Free software (ACT) in the Russian public sector

"This article is devoted to the topic of the use of the ACT in the state authorities of Russia. The use of free software in other industries, including education, is discussed in article Free Software in Russia. "

Regulation of software in the public sector

Main article: Regulation of software in the public sector

Why introduce free software in the public sector

RPO President Yulia Ovchinnikova described the advantages of introducing free software in the public sector (June 2012):

• Open source software will provide technological independence, and this is of paramount importance for the JBG and security agencies. The customer is independent of the solution vendor as the software is delivered with source code, assembly system and complete documentation.

• ensure economic efficiency and development of the domestic IT industry,

• would reduce piracy.

History of free software development in the Russian public sector

2015

State Duma Committee is developing a bill on SPO preferences in public procurement

The State Duma Commission on the Development of Strategic Information Systems, operating under the State Duma Committee on Science and Science-Intensive Technologies, at its meeting in September 2015 announced that it had begun to develop a bill that would provide advantages of the ACT over proprietary products in procurement under 223-FZ and 44-FZ.

As conceived by the commission, in the framework of such purchases, organizations will have to justify the need for proprietary software if there is an ACT analogue. At the same time, the Russian ACT should have priority over the imported, the ideologists of the draft law believe.

The need for these measures is primarily associated with potential threats to the security of strategic IT systems when using proprietary products. The executive secretary of the commission , Andrei Chernogorov, general director of Cognitive Technologies, during the meeting also emphasized the possible economic effect: according to him, savings for the country's budget when using the ACT can exceed 500 billion rubles. per year "even according to the most conservative estimates."

And about. Director of the IT Industry Development Department of the Ministry of Communications Pavel Anisimov at the meeting recalled that the import substitution plan adopted by his department involves preferences for domestic software developers at public procurement as a support measure. In this part, changes have already been made at the Federal Law level, and in the future the Ministry of Communications will submit to the government a draft resolution regulating the maintenance of the register of domestic software and the procedure for getting into it, he said.

The representative of the Ministry of Communications added that the mechanism laid down in these support measures can and is supposed to be used in relation to the ACT.

In parallel with the preferences of the ACT on procurement, the DG Commission also proposes to establish in the legislation the classification of software for free and licensed, in accordance with the following definitions:

• ACT - software distributed under the terms of a free license agreement, on the basis of which the user receives the right to use the program for any purposes not prohibited by law; Access the source texts (codes) of the programme both for study and adaptation purposes and for processing purposes, distribute the programme (free of charge or for a fee at its discretion), modify the programme (recycle), and distribute copies of the modified (redesigned) programme, taking into account possible requirements for the inheritance of the licence;
• Licensed software is software, all the possibilities for use, modification and distribution of which are determined for a particular user by the copyright holder.

In addition, the draft law provides for amendments to the law on personal data 152-FZ, in terms of providing guarantees to copyright holders of licensed software and ACT to users of their personal data when using this software.

Ideologists of the bill expect to prepare and submit it to the State Duma in late November - early December 2015, and the preliminary deadline for the law to enter into force is January 1, 2016.

Experts interviewed by TAdviser criticized the idea of ​ ​ the bill both in terms of its feasibility in general, and the definitions of free and licensed software proposed by its initiators. So, the general director of Alt Linuks Alexei Smirnov, in a conversation with TAdviser, noted that comprehensive and competent definitions of the ACT are already in GOST R 54593-2011 " Information Technologies. Free software. General provisions. "

The application for GOST was prepared and submitted by Sirius, which is part of Rostec Group of Companies, which at that time was determined by the coordinator for the National Program Platform technology platform. At the same time, developments were used, including Alt Linuks, obtained during the implementation of research and development activities under state orders. In addition, Alt Linuks allocated experts to participate in this work, says Alexei Smirnov.

"Unfortunately, the authors of the bill are little familiar with the topic of ACT and licensing and naively divide the software into" licensed "and" free, "not realizing that" free licenses "are also licenses with their own requirements and restrictions, and are distinguished among other licenses by a certain set of rights granted to the licensee," he says

The general director of Alt Linux added that, "unfortunately, after the adoption of the law on preferences for domestic software, proposals began to appear one after another, trying to blur it." So, the idea was recently voiced to equate "localized" foreign software with domestic software, now an attempt to divide domestic software depending on the business model used by the developer, he says.

