What IT players think about the Ministry of Digital Development’s proposal
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 10:23 am
Vladimir Slinko, Senior Technology Advisor at KasperskyOS, noted that it will be more difficult for companies that previously invested in the Linux kernel to integrate their changes into the main branch. According to him, Russian developers associated with companies on the SDN list or under sanctions have been suspended. Slinko believes that the level of suspicion towards patches from Russian developers may increase, which will complicate the process of transferring changes to the main branch, which is important for supporting Linux distributions.
The dismissal of Russian netherlands whatsapp resourceemployees caused a serious stir in the IT community, and the question of the future of Russian Linux-based operating systems arose, Yevgeny Zamriy, chief architect of the MSVSfera operating system (owned by the Softline group), told RBC. He recalled that the Linux kernel documentation, among other things, contains a clause that declares the obligation to make participation in the project free from harassment for everyone, regardless of race, nationality, and other factors.
The consequence of the suspension will be that the workload of kernel developers in Russian products will increase, the expert believes. He explained that now almost every manufacturer works with its own version of the kernel, but tries to share its improvements with the original project in order to reduce the difference between its changes and the original. If, in addition to the suspension of developers, restrictions are introduced on accepting improvements from Russian specialists, the difference will only increase, the RBC interlocutor noted. Zamriy believes that the main difficulty is tracking updates in the repositories of other projects for their porting to domestic distributions. However, he noted that there are many mirrors and ways to bypass restrictions, so the problem is solvable.
Ivan Panchenko emphasized that "the world of open source is undergoing changes" that could negatively impact both Russia and the international community. He believes that organizing our own alternative to the Linux community should become a priority for the state, especially in the context of creating critical system components necessary for the country's technological sovereignty.
There can be no community without a product, so the Ministry of Digital Development is actually proposing to create a fork of the Linux kernel, Panchenko noted. In his opinion, among the countries that could potentially become members of the new community, there will be China, which has managed to advance more than others in the development of operating systems. However, Panchenko expressed doubts that this country would want to share its developments with anyone.
Panchenko pointed out that it would be right if the new Linux fork were made by a community of countries, and not by a single country. "This would add weight and authority. But for this community to work, Russia would have to be a leader and a donor of program code and expertise in its development. But there is an important obstacle - in Russia there are not so many developers of such a level that we could fully take responsibility for the kernel of the operating system. Therefore, it is important to urgently grow our own personnel," Panchenko reasons.
The idea of the Ministry of Digital Development to create its own Linux community looks too ambitious, believes Sergey Kravtsov, a member of the board of directors of the Russian developer NTC IT ROSA and the company Rutek. "You shouldn't expect that the official Linux branch will accept changes from the Russian community. The main decisions regarding the development of the Linux kernel will essentially remain the international community, even if the Ministry of Digital Development organizes a local team of developers," he believes.
The dismissal of Russian netherlands whatsapp resourceemployees caused a serious stir in the IT community, and the question of the future of Russian Linux-based operating systems arose, Yevgeny Zamriy, chief architect of the MSVSfera operating system (owned by the Softline group), told RBC. He recalled that the Linux kernel documentation, among other things, contains a clause that declares the obligation to make participation in the project free from harassment for everyone, regardless of race, nationality, and other factors.
The consequence of the suspension will be that the workload of kernel developers in Russian products will increase, the expert believes. He explained that now almost every manufacturer works with its own version of the kernel, but tries to share its improvements with the original project in order to reduce the difference between its changes and the original. If, in addition to the suspension of developers, restrictions are introduced on accepting improvements from Russian specialists, the difference will only increase, the RBC interlocutor noted. Zamriy believes that the main difficulty is tracking updates in the repositories of other projects for their porting to domestic distributions. However, he noted that there are many mirrors and ways to bypass restrictions, so the problem is solvable.
Ivan Panchenko emphasized that "the world of open source is undergoing changes" that could negatively impact both Russia and the international community. He believes that organizing our own alternative to the Linux community should become a priority for the state, especially in the context of creating critical system components necessary for the country's technological sovereignty.
There can be no community without a product, so the Ministry of Digital Development is actually proposing to create a fork of the Linux kernel, Panchenko noted. In his opinion, among the countries that could potentially become members of the new community, there will be China, which has managed to advance more than others in the development of operating systems. However, Panchenko expressed doubts that this country would want to share its developments with anyone.
Panchenko pointed out that it would be right if the new Linux fork were made by a community of countries, and not by a single country. "This would add weight and authority. But for this community to work, Russia would have to be a leader and a donor of program code and expertise in its development. But there is an important obstacle - in Russia there are not so many developers of such a level that we could fully take responsibility for the kernel of the operating system. Therefore, it is important to urgently grow our own personnel," Panchenko reasons.
The idea of the Ministry of Digital Development to create its own Linux community looks too ambitious, believes Sergey Kravtsov, a member of the board of directors of the Russian developer NTC IT ROSA and the company Rutek. "You shouldn't expect that the official Linux branch will accept changes from the Russian community. The main decisions regarding the development of the Linux kernel will essentially remain the international community, even if the Ministry of Digital Development organizes a local team of developers," he believes.