No Russian Operating System, At Least For Now

Elektroschock writes "The project by 27 Russian parties to develop a National Operating System for Russia has not taken off, yet (Russian). Ilya Ponomarev, the responsible technology committee chair in the Duma, received a negative response from the government. The government argues that the project and Open Standards would not impact the society and economy. Parliament members regret the setback for Russia's digital independence. Ponomarev wants to find other interested partners in the Government now." The Google translation makes it tough to tell whether this project is actually dead, or just shelved for the moment. Any Russian speakers out there who can parse it with greater clarity?

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Innovation comes from the Individual, not Gov't

[reporter]

Seriously speaking, innovation comes from the individual, not the government. Take the case of Japan, which was once touted as the best example of government intervention. The Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) set industrial policy that nudged Japan into the electronics industry but, importantly, stopped short of specifying the design of specific products. The transistor radio came from Sony engineers, not MITI bureaucrats. The DRAM chips came from NEC engineers, not MITI bureacrats. MITI provided the environment for fostering creativity, but individual engineers produced the creativity and the products.

The Kremlin is wrong to think that the government can pick a winning operating system (OS) and then guide its develop.

The best thing that the Kremlin can do is the following.

1. Enforce intellectual property rights.
2. Allow freedom of expression (an important part of human rights), thus fostering creativity. Freedom of culture expression (e. g., criticism of government) is just as important as freedom of scientific expression. Both types of expression are part of the same human mind. Scientists -- like Andrei Sakharov -- have been some of the strongest advocates of democracy and human rights. If you suppress one form of expression, then you will damage the other form.
3. Eliminate corruption and legal nihilism.
4. Heavily fund research projects at Russian universities. Japan's MITI did not heavily fund univerisites and but did heavily fund research consortiums or national research projects, both being staffed by employees from Japanese companies. MITI also steered low-interest loans (from key banks) toward Japanese companies doing research and development of various key technologies. This Japanese approach had the same effect as heavily funding universities.
5. Protect Western culture by, for example, strictly regulating immigration. (Japan has strict immigration policies.)

In short, create a liberal Western society and a truly free market. Within this environment, Russian engineers will, for reasons of greed or personal achievement, create the best OS that meets the needs of Russian society. If the Japanese can achieve such technological success, I am certain that the Russians can do the same.