ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software freedom effort

by fireball | June 19, 2015

The Russian Federation along with the BRICS nations are pursuing measures to rid vendor lock-in of strategically important software (http://minsvyaz.ru/en/events/33237/) and substitute such software with free/open software (http://minsvyaz.ru/en/events/32967/). As such an initiative would provide considerable benefits beyond that of any singular agenda, Aleksey Bragin decided to take part in that on behalf of ReactOS Foundation. Since October 2014 he has been a member of the Operating Systems workgroup formed by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications (so-called "IT Ministry") and actively participating in its discussions. The IT Ministry issued a request for proposals this April to find and help develop independent technologies in different categories (mobile, desktop, server operating systems, databases, office software, virtualization and cloud infrastructure). The ReactOS Foundation submitted two projects: ReactOS desktop operating system and RosServer - ReactOS-based server operating system. After evaluations, various meetings and Aleksey's presentation to the CIO of several large Russian companies the results were published last week (http://minsvyaz.ru/ru/documents/4662/ - in Russian only) with ReactOS-based projects receiving second place in the OS category, with first place taken by ROSA Lab and ALT Linux consortium. The selection process was pretty tough, full of meetings, filters, and time-pressure, but that was worth the effort. The skills and work of the ReactOS team made the whole process easier. Many other awesome projects couldn't make it in this and other categories, but the ReactOS Foundation is willing to help them by opening as many collaboration agreements as possible in order to create nice synergies. We knew, when we submitted the two ReactOS-based projects, how difficult it would be to get a place among the selected projects, and we're very proud to announce this achievement as a sort of reward for the ReactOS Community, and to all the Developers and Testers who have contributed to making ReactOS what it is now: The best open source Windows alternative up to date. We do not have details about what happens after these evaluations, but rest assured, we will keep you informed of any updates. Stay tuned! More info: press[at]reactos.org