Russia Dumps Linux for Windows

There are many speculations in the Internet about the implementation of Linux-based operating systems and free open source software in general on national level. Which countries and projects are usually named? RedHat in Pentagon? Mandriva school project in Brazil? Government projects in Russia and China? They are at the top of the list, aren’t they?

I, as Russian by passport and by nature, laugh at these declarations from the people who have never been in Russia.

Yes, there are some movements in Russia about implementation of FOSS. To be precise, they were. RIP! Let me explain.

Russian government declared the necessity of so-called "National Software Platform" (NSP) few years ago. The realisation of the project went to the Ministry of Telecommunications, at some point headed by Mr.Leonid Reiman. I wrote about this person and his impact on Linux community in my other article. The Government even announced a tender between the teams of developers for the Operating System prototype.

Few years have gone away. Finally, in February 2012, the winner of the tender was announced.

The winner of the tender was the company PingWin Software, owned by… Leonid Reiman. What was the distribution they offered? It was… face-lifted Mandriva! Yes, you read it right. The prototype of Russian National Software Platform, due to be used in Russian state-owned organisations and in schools, was French! At the same time, Russian teams like ALT Linux or RBK-Soft (currently Armada), were left outside. Is it just a coincidence that the investment fund NGI, which manages the money of Mr.Reinman, partially owns Mandriva too?

That was actually only half of the trouble. The fate of Russian Government, including the Ministry of Defence, could be given to foreign (French) developers. But, at least, that could be an open-source product based on open source principles.

Things actually got worse since February 2012. Many changes happened in Russian politics since that time. The most famous of them was a castling between the President and Prime Minister. Ex-president Medvedev is now a Prime Minister, and ex-President ex-Prime Minister Putin is now a President again.

Mr.Medvedev made significant changes in the Cabinet. One of the most notable was the appointment of 29-year old Nikolay Nikiforov as a new Minister of Telecommunications.

Less than a month after the appointment of the new Minister, the curator of the National Software Platform Ilya Massukh resigned. This is how he explained his resignation: Mr.Nikiforov thinks that National Software Platform is futile and has no future. Instead, Mr.Nikiforov suggests getting proper discounts for… Microsoft software! As first steps in this process, Mr.Nikiforov has already taken part in talks with Microsoft representatives during the Saint-Petersburg Economic Forum in early June.

Mr.Nikiforov himself refused to comment the situation, except for the phrase in his Twitter feed: "We must understand how we spent and will spend taxpayers’ money for the NSP project".

But is this is just a smoke without a fire? I am afraid, not.

Why does Mr.Nikiforov like Microsoft so much? The possible reason is that this is not his first acquaintance with this company. He has his photo published on the Microsoft site in one of the press-releases. Nikolay Nikiforov helped to translate Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2010 to Tatar language while being regional Minister of Telecommunications in the Russian region of Tatarstan. Old roots are growing bigger, obviously.

So, the idea of Russian National Software Platform was made a joke by Russian ministers. First, they turned from Russian developers to French ones. And finally, the whole idea of using of open-source software is likely to be dumped. Rest in peace, "National Software Platform"!

Will anyone now be brave enough to list Russia among the "countries who dropped Windows"?

To read more: Ilya Massukh about the NSP in his own blog.