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Russia's Operating System May Be Fedora Based
Glyn Moody writes "Last month, a story about Russia producing its own national operating system based on GNU/Linux started circulating. Now there's some confirmation, and details of how the plan might be put into practice. Red Hat had a meeting with the Russian communications ministry, which announced that the development of free software in Russia was one of its priorities. One concrete idea they talked about was using the Russian Fedora project as a step towards creating a national operating system."
Well, Duh, it's Red. :D
Here's a cookie... *psst* it's MAGIC
Source opens you ...
sorry I couldn't resist it.
But why Fedora? Is it because they'd rather be "Dead than Red(Hat)"?
Don't know why they'd pick the unstable beta distro to do it, though. Ought to use the Russian version of CentOS or Ubuntu LTS.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Consider that Raskolnikov was only an outlaw because he believed himself to be such. If he hadn't had the guilty conscience, the authorities never would have caught up with him. They believed that the painters had done the crime, and had the confession to prove it.
But all men who are good at heart love honesty, and though Raskolnikov was able to commit murder, he was unable to maintain the lie which he had constructed.
In much the same vein, Javert was able to break his case against Jean Valjean because though a criminal, Valjean was never the hardened criminal he was portrayed to be.
In short, Russian Linux is likely to suck.
Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services?
That sounds preposterous to me.
If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.
Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.
Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.
I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.
Great, Linux was doing so well until it caused the 2nd rise of the USSR.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
I am using Fedora from the start and I like it very much, but I don't think its philosophy is suitable for a "national" distribution.
Fedora is created for testing, not for everyday usage for normal people (not neerds). I think even using Fedora qualify you as a nerd. OK, it gets even worse if you are using alpha's.
Using Fedora will cripple their productivity and they will start to hate Linux.
If they want to use Linux for serious stuff, like "national distribution", then they should chose another distro.
Original content? No, I don't think there will be any of that for this story. There really isn't anything insightful or informative to say. Leaving everyone to come up with some misguided attempt at creating a joke that isn't completely expected.
You know something like
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road
A: Because Russia, a formerly communist nation, has decided to go with a national operating system that forms the basis for a different operating system called Red Hat. And Red is the main color associated with Communism in general. Which makes this joke funny. Also, chickens are in a constant state of motion. They don't really have a set destination in mind, and just wander aimlessly most of the time. So its more of a question of why it wasn't in its coop and what lazy farmer couldn't be bothered to care for his farm animals, than why it an animal with no cognitive power of its own to speak of crossed any kind of a road.
See, not the least bit funny. There should be an editor level feature that only allows for negative moderation on stories. So then the competition amongst the attention seekers would be to see who could write the most bland, non attempt at any horrible run on jokes/memes comments.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Ushanka.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Its not a Russian OS, its a Russian Distribution...
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
I was hoping Russia's OS would be based on not having files :(
except that it kills journalists, right?
Thank you, I'll be here all week!
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
As is often the case, the key advantage that would flow from the creation of such a "national OS" is the control that it would give the Russian government - something it doesn't have with Windows, say, or even generalised free software produced elsewhere:
Not only is ALT Linux already around, but ASPLinux has been certified by the government. Are we re-inventing the wheel here?
Guys, there is a dozen of Linux distros is Russia. AltLinux is the most known, but there are also ASPLinux, Linux XP and a military classified . All the distro developers and lots of system integrators are in the battle for the state funding right now, so do not expect to know now what will the Russian national OS be tomorrow.
First, I would like to see comments on Slashdot cease referring to "the Reds" as if the USSR was still in existence. Are some Slashdotters actually young enough to have no memory of 1989-1990??? However and that being said, if Russia goes ahead with this project, it would be clever to agitate for a Sputnik-like panic and suggest that America must beat them to the goal of free software, as the thing that will propel humanity into the future.
rm -rf /political_dissidents
THL phish sticks
In quantum chicken physics, the two states are :-
1) About to cross the road
2) Groaning at the awful punchline
The trick is to try and observe the former state, thus collapsing the waveform so that the latter state cannot happen.
I thought Russia didn't need help, weren't invalids and didn't have limited mental capacity
Well at least not until they open that third lunchtime bottle of vodka ...
Now , whatever this OS is based on, that kind of "official" monopoly is NEVER a good idea. A standard is one thing. An *imposed* standard by the government is just too much.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Hey guys, here is my point of view from Russia:
Our national OS should be written in Cyrillic letters. Not a single Latin letter or word should be present in the code.
Certainly there should be a possibility to switch to a Latin keyboard, if necessary, but the OS should be in our letters, in our language.
The US. It's called "Windows".
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Checkbox humour? I'm glad you asked, you know what I mean like:
Slashdot Posting Form
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...
[ ] TFA is a troll
[ ] Get off grass
[ ] Did anyone else read that as...
[ ] _______ ^H^H^H^H^H ________
[x] In soviet russia
[ ] IANAL, but...
Somehow we got on to Quantum Poultridynamics, Chicken entrail entanglement is interesting however, may lead to a method of predicting future.
Seriously, this article is a masterful slashdot troll!
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Agreed, monopoly isn't good but if you are a country that doesn't always see eye to eye with the home nation of the world's most widespread software manufacturer then breaking away to a system that allows to not only view the source code but also compile it from scratch into a distro of your own making is an extremely attractive proposition.
I'm not saying that Windows contains back doors and switches but once you stir DRM into the equation, a tap of a key in a far off country could cripple your economy, military and/or governmental services in the event of a trade war or other stand off. Once you have a national system, you can then use the "we must train school kids to use the software they'll encounter in the real world" excuse that Microsoft has traded off of for so long.
As Microsoft discovered early on, people will mostly use the same software at home that they have at work so there'll probably be a boom in the Linux userbase.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
I see no difference in a standard imposed by the government and a standard imposed by a corporation with a "silent" governmental approbate.
What I mean is not that creating a "national OS" monopoly is a good thing (well, if they keep the source available - you never know - it might be), but rather that we all live in a world where there is an international OS monopoly and most people agree, or at least live silent with it. I don't know if I understood your intention well, but as far as I can see, your comment goes down to saying "It's gonna change into a tool of dictatorship because it's Russia". Well, yes, historically speaking you'll probably right, but how's Russia and it's yet-to-be national OS different from the whole "western world" and Windows? I see no difference at all.
In most countries Microsoft's OS is an "imposed standard" after all. It just might not be that obvious. I live in Poland, and in here basically all schools run Windows, most govt institutions do, and there is even an application you can only run on Windows that is the only way to manage your company's finance with the govt (I don't know the exact terms in english, but it's irrelevant) electronically. This IS an imposed standard. The only difference is that it's imposed by a foreign company, and just approved by the government. I don't know what's worse to be honest.
Heh, on the other hand, it's kinda funny and ironic, that the first governments to start introducing Linux nation-wide are the ones having historically not much to do with all the "Freedom"...
I think one benefit would be not giving money to a foreign company.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.