have stronger societies and consequently resisted better the red cops. In the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia there are no civil societies whatsoever and as a result they went into 100% oligarchies, ran by strongmen. We are somewhere in between :) I am afraid that North Korea has no vestige of society left because their totalitarianism is exceptionally strong and fanatical and strict. The chances for the coercive machine of the regime to turn into a rich oligarchy are quite big, IMHO.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 18:57 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] IMHO what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union was modern communications. Then that meant the office photocopier that became too cheap for the guard on it to be more loyal to party interests than those of work colleagues. And telephone ownership extending beyond the 2 percent comprising the upper class i.e. inner party members. Totalitarian states can't tolerate the masses knowing about reality as opposed to the official party line, and mass communications takes away this control. The degree of pain that happens in connection with a transition from totalitarianism in different countries experiencing this is also somewhat culturally dependent. Cooperation on sport, software development and just about anything else with those who speak the same language but are outside the control of the party can only help transmit a bit more reality into the totalitarian situation. So this can only be encouraged but should be seen within a wider context.
Could Linux Help Bring Both Koreas Together? (Information Week) Posted Dec 1, 2007 13:05 UTC (Sat) by mbottrell (guest, #43008) [Link] I doubt a Linux distribution is going to unite two sides of a bitter war. These two parties couldn't decide on sharing fishing space... I doubt a Linux distro will help resolve greater tensions. Whilst the people were divided and relatives left either side of the border, there is many differences between both governments that will need to be patched before they unite. It's an on-again-off-again relationship.. North and South Korea often combine in sports events (Like the Olympics) but there are still many tensions that will need to be broken down first. I don't doubt and hope one day the do unite (who would of ever thought the Berlin Wall would topple?) I think the author has been drinking too much of the cherry coloured water if he thinks a distribution will solve these much deeper issues.
|
|||||||||||||