Toekang IT

Indonesian Government launches IGOS release 3

Oct 27, 2006 17:52

The Indonesian Government's mission of going open source is nearly accomplished. The Government has already launched its latest distro IGOS Nusantara 2006 Release 3 for the country's users.

IGOS (Indonesia, go open source!) is a national effort to strengthen the national information technology system as well as to exploit the global information technology development through utilization and exploitation of Open Source Software (OSS).

According to the Government, the objectives of the movement are to make OSS as alternative software to users and developers, stimulating developers' creativity, R&D and industries and improving human resource capability in information technology.

The background is quite clear: OSS is one of the global issues on Information Communication and Technology (ICT), the implementation of intellectual property rights to prevent increasing software piracy and the presence of an information technology gap between developing and advanced countries.

IGOS Nusantara 2006 is one of the latest distros, a shorter for Linux distribution, provided for Indonesian users.

IGOS desktop

A Linux distribution is a version of a Unix-like operating system for computers comprising the Linux kernel, libraries and applications.

Commercially backed distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora Linux, SUSE Linux and Mandriva Linux, and community projects such as Debian and Gentoo assemble and test the software before releasing their distribution.

Based on Fedora Core 5, IGOS 2006 is desktop application which has the ability to create/edit documents, database, spreadsheets, graphics as well as handle Internet acess, chat and email.

The bundled applications of IGOS 2006 among other operating systems (Linux), office applications (OpenOfficee 2.0.0), Internet Browser (FireFox), email clients (Thunderbird); chat (GAIM); and graphics editors (GIMP)

IGOS booting

Initiated by State Ministry of Research and Technology and developed by Research Center for Informatics of Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), IGOS 2006 Release 3 is the distro's first version.

According to Nana Suryana, one of IGOS' developer, the first version usually has a lack or shortage. "Hopefully, for the next version, probably in 2007, we will fix it," said Suryana.

A Jakarta-based Gunadarma University IT expert I Made Wiryana revealed that this phenomenon proves that open source model can be sustained without depending on the earlier developer groups. "The idea could be developed and adopted independently by other groups or communities," he added.

In terms of the open-source movement, Indonesia has implemented a nice strategy. The Government acts as a model: Government institutions act as OSS users. The public and industry just follow it.

Go ahead, Indonesia!

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