Russia bans purchase of foreign non-niche software in Russian state agencies

[Zenaan Harkness]

On 11/23/15, Tomas Overdrive Petru <tpetru at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21.11.15 10:55, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
>> Another article on the same topic. Although I like the phrase
>> "complete sovereignty of information" I think it is vague - seems they
>> mean "Russian government sovereignty over all domestic information
>> processing" or something, which of course will have positive flow on
>> effects, at least in the medium to longer term, for the domestic
>> Russian software industry. Way to go Russia! More countries should act
>> in such a protectionist way. What's the point of a country if it
>> doesn't look after its own citizens and national interests?
> This happened once in Czech Republic, too. Totalitarian government
> banned all electronic software and books from "capitalistic" countries.
> It ended with Czech republic 20y after mainstream industry and science
> before revolution.
> Of course it given totalitarian government another reason why and what
> for punish its citizens.
> Who was smart and courageous tried to emigrate therefore country lost
> most of good scientists, too.
> So much for interests of your own citizens.
> BTW at that time it was invention of Soviets same way.

Banning rights (eg to purchase particular software) of private
citizens is perhaps not the smartest thing for any government to do,
soviet/ communist or otherwise - the heavy hand (always?) produces
problems.

I agree there are many typical (and actual) problems of government. It
is good to separate different problems in our minds, so we can attack
(if we have will) the problems properly, and so maximise the benefits
to ourselves and to our country.

That is: it is right for a government to spend the peoples' money
(taxes) only on software which the people will thereafter have an
indefinite right to use (libre software, even if 'improperly' sold
with deception of license). And it is right for a government to
maximise the spending of its peoples' money on software which is
developed and or serviced in any way by the people of that country -
maximise internal velocity of the country's wealth. This is economic
rationalism at national level.

This is the softer hand - encouragement by the carrot of money.

Transparency problems? "Hidden single vendor" problems? Other
problems? These problems will happen for foreign proprietary software
as well... they are separate problems. Solve each problem, but don't
stop your government from promoting something good with government
contracts/ government spending, just because there are additional
problems to solve. It might sound funny, but Russia is not Czech, and
Putin is not that stupid. This particular policy of Russian government
does not decrease individual/ private rights like the heavy handed
Czech republic example you give, and this Russian policy correctly
tries to improve on government spending of Russian taxes - it is a
correct approach, within the boundary of existing Russian government.

---
Perhaps find a talented young teenager who likes creative graphics
software and designs a desktop skin for e.g. Debian GNU/Linux, and
help it to become popular, make a hero of this young designer, because
people like heroes. Probably needs to look like Windows XP :)  (so
that people are at least partly familiar with it), or perhaps Mac.
When I install Debian for people, I usually install XFCE desktop with
full top menu bar and Cairo Dock, libre office, tor browser/ firefox,
chromium and VLC. This covers most needs of most people - advanced
users have to help themselves a bit more, but less advanced users only
need nice and relatively simple GUI, which XFCE+CairoDock provides.

Perhaps provide this type of setup as a services company to government
departments - start with municipal or smaller level, and build your
company up from there. Provide some "mandatory training" to
council/govt staff, employ local computer geeks (perhaps yourself to
start) - make snazzy PDF brochure. Franchise/ expand to other areas in
your city, then other cities. Keep respectful public profile on
important mailing lists so you can solve your client problems quickly.
Promote the employment that you have created.

There are many opportunities. Russian government just made it a little
easier to take advantage of some opportunities at the same time as
building your company on free libre software. This is a very good
thing. A door has been opened. Walk through it.

Regards,
Zenaan