4 ms·

I used to support our office in S. Korea. It's true they depend super heavily on ActiveX and other weird applets/software that runs only on Windows and/or IE.

by Yeri 7y ago

I used to support our office in S. Korea. It's true they depend super heavily on ActiveX and other weird applets/software that runs only on Windows and/or IE. A lot of the communication with the government (yearly tax submission) as well as banking software would not run on our Linux or OSX devices, and so we had these 'loaner' windows 'tax machines' that got reimaged every few days that people could use to do their business. They also have their own Office-like suite by Hancon[1], that is a pain to support and only runs on Windows. There were attempts to have gDrive to be able to read the files but afaik that never worked out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancom

kijin 7y ago
The word processor by Hancom is actually pretty nice, especially for composing Korean-only and mixed Korean-and-English documents. I've been using it since before I even knew that MS Word existed, and I still prefer it to MS Word for anything that contains CJK characters. The proprietary file format is a PITA, though. Hancom did release a Linux version of their office suite a few years ago, and regularly updates the OSX version. Moreover, Hancom has been dabbling in Linux for over 20 years. They even maintained their own Red Hat-based distro at some point. They also support OpenDocument and OOXML fairly well. In short, Hancom has been hedging their bets very thoroughly. So if the government adopts Linux by any chance, it won't be difficult for them to go fully cross-platform and keep their lucrative government contracts.
- a-afterglow 7y ago
  Have you been using it since its first release? I find it surprising you hadn't heard about MS Office if you were already using Hancom.
  - kijin 7y ago
    Yeah, I've used H.ngeul since 1990 -- version 1.2 I think. MS Word already existed, of course, but I didn't hear about it nor actually get to use it until a few years later. I was a kid and didn't have internet back then, so news was slow :p
  - snowwindwaves 7y ago
    WordPerfect had a large early market share
- lasagnaphil 7y ago
  To explain the history a little bit (as a Korean): Hancom's Hangul software was popular in Korea in the 90s because of its splendid Hangul support (Word wasn't that good at it back in the day). So it became a de-facto "standard" for Korean documents. But the problem was, piracy was really rampant at the time, because it was before online DRM protection technologies came into light. (They've tried hardware DRM, like the serial port dongles, which eventually were cracked.) They almost went bankrupt, up to the point where Microsoft was thinking about buying them out (there are a lot of conflicting info about this in the internet, so I don't know exactly what deal might have gone through) But then, when Koreans learned about this imminent danger, they launched a national campaign to save the company, and raised over $10 million for them. As for why this was possible: nationalism was pretty strong back in the late 90s, partly because of Korea's IMF crisis. (If you want to read more about the Korean economic recession and how people responded to it with activism, read more about the Gold-collecting campaign in 1998 [0]) Because of this, Hancom was able to recover and still be alive to this day. Nowadays more and more Koreans are using Word these days, but Hancom's software still has lots of uses, especially in the government. The Hangul word processor had some unique characteristics other than just language support: most notably it was one of the first word processors to have nested table support. Because of this, many Hangul documents have layouts made of nested tables (I know some people at HN would be utterly disgusted with this, but this has many benefits: you can have total control of your document layout, and it's good for making documents with dense information such as government forms.) This is why Hangul documents cannot be simply converted to Word; the two have very different conventions about layout in general. To conclude, reflecting this as a Korean (and an avid Linux user), I have both good and bad feelings about this. On one hand, Koreans were forced to use a proprietary, non-free program to open their documents, including important government stuff. This also sucks for Mac and Linux users (The Mac version was horrible the last time I've used it, and I couldn't get the Linux version to install on Arch Linux). On the other hand, if Hancom wasn't alive, then Koreans would be forced to use Microsoft Word with subpar Korean support (because Microsoft wouldn't really care about Korean language support unless there was competition). While I have mixed feelings about Hancom, I really hope that they would provide good support for Linux users in Korea. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-collecting_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-collecting_campaign
cbhl 7y ago
If I remember correctly, the ActiveX widget provided home-grown encryption, because in the 90s, 40-bit encryption was the most you could export from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#PC_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
bachmeier 7y ago
It was actually worse than that when I lived in Korea. It wasn't just Windows that you needed, it was Korean Windows. I thought I'd be okay because I was running dual boot machines with Linux and Windows. Nope. Windows purchased in the US simply did not work with many of the sites. (My understanding is that most software written for commerce/government sites had Korean people that purchased a Windows computer in Korea as the only audience they thought about.)
- hocuspocus 7y ago
  I lived in Korea between 2010 and 2015 and I never needed the Korean version of Windows. Even my work computer was running the en-US version. Your just need to switch the default locale and codepage for the occasional poorly written software (mostly old installers), it just takes a reboot.
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    MS had completely separate custom builds of Windows (made out of completely different binaries) until XP at least. E.g. an English Windows and a German Windows would install completely different files and the only way tonswitch system language was a reinstall. Conponents to support CJK were not part of these installs, either. This changed with Vista or 7 (don't remember) where they were able to seperate Windows into a core plus a set of language packs for all regions. So depending on which version of Windows you are talking about you might both be right.
    - mook 7y ago
      Actually I believe Windows 2000 had support for language packs (MUI if I remember correctly). You _had_ to start with an en-US install to use those, so the bit about different language versions installing different files was still correct. Components for CJK support was a check box in the Language & Region control panel, which required the Windows install disc to apply. I think the language packs might not have been available in all SKUs; not very sure about that part. The CJK support, I think, was. The default system locale thing (MBCS) was a separate issue.
jmkni 7y ago
I guess running those ActiveX controls under Wine is a non starter?
- teh_klev 7y ago
  Not necessarily. ActiveX controls are just plain old COM binaries (though some could be constructed with Visual Basic), Wine ought to be able to handle these just fine. But as with all things Wine, mileage may vary depending on app.
- z3t4 7y ago
  Its funny how wine have better support for legacy win apps then windows 10. Probably a reason why they are switching to Linux.
mycall 7y ago
Did they try WINE or ReactOS?

