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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?"
I fully encourage any and all large organizations ( like a government ) to move to an OS that suits their needs, or can be tailored as such.
With the hopeful side effect, of course, of a more robust OS for all others involved. 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!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Ok, every other week now for the past couple of years we read on slashdot "Government XYZ in country ABC is converting to Linux","Country XYZ schools in XYZ country mandate Linux be in classrooms", "Company DFG has migrated to Linux desktops", etc
It'd be interesting to see some world maps showing which countries have massive deployments and when you mouse-over, it shows you the # population that is using Linux.
Then we can turn to our bosses and say... "See!"
Anybody up for the challenge?
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
No "In Soviet Russia" jokes as FP?
In Soviet Russia, Linux hacks you!
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Wait, how does Linux teach you how to hack? Is there a hacking man page that I've been missing? Maybe it is in /usr/share/hack or /usr/share/doc/hack? Never checked those directories my self. Or maybe with the latest wireless drivers the wireless car shoots needles into your brain, upload hacking knowledge directly.
Your theories are fascinating indeed.
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...".
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
this will just play into the hands of our detractors who can now claim that 'Open Source Really Is Like Communism' (never mind that it was invented by an American...
at least i'm trying to be funny...
j
--
open source -- in the long tradition of libraries, liberty, and threefolding...
Vendekapetz blisitsa!
(The end of Windows is getting closer!)
Let's teach all the russian kids how to hack. This is what we should be doing in the USA.
Back when I was teaching, I did exactly that.
I had a standing challenge that any kid who managed to pop any of my servers, and show/prove exactly how he or she did it, got a their overall grade bumped by one letter for that semester. The ground rules were simple: they could only break into a server that I controlled. I did it because 1) kids try for it out of curiousity anyway, and 2) they may as well be challenged to study than admonished into ignorance. I went out of my way to include security into the curricula whenever and wherever I could.
Out of six years of teaching, only one student had managed it... he organized the local (Salt Lake City) 2600 chapter. Last I heard he was running his own security consulting firm.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Price of a given software good too high for teachers to use it? Russian teachers have already tried pirating it, because the cost of an XP OS license is ridiculous in comparison to budgets for schools there, especially outside of moscow. Microsoft comes down like a ton of bricks on the teacher, so it becomes clear that this isn't a useful route for other teachers. The switch is made to an Os without license fees and distribution limitations.
Microsoft could have solved this by lowering the price of XP for educators in russia enough so that it could have been meaningfully distributed around the country. But they didn't. Oh well.
The vast majority of Russian schools has pirated software installed. They can't afford to buy licenses for MS products, and frankly the government doesn't view it as a high priority either, Russia still doesn't respect copyrights too much. At the same time, they've been actually cracking down on pirates lately (due to international pressure, in part). So I expect that going Linux in schools is by far the easiest way of going legal in Russia - licenses are just really not an option.
I've been trying to get the techies at my school to consider linux and open source for a while now. They are not interested, distrust things that are free and find it easier just to follow the commercial software peddled to them or recommended by the UK government's BECTA organisation. Maybe it takes a governmental decision to bring about change for the ill-informed schools. Well done Russia. In the mean time I'm trying to change their mind by giving the students copies of the OpenEducationCD and getting them to tell their teachers how they are finding it. www.theopencd.org/education
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
I think the importance of the penetration of Linux is overestimated. What is more important than the penetration of Linux, is the penetration of Open Source programs. We now have a few very succesfull Open Source programs that are useful for a lot of people: Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp, OpenOffice, and, to a lesser extent, Inkscape. They run on the three main operating systems: OSX, Linux, And Windows. The use of programs like the OpenOffice et al. ensures the use of open standards for documents, pictures, etc, which in the long run is much more important than which operating system is prevalent.
-- Cheers!
It should make Microsoft very happy as Russia is a hotbed of pirated copies of Microsoft products. It is nice to see Russia taking a proactive step to combat international piracy.
(*($%^%#%^-crash%%&(
What is that sound from Redmond?
The truth shall set you free!
In Post-Soviet Russia, the students program the computers! What a country!
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Or as Ensign Chekov would no doubt have said, "Linux? Of course, Keptin. It was a Russian inwention."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Now you told Microsoft things will change rapidly. Soon to be announced, discounted copies of XP to every school in Russia.
Finland declared it's independence from (Soviet) Russia in 1917. I know some people might be a little bit behind the times, but you're pushing the envelope.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
What's going to happen, most likely, is that they let the pilot programme run, and then buy sufficient amount of FUD-spreading from those involved to declare it unsuccessful, with a nice side-effect of discrediting the only competitor (Apple is not competitive in Russia - hardware pricing is way too high, and, perhaps, more importantly for education sector, their software is not localized for Russia).
Well atleast we know that, In Soviet Russia, Linux is desktop ready ;-)
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
AFAIK the decision was taken about a month ago and announced on Russian TV. I got a couple of letters on the subject from Russian friends when it happened.
You are right - it is related to the teacher. Frankly, Microsoft should have given it a second thought and stopped simulating that it has nothing to do with it especially after both Putin, Gorbi and Zhirik got involved with it. Before that it was a piracy case. Now, after MSFT ignored all political parties from the left to the right end, the current and the past presidents it has become a political issue. It is not a matter of money any more.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Once you become proficient in using Linux you are having a better understanding of OS and network internals than your Windows-using peers.
You're making it sound like most windows users are proficient in using Windows. Just because something is there doesn't mean that it's going to be used. In this case, just because the code is there for everyone doesn't mean that many of these students are going to dig around and play with the code. They're going to treat it just like they do when they use Windows.
Congratulations, Slashdot trolls -- the "In Soviet Russia" jokes now write themselves.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Would get my vote! How about a poll on this, Slashdot!
Ever mistakenly called an Irishman British - or worse, English? Remember the reaction you got?
Right. Now, you know Finland? You know what they think about Russia? Yep.
Oh, by the way, the Finns make about the best hunting rifles in the world. Pretty much everybody has one. And silencers are perfectly legal and uncontroversial.
Now, go away and sit in the corner and think about what you did, and don't come back until you're ready to say sorry.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
it's the all new and improved KGB Desktop Environment!
That article, no matter what it claims, is totally misleading as, according to most other sources (namely gazeta.ru) this line of argumentation ("oh, we are going to build our own OS!") is solely used as a way to make a better deal with MS after the serie of busts in the russian schools using pirated copies of Windows. No matter what it does, the Russian Ministry of Education is not stupid.. they just want a better deal.
http://www.automatiq.se
he got us so interested in his story but he didnt tell us how it ended properly...
Sorry 'bout that; here's (roughly) how he did it:
He got to the Windows NT Server through his student account, shook out a copy of the local SAM, then spent the next few days brute-forcing it on a different machine. I was handed a printed list of every user account and its password on that machine (including the one I used for that box) as evidence. It was cool and scary at the same time; IIRC it took MSFT about six months from that point (which I had submitted to them) to patch the vuln that allowed him to grab it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"Linus is a Swedish Finn not a Finn Finn"
He ain't a Swedish Finn but Finn Swedish. Because he was living in Finland and spoke Swedish as home language. If he would live in Sweden and speak Finnish as home language, then he would be Swedish Finn...
Swedish Finn != Finn Swedish
Swedish Finn = Lives in Sweden and speaks Finnish
Finn Swedish = Lives in Finland and speaks Swedish