Russia Mandates Free Software For Public Schools

Glyn Moody writes "After running some successful pilots, the Russian government has decided to make open source the standard for all schools. If a school doesn't want to use the free software supplied by the government, it has to buy commercial licenses using its own funds. What's the betting Microsoft starts slashing its prices in Russia?"

Comments

Re:Wise They Are

[Anonymous Coward]

breaking from their national heritage in being hard-working

They created an empire with more surface area than any empire since Ghengis Khan, created the periodic table, defeated Napolean and Hitler, sent the first man into space, and challenged the US for global supremacy for fifty years. I think hard work _is_ their national heritage. The lazy Russian stereotype may have been accurate in the dying days of the Soviet Union, but it is by no means the norm for Russia.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:More proof

[Erikderzweite]

Going back to Soviet Union? By slashing a monopoly and directing the money towards their own developers and encouraging competition as opposed to paying a foreign corporation which is already known to sue people in Russia?
Help me here...

Russian translation?

[ToasterMonkey]

I'm confused, can Glyn Moody read Russian, or is the article based on the Google translation?
From this, no one is being forced to use anything, they are given free software, and individual schools must foot the bill of commercial software. I'm sure this will help spur free software adoption, but isn't the real story about the Govt not buying school software anymore? A story like this in the states would imply the schools are now rejigging their IT budgets, not necessarily adopting free software wholesale. A story about govt funding to schools being cut probably wouldn't be taken in such positive light either.
Just my two cents.

[Via Google Translate: By the end of 2009, all school computers will be installed package of free software (PSPO). This is how transfers Prime-TASS, today announced Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Igor Shchyogolev at the plenary session Information Society and the modern technologies of information in the international exhibition InfoCom-2008.]
[Via Google Translate: The Minister also noted that by 2010 it is expected that the number of computers in schools will reach a million. According to Schegoleva, after three years of school will be able to make a choice: pay royalties to use software products, buying them at their own expense, or go to the domestic free software.]

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[account_deleted]

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Re:More proof

[Ethanol-fueled]

Good news to be sure, but how do you know that the money will go towards developers or even back to the people and not towards some government official's Mercedes or vacation home?

Re:Ponosov's Case

[theaveng]

Good story. An innocent headmaster buys PCs that are preinstalled, but did not realize the PC seller has used illegal copies. The headmaster gets in trouble with the law for piracy.

Eventually the headmaster gets cleared, but he immediately organizes to push for Free software.... the result being that now Russian Schools no longer want Microsoft products. Only free products.

Karma's a _____, ain't it Microsoft?

Re:More proof

[Weaselmancer]

Yeah, that could only happen in Russia. Our elected officials would never do such a thing.

Re:Wise They Are

[bendodge]

Yes, they work very hard and have a lot of smart people, but they seem to have some major gullibility issues when it comes to politics.

Cultural bias

[CarpetShark]

Aside from stereotyping russians, you guys are showing a lot of cultural bias, that you probably don't realise. Stop calling people lazy, and go read The Importance of Living. Or just spend time living in a hunter-gatherer tribe for a while. You might find yourselves returning to your lives and calling the people around you workaholics... or just plain insane.

"To truly understand another culture, you must first understand your own."

Re:Cultural bias

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Aside from stereotyping russians, you guys are showing a lot of cultural bias, that you probably don't realise. Stop calling people lazy, and go read The Importance of Living.

I have spent a significant amount of time in Ukraine (rough comparison - Ukraine is to Russia as Canada is to the USA) and I have also known Russians in various places. I would not describe them as lazy. However, they do have a sense of entitlement that you cannot believe unless you have been there. Couple this with a seriously decreased sense of morality (thank you USSR!) and you do have a culture that sees nothing wrong at all with stealing, lying, killing, etc. to make money. I'm not saying all Russians are like this, but more are than we should really be comfortable with. Generally they are well educated and often well motivated, but they are not motivated in a way that's really beneficial to them or us in the long term. Ultimately they probably won't be able to solve the problems that they'll face in the near future (declining population, increasing rates of AIDS, poor health care, rampant alcoholism, etc.) because they are so self-centered. But they aren't lazy.

Re:More proof

[Tikkun]

Microsoft is staffed by people that do, among other things, throw chairs at people, describe open source as "cancer", and want to "$#%^&*@ kill Google". I'd say the poster isn't exaggerating that much.

Re:More proof

[theolein]

You Americans have a habit of screaming "Communism" at anything vaguely related towards state aid/state control without really knowing what Communism is.

Quite legitimate

[AliasMarlowe]

Microsoft is staffed by people that do, among other things, throw chairs at people, describe open source as "cancer", and want to "$#%^&*@ kill Google".

Please, attack Microsoft on legitimate issues (e.g. prior extreme anticompetitive behavior, and incomplete reform), not pointless ad hominem attacks.

"Qualis rex, talis grex."

The symptoms of systematic dysfunction were well known to the Romans. Leadership is a very legitimate issue.

Re:More proof

[Bert64]

However, even these "cancerous" open source licenses are considerably better for the end user than virtually all proprietary licenses.

Compare:
You can use this software any way you want, and distribute it however you like so long as you distribute the source code in the same way you received it.
if you To:
You can use this software in a limited number of ways on a limited number of systems, you cannot redistribute it at all and don't get to look at the source code.

If you think licenses like the GPL are restrictive, then you must really hate proprietary software even more.

Re:More proof

[roguetrick]

There is a major problem with calling it a cancer, and that is in context. You can't call open source a cancer and proprietary software healthy cells. This is due to proprietary software's inability to grow and intermingle. Maybe if you call proprietary software a tumor, GPL could be just a more aggressive cancer that turns everything into wonderful goodness, while BSD is a healthy cell.

While the virus idea works better, the whole premise is just silly, pejorative, and flawed. Highlighting Balmer's stupidity in saying it works just fine in showing Microsoft has a screwball for a CEO.