Russia is set to go with open source and reducing its dependencies on proprietary software vendors including Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. The new development emerged in the midst of some political tensions with the US.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, is drafting a bill to add restrict purchase of licensed software by government agencies. This comes following the recent announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin to push state firms to prefer domestic services.
Andrey Chernogorov, executive secretary of the Duma’s commission on strategic information systems, confirmed the decision of opting open source software. He told the news agency that the Putin government was seeking to close the loophole of purchasing software from the US as it results in some security risks.
The emergence of favoring open source solutions comes through the ongoing tensions between Russia and the US. The two-country partnership recently deteriorated as Putin decreed on the US Army’s treatment with Syria. However, all this would give Russian developers a chance to design new community-backed software.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time when Russia selected the open source way. In 2015, The Russian telecom ministry announced a plan to replace the present proprietary solutions with open source deployments. Russian vendor Lanit also ended its tie-up with IBM just last year.
Russian innovations
In fact, Russia is a big name in the world of open source solutions. Offerings like Nginx are the gift of the Russian land to the entire world. Moreover, developments including ReactOS and Yadex Maps were deeply tested by Russians.
[…] but open source is influencing governments and authorities all across the globe. Last month, Russia showed its favour for open source software by reducing its dependencies on US software vendors like Oracle, Microsoft […]