23 February 2009

Medvedev Confirms Free Software Support

Here's confirmation from the top that Russia is pushing ahead with its plans for introducing free software not just into its schools, but the entire domestic market:

Президент РФ так обозначил свою позицию по свободному ПО: «Ещё одна тема — это информационные технологии в социальной сфере. Сейчас нужно начинать массовое обучение школьных учителей новым технологиям. Мы, собственно, пытались это делать в рамках национального проекта. Наверное, кое-что удалось, но пока это только самое начало. Надо подумать и о том, чтобы двинуться дальше — к использованию отечественного свободного программного обеспечения. Я этой темой занимался, результаты у нас есть, мы подготовили уже свои программы, которые позволяют создать, по сути, продукт абсолютно качественный, на основе свободного программного обеспечения, но привязанный уже к нашим реалиям».


[via Google Translate: President of the Russian Federation as outlined its position on free software: «Another issue - this is information technology in the social sphere. We actually tried to do so as part of a national project. Probably something that succeeded, but for now this is just the beginning. We must consider that the next move - to the domestic free software. I dealt with this topic, the results we have, we have already prepared their programs, which allow to create, in essence, a product is qualitative, based on free software, but is already tied to our realities ».]

This is also worth noting:

Стоит также напомнить: недавно появлялось сообщение о том, что бюджет, выделенный в 2009 году для оснащения российских школ свободным ПО, оказался примерно втрое меньше ожидаемого (180-250 млн рублей против предполагаемых 650 млн).

[It is also worth recalling: appeared recently reported that the budget allocated in 2009 to equip Russian schools free software, was approximately three times less than expected (180-250 million rubles against the anticipated 650 million).]

What that means in practice is that there is less money, and so more incentive to use free software. But the bigger news is that Medvedev has confirmed the wider roll-out to the general domestic Russian market.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just in case you're interested, I can give a closer translation:

1st part
The President of the Russian Federation outlined his position on free software as follows: «Another topic is information technology in the social sphere. Now we have to start some massive training in new technologies for our school teachers. We actually tried to do this as a part of a national project. Probably some things were successful, but for now it is just the beginning. We must consider the next move, too - to the use of domestic free software. I dealt with this topic, we have some results, we have already prepared our own programmes that allow creating, in essence, a quality product based on free software, but tied to our realities instead.»

2nd part:
Also worth recalling: it was recently reported that the budget allocated in 2009 to equip Russian schools with free software was approximately three times less than expected (180-250 million rubles against the anticipated 650 million).

Glyn Moody said...

Many thanks for that. I quote Google Translate even though it's very bumpy because at least it's neutral: I don't introduce *my* misunderstandings into the text.