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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?"
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.
In Soviet Russia, Linux hacks you!
Take off every sig. For great justice.
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
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?
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.
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/
This has nothing to do with suiting needs or not.
This is a reaction towards this long, protracted and phenomenally stupid lawsuit brought by the Russian branch of the BSA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6499843.stm
In brief: a school in the middle of nowhere was sold computers with pirated windows and office which they believed to be genuine. Instead of going after the manufacturer and the reseller the Russian branch of the BSA went after the headmaster of the school and tried to make him personally criminally responsible. he case got phenomenal adverse publicity and reached to the level of the both Putin and Gorbachev wading in and asking that the real culprit is prosecuted. Instead of that the idiots continued and even tried to invoke the MAFIAA favourite tool of WTO scaremongering.
At this point the Russians did the very Russian thing of making a point in principle. Is the OS suited or not no longer matters in the slightest. They will simply no longer do educational business with Microsoft in principle and this is it.
It is a part of Russian character - you may push them for a very long time and they will do nothing. At one point they will go into "Za nami Rodina, ni shagu nazad (Fatherland is behind us, no further steps back)". This is a point you simply do not want to reach when you negotiate with them and it was reached solely through the BSA stupidity.
This also makes a major difference between the Russian case and similar situations in Asia a few years back. There Microsoft managed to defuse the situation through offering seriously discounted Windows and BilliGatus gifts to education and health. In this case this will not work. It is not a matter of money it is a matter of principle from now on.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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.