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Putin to put Russian government on Linux by 2015

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 6 comments
Computerworld; By Grant Gross 		Mail this story
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin [cq] has ordered government agencies there to open-source software by 2015, according to translated documents. Putin's order, signed this month, follows news reports from October saying the Russian government was planning to drop Microsoft products in favor of a national open-source operating system based on Linux.

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Comments (6)

helios ·
How long will it be until we get a news story that Microsoft drastically reduced their licensing costs for the Russian gubment and Putin decides he can live with the price, thus avoiding the major disruption of a system change-over?
Bob_Robertson ·
How long did it take for Peter Quinn to get accused of misconduct once he recommended ODF?
gus3 ·
Putin really, really doesn't like Microsoft right now, since they gave the Russian NGO's and human rights groups a blanket license a few months ago. The Russian secret police had been using software piracy as an excuse to harass these groups and raid their offices, and Microsoft took that away.
hkwint ·
Non-western governments don't pay over a few cents per license anyway, as far as I know, so giving a discount would make no difference.

I think the migration of Russian post and lots of schools were successful, and the Russian government might do a better job at localization than MS currently does.
penguinist ·
helios wrote:Putin decides he can live with the price


I doubt that Putin's decision is based on price. My guess is that it is based on the Russian government's need/desire for verifiable security. An open peer-reviewed OS like Linux is probably viewed as the preferred security alternative.
jdixon ·
> How long will it be until we get a news story...

You're assuming Microsoft hasn't learned anything, Ken. I have no doubt the deal is in the works, but I doubt we'll hear anything about it.

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