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 publicly presented for the first time. The document at the suggestion of the Ministry of Digital Development is developed by participants of the IT market.

Among the co-authors are the general director Postgres Professional Oleg Bartunov and deputy general director of Postgres Professional, Ivan Panchenko president, InfoWatch Natalia Kasperskaya chairman of the board of directors, BaseALT Alexey Smirnov president GS INVEST Sergey Matsotsky and director of technological development of GS INVEST, Vladislav Shershulsky managing director, etc. "Mail.ru Digital technologies" Pavel Gontarev It was also involved. Competence Center for Import Substitution in the Field of Information and Communication Technologies

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

Ilya Massukh, director of the Competence Center for Import Substitution in ICT, at a public discussion of the draft strategy on September 15, noted that since 2020, the new government is 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].

The draft strategy remains to be finalized

The second package of measures to support the IT industry, approved by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, included measures to stimulate open-source development within the framework of the federal project "Digital Technologies" of the national program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation." The efforts will focus 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, "Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maxim Parshin told TAdviser. - 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 source software, and on the other hand, it can act as a significant contributor to the 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 the development of open source, measures aimed at its development and use to ensure national interests and the implementation of national strategic priorities. Based on it, it is then planned to develop an action plan for the implementation of the strategy with targets for 2024 and 2030.

The draft states that the strategy should become the basis for the development (adjustment) of state programs of the Russian Federation, including the level of the 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, among other things, when implementing the Digital Economy national program.

The purpose of the document is as follows:

• promoting the digitalization of the state and strengthening the technological sovereignty of the Russian Federation;
• Reducing Russia's dependence on foreign software suppliers
• optimization of state costs for solutions using open source software;
• achieving sustainable competitiveness of Russian development companies to occupy their leading positions in the world in the field of open source;
• Accelerate development and increase revenues in the domestic IT industry
• improving the level of provision of qualified personnel to the Russian IT industry of software;
• increasing the role of the contribution of domestic developers to the global open source.
• increasing 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 - the creation of a domestic analogue of the github.com repository and the requirement of mandatory publication under a free license in the domestic repository of source codes of software developed with budget funds, including under a state order. 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 with budgetary funds.

It is also proposed to determine the priority areas for the development and use of open source industry software when implementing digital transformation projects using 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 to clarify the requirements for the "composite product" when included in the unified register of domestic software. This is necessary to prevent unreasonable appropriation by domestic companies of rights to elementary products included in the composite products they collect.

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

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

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

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

The discussion continues

A closer to the final version of the draft strategy after further revision is planned to be presented 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 during the offline discussion, it also became clear that there is still a wide field for discussion before approaching the final version.

Alexander Galitsky stated that there are many more contradictions in the document, we still need to work on it. And Infowatch President Natalya Kasperskaya during a live discussion expressed the most radical views on the strategy as a whole, and on the risks associated with using open source software.

So, she believes that it would be more expedient 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: support for Russian developers, strengthening Russia's influence in the world space of indemnity, 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 the understanding of what open source is.

This is some kind of group of developers who have 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 continue to develop this. They can stop it at any time, change the license, and even close everything. From this point of view, this software is irresponsible - software without responsibility. Those people who begin to develop it make it responsible, take it under themselves, - said the president of Infowatch. - Therefore, I propose, wherever we write "free software," write "irresponsible software."

Also, Kasperskaya, unlike, for example, Alexander Galitsky, believes that there is no single community of world developers. There is a bunch of different communities that are somehow administered by someone, most often American multinationals. Russia And it is directly indicated by the enemy in cyberstrategy. USA Therefore, it is doubtful to discuss the increase in the role of Russian developers in the world community.

Natalia 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 toughest in "battles," because in no country in the world is Postgres DBMS 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 has been expressed more than once that it is necessary to support companies in which there are contributors to SPOs. Alexey Smirnov believes that at the same time, financial support is needed directly from developers, namely programmers, for the successful contribution to the development projects of open source software.

In turn, the problem of geopolitical confrontation should be solved not by isolating oneself, but you need to enter world territory and confront your participation, your competence, Alexey Smirnov believes.

See also

Open Source software in Russia

Notes