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

In Soviet Russia

[mfh]

Microsoft is no more!!!!

Dammit, I'm moving.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[Yetihehe]

In soviet russia, government controls microsoft.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[ZiggyStardust1984]

In corporate america, microsoft controls goverment.

Is it "free" or is it "open source"?

[GuloGulo]

The confusion between these two types of software is not trivial.

According to TFA, it is being mandated that "free" software be used, and open source isn't even mentioned (in the translated article, I don't speak russian, sorry).

"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."

"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."

Nothing in there about "open source" submitter, so which is it?

Re:Is it "free" or is it "open source"?

[shvytejimas]

The automated translation did not distinguish the exact meaning of "free" in that sentence. The word used in the russian article was "svobodnovo", which means free as in liberty. Free as in beer would have been "bezplatnovo" - literally "payless".

Re:Is it "free" or is it "open source"?

[ArsonSmith]

Wouldn't that be "free as in shoes" then?

Re:Is it "free" or is it "open source"?

[n dot l]

Gah. This would be easier if I could type Cyrillic characters in Slashdot comments. Anyway.

The first character is a sh-ch sound, where the sh dominates the barely pronounced ch to the point where most westerners wouldn't even hear it as distinct from the 'sh'. The 'e' is going to be pronounced 'yeh', but the 'y' part is very short and the 'eh' bit is short as well. The rest depends on where the stressed syllable is and I'm not sure of that. It's either Shchye-gah-le'-vuh or Shchye-go'-leh-vuh (I'm pretty sure it's the first one). The 'ah' is pronounced like the a in 'far', only shorter. The 'uh' at the end is like u in 'hut', but also shorter. And that's a 'soft' l, which means you pronounce it with your tongue a bit higher in your mouth, sort of like you're making the 'y' sound at the same time (if that makes any sense at all).

Disclaimer: I'm not Russian. I'm just studying it. Hopefully a native speaker will correct me if I've fucked it up. I'll correct myself if I hear it on the radio some time today (internet radio is an awesome way to pick up a language quicker).

Wise They Are

[curmudgeon99]

I'm probably one of the few slashdotters who has lived in Russia. I will say that I met a ton of very smart people who are breaking from their national heritage in being hard-working. A university degree from Russia now and has always equated with a Masters in the US. They are just smart in not buying into the crap that Microsoft sells. There are so many entire technology stacks--just as in the Java world, not in .NET--that can be had without ever spending a thin dime on software. Face it--nobody is ever going to pay when there are free alternatives. And though as a software developer this eats into my bread and butter, I know they are right.

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.

Re:Wise They Are

[curmudgeon99]

Yes, it is. If you look at the requirements to receive a degree in Russia, it requires the amount of work that would be required in a US Masters.

Re:Wise They Are

[jellomizer]

Exactly and there are more companies then just Microsoft. Most of them are actually willing to support their application and fix bugs for you. Also a lot of the Non-Free software the company can afford to pay for patent rights and license other software to actually make it work correctly. There have been times in Open Source just because it was Open Source and wasn't willing to pay some money they had to take features out. Because of the Patent or License. You can complain about the problems with Licenses and Patents but they are here and will probably stay for a while longer... In the mean time if you not interestest in the Politics/Religion of Open Source you will just shill out the cash and buy software that does what you need it to do.

Re:Wise They Are

[zapakh]

Thats why Linux is kicking Microsofts ass right now amirite?

What we need is an ad campaign in which Seinfeld meets Torvalds. That should do it.

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.

Re:Wise They Are

[famebait]

More like a different experience than the west.

When Russia has been great and proud, it has been under
totalitarian rule (both under czars and portions of the
soviet era), and to many Putin seems to be restoring it.

Experience with democracy has been fleeting and disappointing,
There is no centuries old tradition of civil liberties and
people's power, only varying standards of living and international
influence, so they still look to a string leader like all
countries used to up until a couple of centuries ago.
Add to that americas soaring debt and fascist china being
the fastest growing economy anyone has ever seen, and it's
easy to get the masses behind a "powerful russia" campaign.

