You may remember a weblog entry from last year by Tom on the decision by the Venezuelan government to move government IT systems to open-source software. It would now seem that South Korea is to follow suit.

Back in January six South Korean government agencies held a meeting in response to Microsoft’s decision to stop issuing security patches for Windows 98, a decision which may well leave many South Korean users of the outdated Windows operating system vulnerable to threats of hacking. It was reported in EFYTimes.com that at the meeting the Ministry of Information and Communication urged the other agencies to replace Windows 98 with open source software.

Today, the Korean Times reports plans by the South Korean government to select a city and a university to be predominantly operated on open source software like the Linux operating system. The project, which costs 4.1 billion won for the first year alone, is a bid to prompt other cities and universities to also take up open source software.

Given that the Ministry of Planning and Budget plans to spend 80 billion won this year on 37 Linux projects, it seems that South Korea’s future state IT systems will mainly be open source. The director of the Ministry of Information and Communication, Lee Do-kyu, practically confirmed this when he told the Korean Times that “the Linux city and university project will be leading the way in bringing software flexibility to the whole country at a lower cost to the public.”