Vladimir Putin Is Replacing Microsoft Programs With Domestic Software (bloomberg.com) 277
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Moscow city will replace Microsoft Corp. programs with domestic software on thousands of computers in answer to President Vladimir Putin's call for Russia's authorities to reduce dependence on foreign technology amid tensions with the U.S. and Europe. The city will initially replace Microsoft's Exchange Server and Outlook on 6,000 computers with an e-mail system installed by state-run carrier Rostelecom PJSC, Artem Yermolaev, head of information technology for Moscow, told reporters Tuesday. Moscow may expand deployment of the new software, developed by Russia's New Cloud Technologies, to as many as 600,000 computers and servers, and may also consider replacing Windows and Office, Yermolaev said. Putin is urging state entities and local companies to go domestic amid concerns over security and reliability after U.S. firms shut down paid services in Crimea following Russia's 2014 annexation. The plan poses a challenge to the likes of Microsoft, SAP SE and Oracle Corp. in the country's $3 billion software market. Adding to pressure, Putin's internet czar German Klimenko wants to raise taxes on U.S. technology companies to help Russian competitors such as Yandex NV and Mail.ru Group Ltd.
How a tyrant & dictator (Score:2, Interesting)
can unintentionally do the right things: kick Microsoft's, SAP's et al.'s ass.
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Replying to myself, alas. I see that the trolls and AC Putin/Trump supporters have taken over this thread. This is most unfortunate and wholly unintended.
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can unintentionally do the right things: kick Microsoft's, SAP's et al.'s ass.
...and after defeating the nefarious Microsoft, SAP's, et al's. the tyrant and dictator would never replace them with software riddled with security loopholes and backdoors they could exploit, right?
I know it's cool to hate big software companies, but at the very least they have better history of trying to maintain security and privacy than Russia of all places. Be careful who you you side with in this crusade.
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I don't believe the issue is black or white.
Agreed. Nothing is black and white when global business, security, and international politics collide. My comment above was only to provide an alternative view and hopefully provoke more thought than OP's one-sided statement.
Next: ReactOS replacing Windows (Score:3)
can unintentionally do the right things: kick Microsoft's, SAP's et al.'s ass.
While it's a good first step, Russia should do the world a service on the OS front by backing efforts to make ReactOS a full fledged OS. Have 2 flavors - a win64 version that's fully compatible w/ Windows 7, and a win32 version that's fully compatible w/ XP. Make sure that Classic Shell runs on it, or better still, make it a part of the shell so that people can pick whichever UI they wanna work in.
Re:How a tyrant & dictator (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How a tyrant & dictator (Score:4, Insightful)
Meh. The likes of Schultz, Druncker and Verhofstad only dream of being Putin, and may strive to achieve some of the particular aspects of Putin's rule. Putin actually is Putin.
How the hell did this get modded 'Insightful'? Martin Schulz is a social democrat while Guy Verhofstadt and Jean-Claude Juncker are centre-right. Not exactly the kind of people who spend their days pining for an opportunity to crawl up Vlad Putin's ass. in Europe, an opportunity to crawl up Putin's ass is the wet dream of right wing xenophobes with either borderline or openly Fascist tendencies like Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, Viktor Orbán, Frauke Petry and their ilk.
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Re:How a tyrant & dictator (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Go criticize EU governments by starting a political party. Gee, no problems doing that. Now try the same in Putin's Russia. The ghost of Stalin is alive in Putin.
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Re:How a tyrant & dictator (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually not true.
Putin has said that he likes Trump.
He didn't say, but it has been implied by experts that it is because Putin thinks that Trump is a foreign state moron that he can control much easier than Clinton.
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I am sure that Putin likes Trump for his American dollars...
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I don't 'know' what Putin is thinking, but I am also not wearing a tinfoil hat, and I am also thinking that American voters in general aren't stupid, and I think that Putin knows that, too.
And, as I think myself that Trump is a moron, also in foreign policy, and that Putin would think it is better for him to have Trump in the hot seat than Clinton, I believe it to be true.
Out of curiosity, why do you say Trump and Hillary? Would it be the same to you to say Donald and Clinton?
Re: How a tyrant & dictator (Score:2)
Chinese/Muslim preferences (Score:3)
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I could see Russia, but why would China, Iran or any Islamic entity want Trump to win?
Because they don't like Hillary? She was always the war hawkiest of Obama's cabinet. Trump has yet to show any diplomatic competency, and his fans just lap up his nonsense that he's "the best" with no proof.
China would stand to lose big if they can no longer sell to the US
China has the US's balls in a vice, not selling to the US will hurt China, but it will hurt the US far FAR more.
if Trump follows through on his extreme vetting moves to stop hostile Muslims from coming into the US, ISIS and AQ have no reason to rejoice either.
ISIS's and al Queda's motivations are not difficult to figure out; they've been pretty honest in what they want: to drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims. They dislike "moderate Muslims
So in Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Funny)
...domestic software replaces YOU, mr. Nadella ?!?
This will cost Microsoft a fortune (Score:5, Funny)
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Is there another one?
(Seriously, it's an Office 2000 licence number, I typed it so often, I still remember it...)
