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".

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.

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

[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: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...

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:Slash prices?

[morgan_greywolf]

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

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.

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!

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.

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:More proof

[jonbryce]

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