Re: Russia bans purchase of foreign non-niche software in Russian state agencies
Ivan Markin:
Anton Nesterov:
And if you thought that opensource will take place of foreign proprietary software, it's not true. Only in the form of proprietary Russian product using some GPL/etc. codebase in violation of these licenses.
Hmm. Are you sure about violation? As far as I know legal status is still unclear in Russia. So in case of violation there will be no regulation. No regulation no violation. Voilá! Anyway they would just sell super overpriced Uslugi (installation services etc.) and it would look like "this software is purchased" (from "our" company obviously).
GPL doesn't need special regulation, it should work by-design everywhere. Russian civil code even mention free licenses specially (article 1286.1), so there is full legal basis, although I can't remember any cases when that article was used in court (probably there was none). There is semi-opensource GNU/Linux distribution called Astra Linux based on Debian and used by Russian govt that violates GPL by not providing source codes to their KDE3-based DE https://tlhp.cf/astra-linux-violate-gpl/ (funny that Astra Linux was created specially for govt decree about moving state agencies to the free software). There is proprietary OS MSVS based on RedHat used in military which not only violate GPL by not providing source codes, but even removed most of copyright notices. etc., etc. -- https://nesterov.pw GPG key: 0CE8 65F1 9043 2B11 25A5 74A7 1187 6869 67AA 56E4 https://keybase.io/komachi/key.asc
On 11/22/15, Anton Nesterov <komachi@openmailbox.org> wrote:
Ivan Markin:
Anton Nesterov:
And if you thought that opensource will take place of foreign proprietary software, it's not true. Only in the form of proprietary Russian product using some GPL/etc. codebase in violation of these licenses.
Hmm. Are you sure about violation? As far as I know legal status is still unclear in Russia. So in case of violation there will be no regulation. No regulation no violation. Voilá!
We would say "no law making such activity illegal, no violation." This matches Richard Stallman's position that the GPL relies on copyright law, which it does - it is the original hack of copyright law to manifest an idea, an ideal, which idea and ideal I happen to agree with. (Can't immediately find a link, but he has answered this question before, ie "would you get rid of copyright law" - with the answer being "no, because the GPL relies upon it.") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
Anyway they would just sell super overpriced Uslugi (installation services etc.) and it would look like "this software is purchased" (from "our" company obviously).
That is just fine, that's a good thing - resources are being kept in Russia, for Russians. And then the only question is efficiency of government spending, which is an entirely different and solvable problem - for example as long as the government makes transparent its spending, then "installation services of GPL software" would soon enough be seen as lucrative pursuit, and competition would (presumably) arise for said installation (and customization) services, and the costs to government should normalize, that is the costs should normalize around relatively low installation/ customization/ training services, rather than the cost of proprietary software rent-seekers such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. This again will be a very good thing for Russia and for Russians. More countries should follow this lead of Russia - in fact it is in everyone's interest.
GPL doesn't need special regulation, it should work by-design everywhere.
It is easy for me to say this is not true - but the assertion is a 'should' and is too broad. The GPL in fact relies upon law of copyright. Copyright is one form of proprietary monopoly "right" which is artificial, not natural - that is, except for "law" based enforcement, it does not exist naturally. A coal mine is a natural monopoly in the area that it exists, but there are many coal locations, so coal has plenty of competition and transport is cheap, so no actual monopoly. GPL is clever - it uses "artificial (statutory) monopoly right" in a unique way - essentially to apply the minimum number of restrictions on redistribution of e.g. source code, in order to maximise the availability of source code to the whole community, over the long term. That's pretty cool. In the face of statutory monopolies and rent seekers around the world, this is an effective hack to broaded the free libre software source code base. That's a good thing. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2058/1956 "Abstract This paper takes a new look at the debate over commons and property in information and communications. It warns against recreating the old communist–capitalist ideological divide by framing the movement for informational commons as “info–communist.” The spectre of communism haunts the movement because of an unresolved ideological tension in its ethical and philosophical foundations. The case for free software and open information contains both deontological appeals to the virtues of sharing, and consequentialist arguments against the growing intrusiveness of the institutional and technological mechanisms used to enforce exclusivity in the digital economy. The paper argues that the deontological case is a dead end that leads to info–communism. The strongest case for open access and freedom in information and communications is grounded in a liberalism that takes maximizing individual freedom as its objective and relies on creative complementarities between property and commons regimes as means to that end."
Russian civil code even mention free licenses specially (article 1286.1), so there is full legal basis, although I can't remember any cases when that article was used in court (probably there was none).