Of course the reasons for this experience are far more complex
and not actually particularly tied to the specific systems
used in the 'great and powerful' periods, and I certainly do
believe a mature democracy would serve them a lot better
in the long run. But try to explain that to the man and woman
on the street who has experienced some trials and broken promises
since the breakdown of communism that equal nothing America
has seen since the civil war.

And as for hard work: the soviet system didn't exactly
nurture private enterprise, true. But acedemic tradition in in
Russia has been top notch and extremely disciplined not just
before but during the entire soviet era. The common worker
too simply _had_ to work hard, even if there wasn't so much
worldy reward to be gained from working _efficiently_.
But if you already know how to work hard, that can be fixed,
especially with the generation change they've since received.

Re:Wise They Are

[Reservoir Penguin]

The freshman curriculum for a math major (you pick your major when you submit your application) is (per week) 1) Mathematical Analysis: 4 hours of lectures, 4 hours of problem solving seminars 2) Higher Algebra: (Algebraic structures, vectors spaces and so on) 4 hours of lectures, 4 hours of problem solving seminars 3) Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry: 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of problem solving seminars 4) Number Theory: 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of problem solving seminars 5) Theory of Algorithms: 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of problem solving seminars 6) Introductory CS: 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of labs 7) History of Russia: 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of seminars 8) Physical education: 2 hours I've been to the US and I've never seen anything like that. And picking a math major is considered "slacking", if you are unfortunate enough to pick Physics major you get almost as much math + physics + killer LABS every day. During your third year you're supposed to find a working scientist and under his guidance produce a thesis. This is why the parent said that the degree is equivalent to US Masters.

Slash prices?

[DoofusOfDeath]

What's the betting Microsoft starts slashing its prices in Russia?

I wouldn't bet on that. It's far cheaper for Microsoft to just give very, very big campaign contributions to Russian legislators.

Re:Slash prices?

[morgan_greywolf]

Pffft. In Soviet (and Non-Soviet) Russia, Microsoft waits in a very long line to bribe the officials.

Re:Slash prices?

[jc42]

It's far cheaper for Microsoft to just give very, very big campaign contributions to Russian legislators.

Yeah, and that's pretty much their tactic in the US now, too, since they became one of the biggest "campaign contributors" back in the 2000 elections.

Anyway, slashing prices is difficult in a country where most "customers" get Windows for free. To beat that, MS would have to start paying people to use their software. Of course, for government agencies, it can be a bit more difficult to get away with using pirated software. Your records may be accessible to the politicians who are on the take, and they have ways of punishing people who don't buy from their campaign contributors.

But there may well be a bigger reason: Maybe the Russian government's IT folks are finally getting across the idea that there are serious problems with trusting any binary-only software that comes from a big American corporation. Consider the story discussed here a while back, about the fact that Vista (and apparently XP, too) will sometimes ignore config settings having to do with updates, and automatically update things even when you have explicitly told it not to. This is a giant "backdoor", as the security folks call it. Not only can the software you buy have all sorts of extra code in it that they didn't tell you about ("special for the Russian market"); Windows may at any time replace parts of your system with a new version that has even more "special" code tailored just for you. That's gotta be making a lot of people a bit nervous.

This nervousness is probably encouraged by the widespread interpretation of the 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion, as the result of sabotage by American software. That's an Australian site, but you can find lots of descriptions of this event online, and most of them give the same explanation. This story is a good illustration for why you don't want to run unanalyzable binaries in the controls for critical infrastructure. And maybe you don't want to run binary-only software anywhere. ("Think of the children" comes to mind here. ;-)

Note that "free" software is usually also open source. That means you can hire your own hackers to study the code, and remove any backdoors they find. And you can do clean compiles, to ensure that the binaries you're running actually correspond to the code. This should be sufficient to convince anyone with a grain of sense. We don't know whether access to the source code would have prevented the above explosion, but we can safely say that lack of the source code does pretty much prevent finding and fixing such problems.

Re:Slash prices?