"I think it's a dead end. On the contrary, we need the maximum consolidation of developers of domestic free and non-free software. This is the position defended by the leading associations of developers of ARPP "Domestic Software" and RUSSOFT, which, unfortunately, were not invited for discussion, "he told TAdviser. - It seems that instead of supporting domestic developers (both free and non-free software), redirecting state money from importing licenses for the purchase of quality and mature products created in Russia - someone wants to allocate state funds for the promise of future developments. "

According to Smirnov, if you really want to support the ACT, then you need to publish under a free license all the results of the work performed with state money. Not purchased, namely custom-designed, he emphasizes. It is also necessary to support the participation of domestic developers in key international projects for the development of the ACT.

Dmitry Komissarov considers harmful the idea of ​ ​ providing SPO with preferences for procurement under 223-FZ and 44-FZ

A similar opinion on the bill is held by Dmitry Komissarov, general director of New Cloud Technologies.

"In my opinion, unscrupulous experts misled the deputies. There are definitions in GOST about the ACT, and simply legal nonsense is proposed. The proposals do not take into account that any software fits the licensed one, not to mention the fact that the country does not need an abstract act ACT as proposed, but needs products that Russian companies can support and develop, and the issue of a license is secondary, "he said

As for the preferences of the ACT on procurement, this, according to Komissarov, is a "harmful idea." The law has already established preferences for Russian software, which can be both SPO and proprietary, and the initiators of the bill propose giving preferences to, for example , "1C," simply downloaded from the Internet of SPO-accounting, explains the general director of "New Cloud Technologies."

The opinion of colleagues in the market is shared by the president of the STC ROSA Vladimir Rubanov: in his opinion, the GOST contains a more competent definition of the ACT. The initiators of the bill propose definitions correct for the "wild ACT," he believes. The latter refers to the joint development of basic technologies by the world community, when costs are divided among many participants, and the result belongs equally to everyone. Based on such software, real, sometimes competing products are then made under their own brands (branded functions are added, bugs are corrected, etc.), so it is necessary to clearly separate the "wild ACT" and products of specific manufacturers based on it.

"For end customers, including for the state, the" wild ACT "is useless without creating a local expertise in the person of local vendors or departmental centers of competence. Behind each product for serious application should be a legal entity with technical personnel in the state, which is "responsible for it," accumulates expertise and best practices, can develop and support, "says Rubanov

From the point of view of technological independence, the main factor, according to the president of ROSA, is the degree of control by Russia of a particular software product, including legitimate rights and real opportunities to modify and distribute modified versions.

The legal aspects of the criteria of "Russian" software are spelled out in the recently adopted amendments to the laws on the register of domestic software. To them, according to Vladimir Rubanov, it is necessary to add the need to have a "triad of technological independence" inside the country for each Russian product: full source code, its development tools and the third are local specialists who understand the first two points. At the same time, technologically independent products, in addition to code written by Russian programmers, may include borrowed ACT components, but this is a secondary factor, he summarizes.

Revision of the plan for the transition of state bodies to the ACT

In February 2015 , the Ministry of Communications decided to postpone the mandatory transfer of IT systems of federal authorities to ^[1] 59gosorganah _. In a letter sent by the head of the Ministry of Communications of Russia Nikolai Nikiforov to the deputy of the United Russia faction, Ilya Kostunov, in response to a corresponding request, it is said that the decision to transfer the Russian federal executive bodies and federal budgetary institutions to use free software will be made on a case-by-case basis.

It follows from the letter that instead of implementing the ACT necessarily and without taking into account the economic consequences of the implementation (top-down method), an approach will be applied in which a reasonable decision on the use of the ACT is made on the ground in each case (bottom-up method). " This decision, as stated in the ministerial response, was made after a series of meetings with experts from the information technology industry on the prospects for state support for free software, which took place in the Ministry of Communications of Russia during 2014.

"To implement the new approach and to ensure the further transition of federal executive bodies and federal budgetary institutions to the use of the ACT, amendments to the Plan are being prepared, as well as changes to regulatory legal documentation, including the development of methodological recommendations on the procedure for using the ACT when creating state information systems," the Ministry of Communications added.

As explained in the department, the phased implementation of the ACT is associated with the specifics of standardized solutions and the difficulty of transferring data from previously used information systems of state authorities to automated information systems based on the ACT.

Free Software Migration Grants

In February, 2015 at a conference of developers of free PostgreSQL DBMS of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media reported about plans to financially support migration of the Russian state agencies on free ^[2]

"We will support research grants (research works - approx. CNews) that will allow the transition to the ACT," said Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov.