Perhaps you can spread the word that "overpriced services" is not only OK by the GPL, but encouraged. "Charge as much as you can.": http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/selling.html
There is semi-opensource GNU/Linux distribution called Astra Linux based on Debian and used by Russian govt that violates GPL by not providing source codes to their KDE3-based DE https://tlhp.cf/astra-linux-violate-gpl/ (funny that Astra Linux was created specially for govt decree about moving state agencies to the free software).
It is still so much better than pumping money into proprietary freedom-denying community-compromising software that you might get from Apple and Microsoft.
There is proprietary OS MSVS based on RedHat used in military which not only violate GPL by not providing source codes, but even removed most of copyright notices.
Military probably gets to do what it wants, without much question. BUT, these examples and others, are examples of opportunity to build a little GPL-enforcing community in Russia, perhaps send a letter to the president (currently Putin), or simply to jump on the free libre software bandwagon and make some money - but showing how to do it right, with respect of original authors' intentions as expressed by the respective software licenses. This move by the Russian government is an excellent move, make no doubt. Those Russians who can make money from it, can do so with their heads held high, in dignity and with rightful respect from the rest of the world. Go to it! Service your government and make some clean money!! You have the blessings of the large global free libre software community, the Free Software Foundation, etc. Regards, Zenaan
On 11/22/15, Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:
Go to it! Service your government and make some clean money!!
Government ~~ "clean money" - what are you smoking? If Russian government's anything like the Americunts, your assertion is baseless. Cite or STFU! (Just thought I'd answer myself before Juan jumped in :) Zenaan
Zenaan Harkness:
Ivan Markin:
Anyway they would just sell super overpriced Uslugi (installation services etc.) and it would look like "this software is purchased" (from "our" company obviously).
That is just fine, that's a good thing - resources are being kept in Russia, for Russians. And then the only question is efficiency of government spending, which is an entirely different and solvable problem - for example as long as the government makes transparent its spending, then "installation services of GPL software" would soon enough be seen as lucrative pursuit, and competition would (presumably) arise for said installation (and customization) services, and the costs to government should normalize, that is the costs should normalize around relatively low installation/ customization/ training services, rather than the cost of proprietary software rent-seekers such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. This again will be a very good thing for Russia and for Russians. More countries should follow this lead of Russia - in fact it is in everyone's interest.
Well currently Russia has many problems with transparent spending. Even if tenders are public, it's still problematic to cancel clearly corrupt tenders. They often build it in such way that only one affiliated company can participate, like "company should had at least N workers, with N workers with Z certificates" and so on. So the idea of moving to free software is awesome (when the idea of ban foreign software is not), but realization would be flawed because of how Russia works.
Perhaps you can spread the word that "overpriced services" is not only OK by the GPL, but encouraged. "Charge as much as you can.": http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/selling.html
It is still so much better than pumping money into proprietary freedom-denying community-compromising software that you might get from Apple and Microsoft. But it's a proprietary freedom-denying community-compromising software
Yes, I know, and I don't think there is any problems with providing services for money. By "overpriced services" Ivan means kickbacks, it's not special for software. that you get from Astra Linux that clearly violates GPL, I don't think it's any better. If they fix that problem and opensource everything, that would be awesome, but now it's bad.
There is proprietary OS MSVS based on RedHat used in military which not only violate GPL by not providing source codes, but even removed most of copyright notices.
Military probably gets to do what it wants, without much question.
It's not only military actually. Government company VNIINS just removed all copyrights from RedHat, added some functionality and now sells it to authorities, mostly military, but it's also used by drug police and others.
BUT, these examples and others, are examples of opportunity to build a little GPL-enforcing community in Russia, perhaps send a letter to the president (currently Putin), or simply to jump on the free libre software bandwagon and make some money - but showing how to do it right, with respect of original authors' intentions as expressed by the respective software licenses.
There was a govt decree about moving to free software, but it mostly failed. For example, all schools was forced to install ALT Linux in 2007, if I remember correctly. They did, but it was installed in dualboot with Windows and used only to show inspectors that well, here is your Linux, we're in compliance (initially there was no accepted by Ministry of Education books, only courses for teachers, but even that was almost stopped when Putin came back, so that result was obvious). Money was spend, but with no actual results. So Russia tried to jump on the free libre software bandwagon for years with little or no success. But also there was some successful migrations to free software, for example, all clinics in Moscow moved to ALT Linux. There was no need of ban of foreign software for it, they just did it. That how it should be, but it's more like exception than a rule, and it's really hard to make all Russia work that way.
This move by the Russian government is an excellent move, make no doubt. Those Russians who can make money from it, can do so with their heads held high, in dignity and with rightful respect from the rest of the world. Go to it! Service your government and make some clean money!! You have the blessings of the large global free libre software community, the Free Software Foundation, etc.
