That's an odd statement to make, since freedom is indistinguishable from having control.

ReactOS is free and open source and is released under the GPL license.

> Russia isn't interested in software freedom, they're just not interested in something from outside Russia they can't control

Which is exactly what the first paragraph states: "are pursuing measures to rid vendor lock-in of strategically important software"

Why should Russia (or any organization, from 1 person up to nations) prefer vendor lock-in over something that they can control?

The distinction is whether it's a question of freeing it for everyone's control, or merely trading foreign control for their own.

Russia doesn't want GNU, they just want a Russian Microsoft that's in Putin's pocket like everything else.

Take a look at what's happened to VKontakte some time.

VKontakte can't be easily forked, while ReactOS is GPL.

Of course the Russian government wants to be able to control their systems, and any positive effects for others are at best some nice PR.

How does that detract any value from ReactOS (or Linux, which is their "other" desktop and server OS)?

One of the principles of Open Source (compared to Free Software) is the idea that people and organizations work in a project where every contributor works in their self-interest. Why is this suddenly a bad thing?

Isn't software freedom about someone from outside not controlling your stuff?

Let's hope it'll transcend out of its current amoral tech state! It has the potential to become the building block of choice for many use-cases where other solutions are too expensive (in terms of required efforts).