He explained that we are talking about allocating funds in the amount of approximately 3 billion rubles. per year to support critical areas of import substitution within the framework of the corresponding government program. This amount, according to the minister, will allow "to create a certain reserve for critical types of software, to create a sufficient number of jobs for people who will solve the problem of import substitution full-time."

The proposal of the Ministry of Communications is preliminary in nature and at the time of reporting this is under development and coordination in the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Finance, Nikiforov added.

All-Russian meeting on the transition to free software

The Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Federal Treasury decided to hold a workshop with the regions on the use of free software. According to TAdviser, it should take place before April 1, 2015. As a rule, such events are held with the participation of all 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the format of video conferences.

The decision to hold the meeting was made following a meeting of the government subcommittee on IT, chaired by Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov in February 2015.

The Ministry of Communications told TAdviser that as of mid-February, preparations are underway for the meeting and a list of issues is being compiled. "The use of ACT in subjects is welcome," the ministry representative added.

The Ministry of Economic Development also told TAdviser that they support the use of the ACT in the development of information systems by state authorities. Most information systems developed within the framework of state contracts of the Ministry of Economic Development itself are based on the ACT, its representative says.

The Moscow IT Department (DIT) shared with TAdviser the opinion that at the federal level it would be interesting to discuss the issue of sharing responsibility for open source software failures. In the case of proprietary solutions, it is always clear where to handle and with whom to conduct a dialogue, they are added to DIT.

According to representatives of the department, it would not be superfluous to conduct an analysis of international practice, for example, the reasons for the failure of the experiment with the ACT in Munich. In addition, in the light of the trend towards import substitution, there is a difficult question about the degree of home ownership of free software: according to what criteria it will relate to foreign or domestic, the DIT added.

Speaking about Moscow's position regarding the transition to the ACT in DIT, they said that the city would support such a transition, but only if these decisions would ensure stable work, since we are talking about socially significant and infrastructure systems. It is also important that the ACT does not cost more than proprietary solutions.

"It is known that in the case of open source software, initial implementation is cheaper, but the cost of maintenance may run high. Although in Moscow such large-scale projects as the Unified Medical Information and Analytical System (doctors' computers work on Linux) were implemented at the ACT, the task of switching to the ACT does not face us at all costs, "the Moscow DIT noted

The Minister for Informatization, Communications and Open Management of the Tula Region , Arthur Contrabayev, says that his region is working on a strategy that can be replaced by free software: "We already use part, but we want, of course, more, especially in connection with rising prices for proprietary software."

At the federal level, he would also like to discuss the centralization of license contracts, since "the larger they are, the cheaper the software."

Igor Fetisov, First Deputy Minister of Information Technology and Communications of the Chelyabinsk Region, told TAdviser that the ACT is already used in part of the subordinate institutions of the executive authorities of his region: for example, in the medical institutions of the regional Ministry of Health. However, the full implementation of the project is hampered by the lack of a "state" assembly of software, as well as the need for its certification by the FSTEC and the FSB to work in state authorities, he says. At the same time, we are talking not only about system-wide software, but also office applications: freely available resources, such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice, unfortunately, are not fully adapted to work with documents in state authorities: they do not develop mechanisms for general work with data, print tools, etc., he says

Igor Fetisov added that the ministry is constantly working on the possibility of introducing the ACT in the regional authorities. However, the region needs the support of the federal center, since the creation of a "state" OS and an open-ended office package will require additional budget costs.

According to the official, the most relevant issues for discussion at the federal level would be the creation of a "state" OS and an office package - these are "primary and most priority tasks." Further development, according to the minister, should affect databases and the replacement of specialized paid software (design systems, client applications, server and cloud solutions).

ACT was included in the priorities of ICT development in government agencies

In the spring of 2015, the Ministry of Communications and Communications prepared a draft government decree, according to which the priority areas for the development of ICT in government agencies included ensuring technological independence and information security when using ICT, including through domestic technologies and free software. Learn more at the link.

2014: Goals and objectives

At the end of 2014, the Ministry of Communications on its official website posted a text on the advantages of using free software for the public sector. The first of them, the department calls cheapness and anti-corruption. ACT does not require license fees for each installed copy of the program. The state can hold an open competition, once pay the development company for the supply of software and then replicate it without restrictions. Thus, for ordinary users it will be almost free.

