The Free Standards Group Expands Membership and Activities in Korea

The Free Standards Group (FSG), a nonprofitorganization dedicated to developing and promoting open source softwarestandards, today announced Korean IT governmental organizations the KoreaIT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) and the Electronics andTelecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and Korea's largest softwareprovider Haansoft have joined the organization as silver sponsors and willparticipate in the FSG's Linux Standard Base workgroup. The FSG is alsoannouncing the opening of an outreach and development office in Korea, oneof the fastest growing Linux markets in the world.

KIPA is a non-profit organization established in 1998 by the KoreanMinistry of Information and Communication to further the exchange andcooperation between Korean and foreign IT enterprises. KIPA will work withthe FSG by serving as a gateway between the FSG and the Korean IT industryand will promote the use of FSG's open standards in Korea.

ETRI is a non-profit Korean government-funded research organizationestablished in 1976. It has developed UNIX technologies for more than 20years and began developing Linux technologies for Korea seven years ago. Itplans to devote resources to the Linux Standard Base workgroup and use theLSB in its development efforts.

Haansoft is Korea's leading developer of software and is a member ofAsianux, a Linux server operating system co-developed by Chinese LeadingLinux vendor Red Flag Software Co., Ltd., Japanese Linux vendor MiracleLinux Corporation and Haansoft. Asianux aims to be the standard enterpriseLinux platform for Asia and is currently certified to the Linux StandardBase.

This development follows an announcement made by the FSG last week that ithas expanded its presence in Japan with new member Fujitsu. FSG currentlyworks with other Asian IT vendors to standardize the handling of Asiancharacters in Linux.

FSG Executive Director Jim Zemlin will be kicking off these expandedactivities in a keynote at LinuxWorld Korea on Tuesday, June 6 at 11:20AM,where he will discuss the role of Linux in the Asian market and how openstandards protect end users' investment in Linux.

"Korea is an important, fast growing market for Linux," said Jim Zemlin,executive director of the Free Standards Group. "Because of the commitmentof Korean vendors and government agencies to Linux, we feel it's importantto open an office locally. We look forward to working closely with newmembers KIPA, Haansoft and ETRI and representing their interests in ourLinux open standards projects."

"KIPA's mission is to promote the IT industry in Korea," said Sung-Ha Yang,VP of Open source promotion center of KIPA. "We recognize that openstandards are crucial for promoting IT and freedom of choice. The FreeStandards Group is an important standards organization in open source andwe are excited to join as a sponsor and work with their standards."

"At ETRI we believe the standardization of Linux is vitally important togrowing the Linux market," said Myung-Joon Kim, director of the InternetServer Group of ETRI. "That's why we're extremely pleased to join the FSGand give our perspective to their important activities. Certifyingapplications and distributions to the LSB is a key piece of expanding theLinux market in Korea."

"Haansoft has been a long-term supporter of the FSG," said Daniel Cho,Senior Director of Haansoft. "Now we are strengthening our ties by joiningas a sponsor. We have certified our distribution to the LSB and lookforward to working with the FSG on enhancing standardization efforts andultimately growing the Linux market in Korea."

About the Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group is an independent not-for-profit organization thatdevelops and promotes open source standards. Key Free Standards Groupprojects include the Linux Standard Base (LSB), OpenI18N, OpenPrinting andthe FSG Accessibility Workgroup. Supported by leaders in the IT industry aswell as the open source development community, the Free Standards Groupfulfills a critical need to establish and promote open standards uniquelydesigned for open source. More information on the Free Standards Group isavailable at www.freestandards.org.

About KIPA

KIPA was established in 1998 by the Korean Ministry of Information andCommunication to promote international cooperation and development of theKorean IT industry.

About ETRI

ETRI is a non-profit Korean government-funded research organizationestablished in 1976. The institute, located in Taejeon, Korea, has been atthe forefront of technological excellence for more than 25 years and hassuccessfully developed information technologies such as TDX-Exchange, HighDensity Semiconductor Microchips, Mini-Super Computer (TiCOM), and DigitalMobile Telecommunication System (CDMA).

Recently ETRI has devoted its resources to technology development forenterprise Linux server and desktop enhancements, server virtualization,WBEM based system management, software streaming for Linux, and embeddedLinux for digital devices. ETRI is contributing the results to the softwareindustry and the open source community. ETRI is actively participating inthe North East Asia Open Source Software Promotion Forum.

About Haansoft

Recognized as a national icon in Korea, Haansoft (www.haansoft.com,www.haansoftlinux.com) is the leading software vendor in Korea representedby its overwhelming success in the word processor market. Since itsinception in 1990, over 10 million copies of the Hangul word processor havebeen sold. Moreover, with the development of Hancom Office in 2004, it hasbeen nibbling at Microsoft's dominance in the local Office Suite market.

For overseas markets, Haansoft has released ThinkFree Office a Web basedOffice Suite. It consists of three programs: the word processor Write, thepresentation program Show, and the spreadsheet application Calc. Unlikeother office software that is operated only on Windows, ThinkFree Office isalso operable on Linux and Macintosh. Compatible with Microsoft Officefiles (doc, ppt, xls) and offering a similar operating environment,Microsoft Office files can be easily opened without the Microsoft Officeprogram. The program also supports 15 languages including English, Chinese,and Japanese, etc. ThinkFree Office is simply the best Microsoft Officealternative, providing users with not only freedom of choice at a low costbut also on the Web.

On the Linux front, Haansoft has developed a variety of Linux solutions,such as Haansoft Linux OS, Hangul word processor for Linux, ThinkFreeOffice for Linux, and Workdesk as a groupware solution. As a leading Linuxcompany in Korea, Haansoft has joined the Asianux project to promote acommon platform with Red Flag of China and Miracle Linux of Japan.

Press Contact:Amanda McPherson415-531-0483

SOURCE:  Free Standards Group

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