Linux To Be Installed In Every Russian School

J_Omega writes "According to an article from last week at the Russian IT site CNews, Linux is slated to be installed in every Russian school by 2009. The article makes it appear that it will be going by the (unimaginative) name 'Russian OS.' As stated in the article: 'The main aim of the given work is to reduce dependence on foreign commercial software and provide education institutions with the possibility to choose whether to pay for commercial items or to use the software, provided by the government.' Initial testing installations are supposed to begin next year in select districts. Is 2008/09 the year of Linux on the (Russian) desktop?"

Comments

Not called "Russian OS"

[jpetts]

The software will be called ALTLinux. It is the typical lack of the use of articles in Russian which seems to be confusing the submitter. If written by an English author, the article would have started "A Russian OS...".

Re:Good for them

[kebes]

Given russia's rather lax attitude towards IP ( which I can't fault them in ), it's questionable whether we will see changes committed back to the tree. But here's hoping!

Well, there's a difference between the Russian government, the Russian corporate sector, and the Russian people. Lax copyright enforcement merely means that it will be difficult to prevent commercial entities in Russia from creative closed-source forks of GPL software (or, conversely, that it will be difficult to induce them to contribute code improvements). But, really, companies that don't want to contribute to open-source software have never been the primary source of code improvements.

The primary source of code improvements is from enthusiasts, and from companies that understand the inherent advantages of building upon the FOSS software and the FOSS community. Both of these groups of people will operate in a lax-copyright regime much the same way they would elsewhere. Enthusiasts contribute to GPL projects not because of copyright law (or any other law) but because of a desire to be part of the process. Russian enthusiasts are no different than those from any other countries.

On the commercial end, I suppose it's less likely that a company leveraging the GPL will appear in a place where copyright law isn't enforced. But, on the other hand, many companies do business internationally, so being based in Russia may have little effect on their code contributions to GPL projects, or their desire to leverage FOSS code in general (and contribute to said code).

At the end of the day, from the "get more code" angle, having more people exposed to open-source software is always a good thing. The more people are involved, the more enthusiast coders you get, and the more community volunteers you get. Not to mention that when a large number of people are using FOSS software, companies will find it in their financial interest to support that software (in terms of hardware, software, and support), and even to support "the community." If Linux were truly widespread in Russia, I see no reason why companies wouldn't actively support FOSS with open-source code.

Re:Is Linux really important?

[McDutchie]

Yes, Linux is really important. Open standards are meaningless if a single dominant closed operating system can control and restrict every program that runs on the computer, and this is the direction in which Windows is going. If left unchallenged, it may not even be able to run open soure software, some years from now. Linux is essential in being that challenge.