Open Source Software Development Strategy in Russia

On September 15, 2021, the draft strategy for the development of open source software in Russia until 2024 was first publicly presented. The document at the suggestion of Mintsifra is developed by participants of the IT market.

Among coauthors - the CEO of Postgres ProfessionalOleg Bartunov and the deputy director general of Postgres Professional Ivan Panchenko, the president of InfoWatchNatalya Kasperskaya, the chairman of the board of directors "BaseALT" Alexey Smirnov, the president of "GS-Invest" Sergey Matsotsky and the director of technological development of GS-Invest Vladislav Shershulsky, the managing director "Mail.ru Digital technologies" Pavel Gontarev, etc. The Competence Center for import substitution in the field of information and communication technologies was also involved.

In June 2021, the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications Maxim Parshin announced plans, together with IT companies, to develop an ON open source development strategy in Russia by September. But the process of developing the project was slightly delayed.

Ilya Massukh, Director of the Center for Import Substitution Competencies in ICT, at a public discussion of the draft strategy on September 15, noted that since 2020 the new government has been very attentive to the development of the IT industry. Two packages of IT development support measures have been signed, which indicate that the state considers open source important. The development of open source, in particular, is enshrined in the 14th item of the list of industry support measures^[1].

Draft strategy still to be finalized

The second package of measures to support the IT industry, approved by the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin, included measures to stimulate the development of open code based on the federal project "Digital Technologies" of the national program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation." Efforts will be focused on stimulating the participation of domestic IT companies and individual developers in international open-source alliances and creating a Russian repository integrated with global platforms, said TAdviser Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications Maxim Parshin. - At the same time, the state, on the one hand, is interested in the development of the most popular public sector products based on open software, and on the other hand, it can act as a significant contender of code developed for budget funds.

What the draft strategy covers

The developed document summarizes the concepts of open source software, establishes the goals and main objectives of open source development, measures aimed at its development and use to ensure national interests and the implementation of national strategic priorities. On its basis, it is then planned to develop an action plan for the implementation of the strategy with targets for 2024 and 2030.

The draft says that the strategy should become the basis for the development (adjustment) of state programs of the Russian Federation, including the level of subjects of the country, federal and regional projects, planned and program-targeted documents of state corporations and state-owned companies, joint-stock companies with state participation, strategic documents of other organizations in terms of the development of open source software. The provisions of the strategy should be taken into account, including in the implementation of the national program "Digital Economy."

The objectives of the document are:

• promoting digitalization of the state and strengthening the technological sovereignty of the Russian Federation;
• reduction of Russia's dependence on foreign software suppliers;
• Optimizing government costs for open source solutions
• achieving sustainable competitiveness of Russian development companies to occupy leading positions in the world in the field of open source;
• Accelerating the development and revenue of the domestic IT industry
• Improving the quality of the Russian IT industry with qualified personnel;
• increasing the role of the contribution of domestic developers to the world open source.
• improving the international authority of the Russian Federation as a technologically developed state and a number of other goals.

The document defines tasks aimed at expanding the use of open source software in government agencies and state-owned companies. Among them is the creation of a domestic analogue of the repository of github.com and the requirement of mandatory publication under a free license in the domestic repository of source codes of software developed for budget funds, including state orders. The exception is cases, the software is assigned a secrecy stamp. The list of tasks also includes measures to stimulate the reuse of source codes of software developed for budget funds.

It is also proposed to determine priority areas for the development and application of open source industry software when implementing digital transformation projects, using already existing cross-industry domestic software, in its absence - open source software, and in its absence - with the development of new software.

Among the tasks is also clarifying the requirements for a "composite product" when included in the unified register of domestic software. This is necessary to prevent domestic companies from unreasonably assigning rights to elementary products included in their component products.

Financial measures to support the open source development industry include, among other things, the creation of non-state funds that finance the development of open source software, the introduction of tax incentives for non-IT companies that finance the development of ACT, the possibility of receiving prizes by individual developers and creative teams that have demonstrated successful participation in key open source software development projects from specially created or existing funds.

During the work on the strategy, a proposal was made to include open source software and open processor architectures in the development strategy. This idea, in particular, is especially actively promoted by the founder of the venture fund Almaz Capital Partners, Alexander Galitsky, who heads the Open Software and Architecture working group of ANO Digital Economy. This is primarily about RISC-V architecture and processors based on it.

The co-authors of the draft strategy from the software industry, with whom he talked at the TAdviser public discussion on September 15, generally do not support the idea of ​ ​ combining these two topics in one document. But some things about open architectures are included in the current version of the project. So, the financial measures block mentions grant support for work to ensure the compatibility of popular open source software with Russian electronic equipment, including open architectures.

Also, one of the principles of the development and use of open source software is the support of the domestic hardware base, including processors with an open architecture. And in the block of expected results of the strategy implementation by 2024, one of the points is the functioning of an integrated system of measures to support domestic developers involved in the development and implementation of open source software and open architectures.

Discussion continues

It is planned to present a closer to the final version of the draft strategy after further revision at the Russia Open Source Summit, which will be held on October 1. Earlier, a special open Telegram channel was created to discuss all issues on the document, which has about 200 participants. But even during the offline discussion, it also became clear that there was still a wide field of discussion before approaching the final version.

Alexander Galitsky stated that there are still many contradictions in the document, it still needs to be worked on. And the president of Infowatch Natalya Kasperskaya during a lively discussion expressed the most radical views on the strategy as a whole, and on the risks associated with the use of open source software.

So, she believes that it would be more advisable not to develop a separate open source software strategy, but to develop a strategy for the development of the software industry, where open source software would become one of the components. And in the existing document, she believes, the main question has not been resolved - what problem, in fact, is being solved: supporting Russian developers, strengthening Russia's influence in the global indemnity space, or simply spending state money with benefit?

Kasperskaya also drew attention to the risks of using open source software, which, in her opinion, stem from an understanding of what open source is.

This is some group of developers who gathered and write some specific thing - a certain branch of software, or OS, or something else. At the same time, they agree among themselves on the rules, on how they will further develop this. They can stop it at any time, change the license, and indeed close everything. From this point of view, this software is irresponsible - software without responsibility. Those people who begin to develop it, take it under themselves, make it responsible, "said the president of Infowatch. - Therefore, I propose, wherever we write "free software," to write "irresponsible software."

Kasperskaya, unlike, for example, Alexander Galitsky, also believes that there is no single community of world developers. There is a collection of different communities that are somehow administered by someone, most often by American transnational corporations. And Russia is directly designated by the enemy in the US cyber strategy. Therefore, it is doubtful to discuss the increase in the role of Russian developers in the world community.

Natalya Kasperskaya cited Postgres Professional as an example of companies that make open source software "responsible." Oleg Bartunov noted that their company, in fact, acts as a proxy between the open source software community and customers.

Such companies, on the one hand, satisfy the requests of customers, large companies, accumulate these solutions and return them to the community, "said Bartunov.

And the Russian open source community, in his opinion, has become one of the strongest and hardest in "battles," because in no country in the world Postgres DBMS is not used in giant federal systems throughout the country. Russian requests are superior to what exists in the international community.

During the public discussion, the opinion was repeatedly expressed that it is necessary to support companies in which there are ACT contractors. Alexey Smirnov believes that at the same time, financial support is needed directly from developers, namely programmers, for the successful contribution to ACT development projects that has already taken place.

In turn, the problem of geopolitical confrontation should be solved not by isolating itself, but by entering the world territory and resisting its participation, its competence, Alexey Smirnov believes.

See also

Open Source Software in Russia

Notes