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good old days when no one called home
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Re:This will cost Microsoft a fortune (Score:5, Funny)
Well, due to a mishap in bureaucracy, accidentally two different offices ordered a license. The responsible official has been relocated to Sibiria for extended education.
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Please, that was the barbaric times of the Stalinist era we left behind us. Today we are a modern society where we reeducate people instead of just punishing them.
Admittedly, sometimes reeducation takes 25 years, especially when we're short on workers in Sibiria.
They'll come crawling back (Score:5, Funny)
Once the average Russian gets tired of their homegrown software crapping out on them they'll be begging for their Windows 98 workstations back.
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Re:They'll come crawling back (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They'll come crawling back (Score:4, Funny)
Only in the Russian Reversal. In the free world, Windows 10 IS the gulag.
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In soviet Russia Windows 10 controls You!
Wait why does that not make sense even though it sounds right?
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Re:They'll come crawling back (Score:5, Informative)
This has happened many times in many countries. The problem is, they didn't choose Linux because it is superior to Windows, they chose it only because Linux is not a product of an American company.
There certainly are many good reasons to dislike the U.S. and American companies, but, business decisions made out of spite rarely work out well.
Come back when you have any evidence for your claim that the Linux migrations didn't work out well. The millions of dollars that Munich and France and Brazil boast about saving means there's a pretty heft burden of proof.
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This has happened many times in many countries. The problem is, they didn't choose Linux because it is superior to Windows, they chose it only because Linux is not a product of an American company.
There certainly are many good reasons to dislike the U.S. and American companies, but, business decisions made out of spite rarely work out well.
Come back when you have evidence for your claim that "they didn't choose Linux because it is superior to Windows, they chose it only because Linux is not a product of an American company".
In many cases the decision to switch to FOSS was made on general philosophical grounds. Since as much as possible about the process of government should be transparent, the software used by government should also be available for the citizen to inspect and study - should she wish to do so.
There were also other general cons
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I can name one stock exchange that tried to run on Windows [computerworld.com] and regretted it. (Now happily running on Linux.)
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So, we have a blanket statement about the situation in many foreign countries, unaccompanied by any citations or sources, and posted by an AC.
Well, I'm convinced.
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There were other OSes in the early 1980's. Some as good or better than MS-DOS. (You also have to remember how shockingly primitive hardware was back then.)
But MS-DOS was the big one, because it was like PC-DOS on genuine IBM PCs.
So Microsoft's deal with
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Re: They'll come crawling back (Score:2)
Come on baby (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Come on baby (Score:5, Funny)
Let it be called KremLinux and all is forgiven!
KremLinux is for losers. I'm going with KGBSD.
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Moderate parent +5 Funny!
Wish I still had my moderator points...LMAO.
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Let it be called KremLinux and all is forgiven!
KremLinux is for losers. I'm going with KGBSD.
So let me get this straight ... In Putin's Russia, is it KremLinux or KGBSD that watches YOU? ... or is it both? ... I'm confused now ...
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Suprise (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't be too suprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Now Putin may be wary that Microsoft gives preferential treatment to the NSA (since we know they worked closely with them before thanks to Snowden) etc. or he may just be doing this for domestic consumption (he appears to do alot of this) since their economy is in a tailspin.
Let me foresee what will happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me foresee what will happen... Putin will replace Microsoft programs with ripped off open-source software with minor UI and major back-doors updates;
Then, with great patriotic pride, will pronounce the motherland's major step towards cleansing itself from western spying and corruption.
Re:Let me foresee what will happen... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Let me foresee what will happen... (Score:5, Informative)
It may surprise you to know that the Russians can and do write their own original software, some of it quite good. It's actually quite common, because even today support for non-Latin languages in western software can be quite poor. Japan and China also produce their own high quality office software and input translation utilities (for entering their languages using slightly modified QWERTY keyboards).
Re:Let me foresee what will happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that a good part of the software sold by western companies is written by russian programmers. Seriously I am ashamed to be part of the tech community, because of the incredible stupidity and ignorance so-called "intelligent people" on forums like this show everytime in relation to Russia. And it is no surprise a lot of them live in "brainwashed" America.
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I interpreted the original post as claiming Russia will slap a new facade on OSS and claim they "made it" without giving OSS credit. It may not be a dig against Russian programmers, but against Russian politicians who lie, or perhaps politicians in general, who, as we all well know in the USA, often take credit for what's not theirs and blame others for what is theirs. It's not just a Russian thing.
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FTFY.
Of course, most of them don't know it's there...
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Who knows... maybe they already have all the Microsoft source code.
There are state sponsored hackers, right?
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A country level agreement is often met with a request to provide source code for "their safety". CHina demands it when they purchase Citrix Licensing, Russia can demand it when they use it for government purposes. I doubt they would need to hack MS to get their code made available. enough zeros in the order price is more than enough to get what you want. This change besides being a thumbing of the nose to MS also supports alternatives which boost their local economy. This is a move to hurt the US financial
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So, in Russia, software spies on YOU?
Uh... where exactly is the reversal?
