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A comment on ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software freedom effort. Parent comment

Re:ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software f... by pgeorgi on Friday June 19, 2015 @08:55AM (#9744331)
> 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?

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Re:ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software f... by jarcane on Friday June 19, 2015 @11:12AM (#9745319)
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.

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Re:ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software f... by pgeorgi on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:12PM (#9745716)
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?

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