Secondly, the ACT is more secure. Many proprietary applications from known manufacturers contain undocumented functions, which is a potential threat. Access to the source code of the program allows you to control this aspect.

Thirdly, the ACT is easy to adapt: the large number of available free applications allows them to adapt to the specific needs of users and create new necessary programs based on them.

Fourth, the use of the ACT takes into account national interests. Despite the fact that the creation of free programs is inseparable from the world community of developers, services for their adaptation, implementation, support and development are usually provided by national firms, which is more beneficial to the state and society.

The purpose of using the ACT is to increase the independence of state organizations from foreign suppliers of proprietary software, to expand the possibility of monitoring and independent development of software solutions, to obtain economic advantages from the implementation and use of ACT-based solutions.

The use of the ACT, according to the Ministry of Communications, allows to solve the following problems:

• ensuring import substitution of proprietary components of information systems, reducing dependence on monopolists;
• stimulating the development of the domestic computer software industry;
• increasing the possibility of participation of domestic developers in the performance of works and the provision of services for state and municipal needs, providing additional investments in the development of domestic producers;
• ensuring a high level of technological independence;
• reduction of violations related to legal protection of computer programs.

2012: Unresolved issues inhibit implementation of ACT

In June 2012, Dmitry Fishelev, Executive Director of Penguin Sofvert, noted that during the implementation of the ACT there are a number of unresolved issues:

• who owns the product (if, for example, the customer - a state organization - has not issued the right to own it);

• Terms of access for commercial organizations to such software are not clear (if the development is financed from the state budget);

• there is no legislative framework for the legal formalization of the use of free products that cannot be put on the balance sheet, as a result of which there are problems with tax authorities, law enforcement agencies, etc. True, he noted, this issue is under consideration in the Government of the Russian Federation in connection with the order given by the previous President of Russia.

RPO President Yulia Ovchinnikova at the same time cited a number of problems that impede the implementation of the ACT:

• shortage of IT personnel and regional support infrastructure for the ACT,
• difficulties in assessing the cost-effectiveness of IT projects,
• predominance of proprietary software in the information field,
• unresolved driver problem.

2010: Putin's plan to switch to free software

On December 27, 2010, it became known that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a document describing the schedule for the transition of power structures to free software (ACT).

The document is called "Plan for the transition of federal authorities and federal budgetary institutions to the use of free software" and covers the period from 2011 to 2015. The current text of the order, signed by Putin and published on the government website, was submitted to the Ministry of Communications for approval by the government in November 2010.

Deputy Head of the Ministry of Communications Ilya Massukh told CNews that the document provides for the complete transition of federal authorities and state employees to free software. The plan takes 17 pages, you can download it here (the idea to save the ACT document in.doc format belongs to the government apparatus of the Russian Federation).

Data format specifications to be supported by free software shall be approved by Q3 2011. In addition, changes to the instructions for accounting for intangible assets will be developed according to the plan. This item of the program should solve the long-standing problem of accounting of both free proprietary and free software that do not have their own value.

Testing of the basic ACT package in pilot institutions should begin in Q2 2012. Implementation of the free software package in government and budget institutions should be completed by Q3 2014.

One of the most interesting points of the plan was the mention of the national repository, which should be created by the second quarter of 2012. Deputy Minister of Communications Ilya Massukh explained that the document refers to "not so much an assembly repository of the Linux distribution as an application store similar to the App Store, but for free operating systems."

The creator of the repository will be chosen either by a government decree or on a competitive basis, Ilya Massukh explained.

One of the oldest repositories of the ACT in Russia, Sisyphus, is owned by the developer of the eponymous distribution company Alt Linux. According to its general director Alexei Smirnov, who is familiar with the plan for the transition of authorities to the ACT, we are not talking about giving Sisyphus national status, but about using it as much as possible. In 2010, Sisyphus turned 10 years old, the number of packages in it exceeds 10 thousand.

Interestingly, as a technological basis for creating a federal repository, the text of the document mentions the All-Russian State Information Center (OGIC, ogic.ru), which had a chance to become a single Russian portal of public services. However, in early 2009, the project was transferred from the Voskhod Research Institute to Rostelecom, and a new version of the All-Russian public services website was launched at in December 2009 gosuslugi.ru.

Nevertheless, the technical resource of the base and the achievements obtained during the construction of the OGIC will be used to create the "national store of the ACT," Ilya Massukh assured CNews.