by Yeri 7y ago

kijin 7y ago

The word processor by Hancom is actually pretty nice, especially for composing Korean-only and mixed Korean-and-English documents. I've been using it since before I even knew that MS Word existed, and I still prefer it to MS Word for anything that contains CJK characters. The proprietary file format is a PITA, though. Hancom did release a Linux version of their office suite a few years ago, and regularly updates the OSX version. Moreover, Hancom has been dabbling in Linux for over 20 years. They even maintained their own Red Hat-based distro at some point. They also support OpenDocument and OOXML fairly well. In short, Hancom has been hedging their bets very thoroughly. So if the government adopts Linux by any chance, it won't be difficult for them to go fully cross-platform and keep their lucrative government contracts.

a-afterglow 7y ago
Have you been using it since its first release? I find it surprising you hadn't heard about MS Office if you were already using Hancom.
- kijin 7y ago
  Yeah, I've used H.ngeul since 1990 -- version 1.2 I think. MS Word already existed, of course, but I didn't hear about it nor actually get to use it until a few years later. I was a kid and didn't have internet back then, so news was slow :p
- snowwindwaves 7y ago
  WordPerfect had a large early market share
lasagnaphil 7y ago
To explain the history a little bit (as a Korean): Hancom's Hangul software was popular in Korea in the 90s because of its splendid Hangul support (Word wasn't that good at it back in the day). So it became a de-facto "standard" for Korean documents. But the problem was, piracy was really rampant at the time, because it was before online DRM protection technologies came into light. (They've tried hardware DRM, like the serial port dongles, which eventually were cracked.) They almost went bankrupt, up to the point where Microsoft was thinking about buying them out (there are a lot of conflicting info about this in the internet, so I don't know exactly what deal might have gone through) But then, when Koreans learned about this imminent danger, they launched a national campaign to save the company, and raised over $10 million for them. As for why this was possible: nationalism was pretty strong back in the late 90s, partly because of Korea's IMF crisis. (If you want to read more about the Korean economic recession and how people responded to it with activism, read more about the Gold-collecting campaign in 1998 [0]) Because of this, Hancom was able to recover and still be alive to this day. Nowadays more and more Koreans are using Word these days, but Hancom's software still has lots of uses, especially in the government. The Hangul word processor had some unique characteristics other than just language support: most notably it was one of the first word processors to have nested table support. Because of this, many Hangul documents have layouts made of nested tables (I know some people at HN would be utterly disgusted with this, but this has many benefits: you can have total control of your document layout, and it's good for making documents with dense information such as government forms.) This is why Hangul documents cannot be simply converted to Word; the two have very different conventions about layout in general. To conclude, reflecting this as a Korean (and an avid Linux user), I have both good and bad feelings about this. On one hand, Koreans were forced to use a proprietary, non-free program to open their documents, including important government stuff. This also sucks for Mac and Linux users (The Mac version was horrible the last time I've used it, and I couldn't get the Linux version to install on Arch Linux). On the other hand, if Hancom wasn't alive, then Koreans would be forced to use Microsoft Word with subpar Korean support (because Microsoft wouldn't really care about Korean language support unless there was competition). While I have mixed feelings about Hancom, I really hope that they would provide good support for Linux users in Korea. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-collecting_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-collecting_campaign

cbhl 7y ago

If I remember correctly, the ActiveX widget provided home-grown encryption, because in the 90s, 40-bit encryption was the most you could export from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#PC_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

bachmeier 7y ago

It was actually worse than that when I lived in Korea. It wasn't just Windows that you needed, it was Korean Windows. I thought I'd be okay because I was running dual boot machines with Linux and Windows. Nope. Windows purchased in the US simply did not work with many of the sites. (My understanding is that most software written for commerce/government sites had Korean people that purchased a Windows computer in Korea as the only audience they thought about.)

hocuspocus 7y ago
I lived in Korea between 2010 and 2015 and I never needed the Korean version of Windows. Even my work computer was running the en-US version. Your just need to switch the default locale and codepage for the occasional poorly written software (mostly old installers), it just takes a reboot.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  MS had completely separate custom builds of Windows (made out of completely different binaries) until XP at least. E.g. an English Windows and a German Windows would install completely different files and the only way tonswitch system language was a reinstall. Conponents to support CJK were not part of these installs, either. This changed with Vista or 7 (don't remember) where they were able to seperate Windows into a core plus a set of language packs for all regions. So depending on which version of Windows you are talking about you might both be right.
  - mook 7y ago
    Actually I believe Windows 2000 had support for language packs (MUI if I remember correctly). You _had_ to start with an en-US install to use those, so the bit about different language versions installing different files was still correct. Components for CJK support was a check box in the Language & Region control panel, which required the Windows install disc to apply. I think the language packs might not have been available in all SKUs; not very sure about that part. The CJK support, I think, was. The default system locale thing (MBCS) was a separate issue.

jmkni 7y ago

I guess running those ActiveX controls under Wine is a non starter?

teh_klev 7y ago
Not necessarily. ActiveX controls are just plain old COM binaries (though some could be constructed with Visual Basic), Wine ought to be able to handle these just fine. But as with all things Wine, mileage may vary depending on app.
z3t4 7y ago
Its funny how wine have better support for legacy win apps then windows 10. Probably a reason why they are switching to Linux.

mycall 7y ago

Did they try WINE or ReactOS?