[syousef]

Pffft. In Soviet (and Non-Soviet) Russia, Microsoft waits in a very long line to bribe the officials.

I bet Microsoft has even tried to patent the process.

Ponosov's Case

[ringm000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponosov's_Case

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:Ponosov's Case

[plague3106]

MS never appeared, and never intended to press charges. They even said they believed the headmaster didn't intentially violate their copyright. How's that karma biting them?

If anything, it's Russia that prosecuted the wrong guy that should be to blame.

Re:Ponosov's Case

[ringm000]

As far as I understand, in the US copyright violation is prosecuted in a civil action and the holder has to press charges. In Russia it can be prosecuted under civil as well as criminal law. It is an offense under the Criminal Code of Russia and the criminal prosecution does not have to depend on the victim pressing charges, much like e.g. in cases of battery or theft.

Yes, this is a rather stupid idea, and yes, cases like this are very rare.

Re:aren't we talking about russia?

[Matt Perry]

i think it would be more of hassle trying get a linux distro, than a free available-everywhere pirate of a windows os

I know. It's so difficult to find a linux distribution these days. Ever since linux distros had to go underground I have to search the far dark corners of the internet to find a working download. If I want a copy locally, I have to go to the seedy part of town and down some dark alleyway whispering to the dealer who will get me my linux fix. Oh! If only linux were freely available from universities, computer geeks, and the internet!

Microsoft OSs have a kill switch

[Animats]

Remember, Microsoft OSs have a "kill switch" implicitly built into Windows Update. If you use Windows Update, Microsoft has total control of your computers. That's not acceptable given Russia's renewed determination not to be under the control of the United States.

Even with Windows Update turned off, there are all those little things, like "codec downloads" and "DRM downloads" which can insinuate new Microsoft software onto a computer. That's unacceptable to a sovereign nation.

Re:Microsoft OSs have a kill switch

[denis-The-menace]

Actually, Even with Windows Update turned off, MS can still force in an update.

That what happened in Aug 2007

Re:Microsoft OSs have a kill switch

[Hatta]

Not only that, but you can't even block it with your hosts file.

Illegal product dumping?

[pyrr]

What's the betting Microsoft starts slashing its prices in Russia?

It's hard to compete with free. In light of M$ slashing their prices in China to compete with pirated-retail versions of their software, would they be desperate enough in a bid to hold onto market share to practically give away software in order to compete with FOSS?

Moreover, they claim piracy of their products around the world costs them "billions of dollars". I assume that's calculated on the basis of US-retail prices translated into foreign exchange rates, and they seem to have a hard-and-fast notion of exactly what each copy of their software is worth in terms of intellectual property, profit margin, cost of materials, and so forth when they make such statements. I wonder, since they're so sure of what their product is worth, if they could be accused of illegally dumping their products in foreign markets. They'd obviously be selling them for less than they know/believe they're worth in able to compete.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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.]

It might be to Microsoft's advantage

[erroneus]

If Microsoft simply let Russia go free (sounds weird right?) then perhaps there will be fewer Russian hackers writing Windows malware. That would be something of a long-shot I suppose.

Re:aren't we talking about russia?

[Erikderzweite]

As Russian government wanted to go to the WTO badly, they have taken vast steps towards eliminating computer piracy. So a pirate version of Windows is still relatively easy to get, but so are Linux distros. The people's inertia will still hold windows share high though. It is a great move to offer free software in schools to overcome this inertia.

Re:Read: No Money

[Vicarius]

Russia's last few 3-year budget plans, as well as the ones coming up, were betting on $70-80 price and all excess is being put into a separate fund/account. Russia still has not spent its surplus of the oil money.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

USA becoming a technology backwater?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Actions like this speak volumes about the future of the United States in the global economy. As a whole we are locked into the Microsoft monopoly more tightly than any other nation. As the rest of the world embraces free and open source software at a faster pace than we do, they are essentially leapfrogging us in technological advancement. If more USA users don't wise up to this soon, we risk becoming a technological backwater. It could take years to catch up, if ever.

If you think this isn't possible, consider how much farther ahead cell phones are in Europe, or broadband to the home in Asia.