The problem is not in Russian companies making money on free software, but doing this in corrupt way and with GPL violations. If they can do it without that, this would be good. -- https://nesterov.pw GPG key: 0CE8 65F1 9043 2B11 25A5 74A7 1187 6869 67AA 56E4 https://keybase.io/komachi/key.asc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/22/2015 12:44 PM, Anton Nesterov wrote: [... ]
Well currently Russia has many problems with transparent spending. Even if tenders are public, it's still problematic to cancel clearly corrupt tenders. They often build it in such way that only one affiliated company can participate, like "company should had at least N workers, with N workers with Z certificates" and so on.
That's the way both military and commercial contracting usually works in the U.S. as well: The vendor makes a deal with the purchasing agent, x units for y dollars, informally and off the record. Then the purchasing agent revises the specification so that only the vendor in question can qualify. The competitive bidding process then proceeds normally, on the record, and as far as the audit trail is concerned it's all perfectly legal. The kickbacks are laundered in various ways; the most popular method for military purchasing agents is for the vendors to hire them as consultants when they leave the service, with extraordinary pay and bonuses for little to no work performed. Lots of other scams are also used, but the system described above is probably the most widely used. :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJWUjDlAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0LrkAP/14FfyKSrnoFIlpHo2LT1A9n AgzoXJBYeXE8Zu5/j1sGOuyVWZyHymdQxIz17m+C3njEuF8ZX+iznzwXk4PTfn/q Lt+TFk7rgRkTLLOaJ7PkTTqCb+33ndnWCWGmBONGqQEj/s9Q5+qABJbpdC1HdVXX BgRZ9N+Hx7ldzF3/gPD7BP6MXTKC1LnnUqmPrGz91WH8OG1qPbS9KRy/tII+zt5P nEqMnk+tUjzhocyXQRbT+MTrd5Z3i9dK7F5fpVgsbxUZzKAN3sNM2GCbw0H89cmj KGeyCPKcPRTPoH2Y2nDxPfN2TlSfX1uTWDXta7/rBWG7HOzH84hJbJR5VI4iTiUr mBNzHxHLlskXpzd9Sp3TffTX5BYcwk6R4iKzSmBeuRDvM5ueGQmzEIOBlcq0243o xAXFjs1lfMrFVgDdjemk6IIEKOWyWNzq7MJWzcDVyZGoSDl0SdUhLz4uazlmdKsM oW4vdk0pmvaoiZ/XzqFups4r1EBXlnast+mHG7dQ9ssCQGPaTch5l0EsOFOsTyWD Sr8skecyIVSN8ULBd/vasVujRG+un8jJ0YNEudnwJO1+7YQDdz7DLleeYc5dP6XC LijHAHcDqAI5X9LKaFj5gEoZszbiCHbsSgpWdZtHO0c+JTv27gX+9tfG4SX5PLhg mjT9lV1TV8UbeYZIxUj8 =tlAl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sun, 22 Nov 2015 16:17:28 -0500 Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On 11/22/2015 12:44 PM, Anton Nesterov wrote:
[... ]
Well currently Russia has many problems with transparent spending. Even if tenders are public, it's still problematic to cancel clearly corrupt tenders. They often build it in such way that only one affiliated company can participate, like "company should had at least N workers, with N workers with Z certificates" and so on.
That's the way both military and commercial contracting usually works in the U.S. as well:
That is terrorist talk and won't do us any good. There's no corruption in the liberal democracies. How could the people, who are in charge, cheat themselves? That's absurd.
The vendor makes a deal with the purchasing agent, x units for y dollars, informally and off the record. Then the purchasing agent revises the specification so that only the vendor in question can qualify. The competitive bidding process then proceeds normally, on the record, and as far as the audit trail is concerned it's all perfectly legal.
The kickbacks are laundered in various ways; the most popular method for military purchasing agents is for the vendors to hire them as consultants when they leave the service, with extraordinary pay and bonuses for little to no work performed.
Lots of other scams are also used, but the system described above is probably the most widely used.
:o)
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On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:
That's the way both military and commercial contracting usually works in the U.S. as well: The kickbacks are laundered in various ways; extraordinary pay and bonuses for little to no work performed. Lots of other scams are also used, but the system described above is probably the most widely used.
Just another reason for more leakers and leaks. If people of the world, especially the US, we're truly informed and aware of the waste of their taxes and why they're poor, they'd revolt. Even more shameful because other than the backroom bullshit, the numbers are publicly in their face. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=united+states+budget http://visual.ly/death-and-taxes-2015 s/usa/country_of_choice/
participants (5)
-
Anton Nesterov -
grarpamp -
juan -
Steve Kinney -
Zenaan Harkness