Allowed by GPL (Score:2)
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And what exactly is the problem with that? Any sane and competent national government will want to run their operations with software that they fully control, and that has backdoors that only they have the key to.
Of course, you can argue that any backdoors are dangerous because the wrong people could learn about them and exploit them, but we're talking about replacing Microsoft software here: that stuff is already known to have backdoors. Substituting software that you've audited to not have backdoors, an
Took them long to start building something of for (Score:5, Interesting)
themselves,
Would you feel comfortable if the White House, Wallstreet, DOD, DOJ, Police, Universities and Congress ran a complete Chinese software stack? Chinese routers, OS, Firewalls, Office, Mail, antivirus, etc etc.?
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What if they ran on a set of hardware manufactured in China? That would be even worse!
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For the slow of understanding: Irony Alert.
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From a hardware perspective (which can easily hide/mask mal intent) almost all of the hardware we purchase is difficult to trust. Add in the firmware added by the NSA for things like phones etc, and the saying only trust a source if you see the code. The same applies for hardware. I wish we could have open source hardware in more abundance.
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In the U.S., the software is the *ONLY* thing not made in China.
That's because it is made in India.
Investing in your country (Score:2)
Understanding the Vulnerabilities (Score:3)
It makes perfect sense to remove the same systems you target in other countries from your own server farms and run proprietary systems that are less widely known and understood.
What took him so long? (Score:2)
Absolute common sense (Score:4, Insightful)
All countries should do this. Use open standards to exchange information with other countries/businesses and develop their own software. Having local operating systems/programs helps expand local computing knowledge and lessens the likelihood of data theft via back doors etc.
As an added benefit people would be forced to start exchanging data in open formats or their partners/customers simply won't be able to read the data.
I's a healthy idea.
The perks of being a Russian dictator (Score:2)
Hello, my name is Vladimir Putin. You may have seen my face, usually on the evening news, but not to worry; most of what you hear is true. Especially from that Snowden. I was shocked when I found out that your government does a lot of --how you say it, "dirty work" or "dirty laundry"? -- without asking for any of our help in these matters; your government firmly believes they are experts in these matters. Personally I have this to say: In Soviet Russia, Snowden is welcome to stay and ski. And here in Soviet
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Ternary computing too? (Score:2)
Never heard of free software? (Score:2)
Why not invade Redmond? (Score:2)
Why not invade Redmond? It seems customary practice in Russia to take what you want by force.
I'm sure some jerk could argue that Alaska was once Russian. That Washington isn't hat far away from Alaska. That Russia never sold Washington to the US. And that therefore...
What a bunch of idiots. Regardless of the technology (I don't particularly like MS') you should know that coming up with an operating system, a desktop and usable applications is not an easy task. What's the Russian version be like? A ripo
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>> you should know that coming up with an operating system, a desktop and usable applications is not an easy task.
Thats why you just know they will be using Linux.
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Because there's nothing in Redmond that the Russians want?
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Regardless of the technology (I don't particularly like MS') you should know that coming up with an operating system, a desktop and usable applications is not an easy task.
I find it very, very easy. I just go to linuxmint.com and look for the "download" link. Installing takes about 20 minutes tops. Much simpler, faster, and easier than messing with Windows. Updating my work computer to Win10 (not my choice) took ages.
What's the Russian version be like?
Probably some Linux distro with a new theme? What's
Suggested name: Putinux (Score:2)
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Vladimix (Score:2)
The Russian government should develop their own distro and should call Vladimix.
Joke aside, it makes sense that that Russian government would want to, and should, switch away from Microsoft Windows; ensuring one's data security is important.
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I heard Putin wanted to call it Red Star OS but that's already been taken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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russian programmers (Score:2)
To be fair, in my 30 coding career, some of the top programmers I've ever studied and worked with were Russian. Their skill was just vastly, disproportionately better than any other peers and colleagues. No idea why. I'd actually look forward to Russian made software! Except for all the pesky back doors.
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the USA should try to do the same! (Score:2)
....oh..wait...darn...they are in...Redmond, WA!
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First link (2007): Announcement of Linux to be installed in every Russian school.
Second link (Jan 2009): Russian gov't working on an official OS for the whole country.
Fifth link (May 2009): The proposal for the national OS is temporarily shelved due to lack of support from the legislative branch.
Fourth link (Nov 2009): A follow-up to the first link, where the
Re:Trans-Pacific Partnership will hurt them then a (Score:5, Funny)
So the end of the communism did not end the shortage of toilet paper?
For our non-Soviet friends: TP was in notorious short supply during the final days of the communist rule, which led to a lot of amusing anecdotes and jokes like:
Party Speaker: Comrades! In 5 years, everyone will have a car! ... the toilet paper?
Listener: And when are we going to get toilet paper?
PS: And comrades! In 10 years, everyone will have his own little house!
L: But
PS (outraged): KISS MY ASS! (literally: lick me in the asshole)
L: As usual. For themselves, the party has a solution, but for us...
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I thought most other nations used WIPO [wipo.int]*.
* World Imaginary Property Organization
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The Russians have some excellent programmers, but they both work on malware for the mafia.
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