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?

Free as in freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a native russian speaker, and "ÑÐобоÐноРÐYÐz" means a "free OS" as in freedom.

So they probably went with ALTLinux or whatever version of linux they got there that's popular.

(also, the russian text in preview is broken for whatever reason)

MS Should RAISE the price

[Sparrow_CA]

I have an uncle who lives in Russia, where he bought a computer preloaded with XP. After some time he realized it wasn't a legit copy, and went back to the place he bought it from to inquire about getting an "upgraded" version. The manager had this to say to him: "There is exactly ONE legal copy of Windows in Russia, what makes you think that YOU should have it?"

Hence, MS should just raise the price of that one copy.

Re:More proof

[Weaselmancer]

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

I love fill-in-the-blank puzzles!

[xerxesVII]

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!!!

Karma's a NOUN!

Re:I love fill-in-the-blank puzzles!

[dgatwood]

Hmm. Last I checked, Karma's a microphone company. It's also a Korg keyboard technology. And finally, Karma's a beach (or at least a beach residence).

But seriously, Microsoft is getting what it deserves in this regard. That said, I have a feeling that this is, at least in part, a power play to drive down the cost of MS products in Russia. Just a gut feeling.

Re:I love fill-in-the-blank puzzles!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!!!

Karma's a NOUN!

Wrong. Karma's a chameleon.

Began years ago

[CarpetShark]

Brazil, India, China, Philippines, Extremadura...

Re:Began years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I know. A few years ago I voted for a President that had Free (as in freedom) Software in it government plan. Now a few years after it we lots of free software in government, state bank and lots of it is developed here.

More than that, we changed from a developing country to a emerging economy, we joined G20, poverty is not more as it was before. This year we have the sales of computers as big as TV sets, and lots of stuff like that. Believe me, it works.

I live in Brazil, of course.

Re:Read: No Money

[Mikkeles]

'... all excess is being put into a separate fund/account.'

Yeah; Putin's, I bet.

That was my thought as well

[GuloGulo]

I got basically the same idea that you did from reading the article, but then I asked myself, if it's "free" software they're after, what's to stop MS from just giving Windows to them for free on some kind of "educational deal".

Seems like exactly the kind of thing MS would do.

Re:That was my thought as well

[jc42]

... if it's "free" software they're after, what's to stop MS from just giving Windows to them for free on some kind of "educational deal".

Ah, but you and others are getting an entirely wrong idea due to a simple (and probably intentional) mistranslation. The Russian government's order and the original article were not written in English, they were in Russian. As someone else point out in another message, the Russian text describes the software as "svobodniy", not "bezplatniy". Both of these words translate to English as "free", but their meanings are totally different, and neither can be naturally expressed in English with a single word. The morpheme "svobod-" means free as in liberty or freedom. The root "bezplat-" is two morphemes, "bez-" meaning without, and "plat-" meaning cost or price.

They aren't ordering schools to use software that they don't have to pay for. They're ordering the schools to use software that's unencumbered by legal restrictions and, for example, can be taken apart and studied by students that are interesting in software or by school employees looking for backdoors and other security holes. It so happens that much "svobodniy" software is available at no cost and without legal restrictions, but that wasn't the adjectivee that was used, and wasn't the intent of the government's order.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan's famous claim that the Russian language has no word for freedom, the translators in this case missed the fact that English has no word for "svobodniy". Rather, English has a word "free" that means both "svobodniy" and "bezplatniy", two unrelated concepts that English speakers typically confuse. One can, of course, express these concepts in English, using short multi-word phrases. But in this case, the translators chose not to do this, and instead went with the one-word translation that is misinterpreted by most English readers.

This is, of course, an old trick of propagandists. If you're familiar with the technique, you're probably amused to see it in use, and to see so many people falling for it so publicly.

Re:That was my thought as well

[syousef]

Both of these words translate to English as "free", but their meanings are totally different, and neither can be naturally expressed in English with a single word. The morpheme "svobod-" means free as in liberty or freedom. The root "bezplat-" is two morphemes, "bez-" meaning without, and "plat-" meaning cost or price.