2009: Preparation of a plan for the transition of state authorities to the ACT

During 2008-2009, various federal and regional departments begin to order solutions based on free software for their own needs (mainly portal and educational solutions).

By order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation and FAIT of the Russian Federation, the Federal Standard Medical Information System for Medical and Preventive Institutions based on the ACT (developer KORUS Consulting) was developed. In 2009, pilot projects for the implementation of the system in three regions of the Russian Federation are being implemented. By order of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, LANIT is developing a portal and a register of public services based on the ACT. The solution is laid out in open access and begins to be used by various regions.

In April 2009, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation develops and publishes the following documents:

• draft order of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation "On approval of methodological recommendations for the development and acquisition of software for use in state authorities and budgetary institutions"

• Draft Plan for the Transition of Public Authorities and Budgetary Institutions to Free Software.

2007-2008: New suppliers and first contests of the Ministry of Communications

The wider use of Linux-systems in the public sector and the emerging prospects of large-scale state projects in this area naturally lead to more active certification of software and hardware solutions based on the ACT.

In 2007-2008, FSTEC certificates receive Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS on all IBM server platforms, ALT Linux 4.0 Server Edition and ALT Linux 4.0 Desktop Professional, a number of Mandriva products (Mandriva PowerPack+, Corporate Server, Corporate Desktop, Mandriva Flash) in 2009 is certified by Open Reference on Software United, which includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, IBM Lotus Domino 8.0.1 collaboration platform, and Open Reference Server 3.1.4 executive discipline control system.

During this period of a kind of boom in the introduction of SPO solutions in the budget sector, new players appear on the Russian Linux system market. So, Informzashchita creates Linux-Online a company on the basis TrustVerse and produces secure distributions for PCs and workstations and. TrustVerse Linux XP Desktop 2008 Home Edition Enterprise Edition The Norwegian system integrator opens its representative office in Russia, Freecode developing integrated solutions for information security, IP-telephony, e-mail systems and based on SMS ACT and proprietary software. In autumn 2008 NPO Network , presents a geographic information system that Geodesigner runs on a platform Linux using. DBMS PostgreSQL The corporation produces Sail under an open license the Tornado platform for mixed systems based on Windows GNU/Linux, other Russian projects for the development of freely distributed specialized systems for business and ordinary users appear.

In 2007, Mininformsvyaz began to develop the "Concept for the development and use of free software in the Russian Federation," which was published in the spring of 2008. However, the subsequent resignation of Minister Leonid Reiman and the appointment of Igor Shchegolev to his post entailed a revision of the concept.

Despite this, in the spring of 2008, a few days before the transfer of power to Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin, while still the president of Russia, mentioned the plan of migration to the ACT of federal institutions in the list of his instructions to the government, thus setting this task for himself.

In November 2008, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation holds 3 competitions on the topic of free software:

1. Creation of a software and technical complex for experimental testing of the use of open-source software products to implement the provision of public services at the OGIC (the work is carried out by FSUE MNII Integral, co-executor of ALT Linux)

2. Research on the transition of state authorities to the use of open-source software and the development of detailed proposals on the sequence of their actions for the implementation of this transition for the period 2009-2011 (the work is carried out by Park Media Consulting LLC)

3. Development of proposals for the creation of a single technological platform for the development of automated information systems of public administration based on the ACT (the work is carried out by KORUS Consulting, co-executor of the GNU/Linouxcentre (Mezon.Ru).)

2005-2006 Pilot implementations

• In 2005-2006, Linux Ink carried out work on the pilot implementation of the ACT in the administration of the Novogrod region.

• In 2008, KORUS Consulting carried out projects to survey the information system for the possibility of applying the ACT, developing a migration methodology for the ACT and pilot implementations in the Administration of the Kaliningrad Region, in the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, in the Administration of the Voronezh Region. The Administration of the Volgograd region is conducting a pilot implementation of Red Hat Linux.

• ALT Linux migrates to the ODF (OpenOffice.org) format of the district and municipal administrations, secondary educational institutions and medical institutions of the city of Aleksin, Tula region.

• GNU/Linuxcenter (Mezon.Ru) introduces the package Mandriva Linux PowerPack in the Government of the Moscow Region and the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and carries out a full transition from Windows to Mandriva Linux in the Administration of the Chernihiv municipal district of Primorsky Krai (the first in Russia) full-scale migration of the entire IT infrastructure of the executive authority of Linux.

Notes