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Russian government quiet about its move toward Linux

But recently, there has been evidence of Linux use in the Russian government. Earlier this year, Sergei Antimonov, director general of Russian anti-virus company DialogueScience, Inc., said the Russian Ministry of Defense and other government institutions were looking at using "Open Source Unix-like operating systems" and related software in near future. "There are three reasons: security, price and openness," Antimonov says.

Putin may be the stimulus to make Open Source the ubiquitous IT infrastructure in Russia, according to Viacheslav Kaloshin, technical manager, for IP-Tel Company. Kaloshin says Putin is outspoken about his desire to end the country's dependence on Western software production by building up Russian development.

Kaloshin says that's all to do with a perception in the country -- that imports of Western products are killing off domestic ones. "In all aspects of our life," he says, "from medicine to heavy machinery, our manufacturers face strong pressure from Western manufacturers and the president has called to develop Russian, instead of using Western. Many people are afraid Western industry will kill Russian software development completely. But the situation is starting to change.

"The law about software piracy is beginning to work," Kaloshin adds. "Many companies try to legalize all software that they use. Many system administrators after calculating the cost of software from Microsoft start looking at free operating systems." In his view, it's still virtually impossible to use Linux or FreeBSD exclusively on all desktop computers, "but on servers, it is a perfect choice. In government structures the situation is the same -- desktop computers run Windows, but servers on FreeBSD or Linux OSes."

The Ministry of Defense is using MSVS, an acronym for the Russian name which translates as "Armed Forces' Portable System," an operating system approved for use in 1998. According to Vitaly Fedrushkov, a network security specialist with a major Russian company, MSVS is currently based on Linux 2.2 kernels and has a security certification higher than NetWare 5.1 or Windows NT.

Fedrushkov says MSVS is similar to the U.S. National Security Agency's SELinux. A long-time Linux fan and co-founder of the Chelyabinsk Linux User Group, he explains that each ministry used to have its own research facilities and there were competing departments, for example the Ministry of Electronic Industry, and Ministry of Radio Equipment Industry. "The former attended the church of IBM, the latter believed in DEC hardware," he says.

"Nowadays, with benefits of commercial-off-the-shelf-based systems widely accepted," Fedrushkov adds, "the strategy of many competing efforts was canceled. Apart from legacy systems, the primary vendor is chosen in most areas, and all potential government clients merge their financial efforts to sponsor a single project. Both Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Internal Affairs approved MSVS."

The use of MSVS is mandated when the work is of a confidential nature and security is a major concern, as in military applications. For more mundane chores, such as letter-writing, whatever the user prefers may be used.

Asked why Russian Linux distributions ASP or ALT weren't used rather than developing MSVS, he says: "You can ask developers of SELinux as well. Security features of stock Linux kernels and user-space software are insufficient to obtain even a minimal certification."

Svetlana Semavina of ASPLinux says the Linux distribution is introducing itself to some Russian ministries. "Ministries are too big to make decisions fast," she says, "so we can't yet speak about the adoption of ASPLinux or other distribution." She says it's still too early to discuss any results of meetings with ministry officials, other than that those ministries "agreed to test our ASPLinux."

But within the ministries, she explains, some departments such as Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering, and KosmoService, which is developing software for Centers of Satellite Flying Monitoring, are migrating to ASPLinux. "They know that one day they must migrate to MSVS and understand that it is Linux-like OS. We are supporting them with it, it includes consulting, training, porting their applications to ASPLinux. Projects are not yet finalized."