Let me translate to slashdotese for you, since you didn't do such a good job.
svobod: free as in libre.
bezplat: free as in beer.

What the story SHOULD have been...

[Anonymous Coward]

""After running some successful pilots..."

THIS is the big one. Not whether a contract was signed or not.

What Linux needs are success stories showing that it is viable as a large-scale enterprise operating system. No commercial organisation wants to be first into a new, unknown environment. Why can't we see the results of these pilots, and have them widely publicised?

I beg to differ

[GuloGulo]

"But sooner or later an accountant in Redmond is going to step up and say that they can't keep doing it."

This is not in line wioth reality, as MS has been essentially "giving windows away" (in the form of unpoliced piracy) for years, and the consensus is that it has actually helped them rather than hurting them.

What makes you think this will be any different?

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

[FluffyWithTeeth]

What? They're not taking control of a market, the education department is simply just no longer buying software for itself. It's a cost cutting measure, not nationalisation.

They're not stopping anyone else from buying software, and I imagine private schools will continue to use microsoft software.

Re:Thanks but,

[Erikderzweite]

Not really. "Svobodnyj" has two meaning in Russian - free as in speech, and loose. Open is "otkrytyj".
(damn Slashdot imperialistic engine which doesn't support Cyrillic :)

The minister clearly said about free software, not open source or cost-reducing. So the summary is a bit misleading on that point.

Re:Read: No Money

[Risen888]

I wouldn't fret too much about the Russian economy. They're sitting squarely on top of the largest supply of natural gas on planet Earth. I think they'll make it through okay.

Re:aren't we talking about russia?

[Talderas]

Are you taking ample precautions to avoid the grue?

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.

Yes, Linux is more expensive then Top100 pro

[Xelgen]

Yep, it should be hard to believe for lot of ppl here, but for a lot of places (excluding only multimillion cities) in ex Soviet countries, this is the case. There is no broadband unlimited internet tariffs. 1 Mb of download, can cost up to 0.10$. Downloading will take couple of days .iso of a CD, and more then a week for DVD image. And a CD/DVD with Vista/Full Adobe Creative Suite/Full MS Office pro/3D Max/whatever will cost about 4-5$ at any CD/DVD shop, which can be found on every single step. Now tell me, which options whould you prefer? Downloading an iso of CD for 50-60$ during a week, + another 20-30$ for additional packages, drivers, codecs, whatever.. Or buying let's say 2 DVD's for 10$ in 10 minutes, one with "All windows + office" (Several versions of windows + several versions of office, + antiviruses, system utilites, daily soft), and second "All computer graphics" with (All Adobe applciations for graphics, video, web-design, +3d max, maya, corel draw, image viewers, video players, etc..). So which one? :) That is the main reason why it's so hard to push open source in here. P.S. It's hard to find a fresh Linux distro in CD shops, and even if you can find not 2 years old, the price is the same.

Re:More proof

[Rasperin]

Actually, if you consider it we are very quite socialist. We have public schools, laws forcing hospitals to provide aide when a patient enters in critical condition. They bail companies out when they screw up. We have social services like welfare, wic, &c coming out of the ass. Government services which make up a decent portion of the populations jobs (see: military, see: cops, see: politics &c) and fund our economy. To end my causation abruptly, those crying Communism every step of the way need to remove our military, our public schools, and a bunch of other things they have come to rely on to protect them and aide them.

Re:More proof

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Sigh. At the risk of further Troll mods:

1. Even the (disputed) reports of Ballmer throwing a chair never indicated he threw it at anybody, merely "across the room, hitting a table in his office." With only one witness (a man who was leaving for Google), and Ballmer denying it, even that much is not really confirmed.
2. Many open source licenses do behave rather similarly to a cancer (though admittedly, the characterization contains grossly unfair pejorative connotations). I'd think virus would be a more appropriate characterization, (with two notable exceptions, cancers aren't transmissible in any significant way), though admittedly pejorative, but there's an argument to be made.
3. See point 1. Single witness, with his own reasons to lie.

