Japanese government to go open source

Following in the footsteps of Peru and Massachusetts, the Japanese government is planning to go open source, at least in part. The Japanese government is reportedly working on guidelines for its ministries which would require them to treat open source software as "an important option." While losing Peru might not be a big deal for commercial software makers, an open-source switch by Japan could have more lasting effects — especially if Japan, China and South Korea succeed in efforts to produce a Linux-derived open-source OS optimized for double-byte characters.
 

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