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

Whew! good thing the world economy is tanking...

[Dutchmaan]

Once the world economy tanks and Russia is forced to abandon free software in favor of 'for profit' OS's, then we can breathe a sigh of relief that those who came up with the OS are getting their rightful compensation for IP rights!

Re:aren't we talking about russia?

[Just Some Guy]

If only linux were freely available from universities, computer geeks, and the internet!

When I wanted to install RedHat 4.something, I went to see if they had it in my university's library. Joy! They did! Unfortunately, the librarian refused to let me check it out because I "might install it on my own computer, which would be illegal." When I finally demonstrated that it would be OK, they still refused to let me leave the library with it, although I was welcome to bring a stack of floppies to copy the CD onto (as this was before CD burners became common).

Re:More proof

[michrech]

He's not sure. He'll have a staffer get back to you.

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:aren't we talking about russia?

[Dan Ost]

That ranks right up there with librarians that wouldn't demagnetize the anti-theft strip in your library books if they had a CD in the back cover because it might erase it (would it have even damaged floppies?).

I always had to remember to drop those books off at the drive through so that I wouldn't set off the alarms walking into the building.

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

[Petrushka]

Many open source licenses do behave rather similarly to a cancer (though admittedly, the characterization contains grossly unfair pejorative connotations). I'd think virus would be a more appropriate characterization, (with two notable exceptions, cancers aren't transmissible in any significant way),

That would be a tolerable analogy for licences generally, as exactly the same applies to every proprietary licence. I'd be happier if people comparing, say, the GPL to a "virus" were also comparing, say, every other licence that has ever been written.

You want to alter or redistribute Microsoft's software? Well, you can't unless you agree to some licence terms (assuming that Microsoft offers any). So your release is infected by someone else's licensing terms, so the "virus" has been spread. Only in this case it's likely to be a nasty virus.

Re:More proof

[jonbryce]

OK, how about the fact that he dances about the stage doing monkey impersonations and shouting "Developers developers developers developers developers"?

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.

Re:More proof

[fabs64]

Actually, if you consider it we are very quite socialist.

Compared to who? Estonia?

Don't get me wrong, the U.S. is clearly a mixed economy (a term for some reason out of favour). But it seems to be a lot more right leaning than the rest of the first world.

Re:More proof

[symbolset]

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

You're not from around here, are you?

Incomplete reform? I think you meant "continuing current extreme anticompetitive behavior", and omitted "expected future extreme anticompetetive behavior." The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. Or, as a famed technology leader once said:

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." Jean-Louis Gassée, former CEO, BeOS

Re:More proof

[rtb61]

Hmm, interesting, you liken infringing upon someone else's code, as some how them infecting you, talk about blaming the victim.

Lets be quite clear, proprietary code is the cancer, it eats up all code and ideas, patents and copyrights them preventing any one else from using them at all. It strives to achieve a monopoly and kill off all opposition regardless of the damage done. Not only that it stifles competition in coding quality, resulting in coding infections running rampant across networks, a weakening of the fitness for purpose of the code. See, a digital cancer.

Now open source represent actual healthy competition and evolution of the most secure, reliable and usable code. It allows a healthy diverse technological digital ecosystem to grow and flourish. It promotes 'open' and 'equal' access to all code resources, healthy and vital companies thrive in that environment. Of course they only thing that suffers is those cancerous old proprietary companies who find they are no longer able to implement monopolistic practices to starve out the vital elements of a healthy industry. Just like any tumorous growth, once effective treatment begins, in the case Free Open Source Software, first growth stops and, then the influence of the proprietary cancer shrinks and it either reverts to become a healthy part of the industry or it dies off and disappears all together.

See Free Open Source Software - equates to healthy technological development and closed source proprietary software is without doubt the cancer.

It is not about money

[Max_W]

I just read on this page http://linux.armd.ru/ that the president of Russian Federation ordered to create a robust reliable open source OS by 2010.

It is the top priority task for the security of Russian Federation. The school project is just a part of it.