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Free software history and evolution in the former Soviet Union: Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine

A short analysis of the free software world in three countries of the former Soviet Union

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“Former Soviet Union” is a term that often makes people think of a somehow original concept of freedom and democracy. You can observe some heritage looking, for instance, at the facts of today’s Belarus [1,2] and Turkmenistan [3,4].

Anyway, even there, people always have had the will to express their ideas and opinions. Think, for instance, of the samizdat [5], or of the dissidents.

How could native geeks and computer scientists/engineers miss the opportunity to contribute to the free software movement as another expression of freedom and democracy? In this article, hopefully the first of a short series, I will try to outline the rise and growth of free software in the former USSR by interviewing some of the key individuals:

  • Alexander Barkov, currently senior programmer at Lavtech (Izhevsk, Udmurtia, Russian Federation) —referred to as Sasha Barkov;
  • Aleksey Smirnov, founder and director of the Institute for Logic, as well as founder of the firm ALT Linux (Moscow, Russian Federation) —referred to as Aliosha;
  • Oleg Philon, currently senior programmer at IBA Gomel branch, one of the founders of the GomeLUG (Gomel, Belarus) —referred to as Oleg, since his name has no short form;
  • Alexander Zhukov, currently a developer at Priocom Corp. (Kiev, Ukraine) —referred to as Sasha Zhukov;
  • Yuri Umanets, currently software engineer at Priocom Corp. (Kiev, Ukraine) —referred to as Yura;
  • Mikhail Shigorin, currently project manager at emt.com.ua and member of Ukrainian Linux and Free Software Users Group (Kiev, Ukraine) —referred to as Misha.

Points of note

This article/interview is based on answers collected from April through June, 2005: some information may have changed in the meanwhile. The outline I tried to draw is unfortunately not quite complete; one of the people I had hoped to interview from Belarus (to remain nameless) initially agreed to answer my questions, but then decided against it at a later stage.

The Soviet Union in 1989. While the borders were as they are today, the names and political situations have drastically changed. This image was obtained from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/
The Soviet Union in 1989. While the borders were as they are today, the names and political situations have drastically changed. This image was obtained from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/

It can be assumed that the personal answers from the interviews are representative of a large part of the community, but of course and understandably, they can’t possibly represent the whole story: either due to the countries being different from one another, or due to the differing opinions, background and interests of each individual.

How did free software start spreading in the former USSR?

Sasha Barkov, you are well known for your search engine mnoGoSearch, formerly known as UDMsearch…

Yes, in fact UDM are the first three letters of “Udmurtia”, which is a small republic in the Russian Federation. Its capital is Izhevsk, where I studied, and now live and work. You can get more information about Udmurtia from www.udmurtia.ru/udmitem.

Belarusian geek: Oleg Philon
Belarusian geek: Oleg Philon

The free software approach gives a starting project many advantages

Are you the originator of the product? And why did you decide to release it as free software?

Yes, I originally came up with the concept for the project. It was intially a very small project. Later, I joined the company Lavtech, and they “adopted” my project.

I chose to release it as free software because the free software approach gives a starting project many advantages. For example:

  • it is easier to find new users and thus become famous;
  • it is easier to debug a free software program, because your users find and report bugs. Some users fix the bugs themselves and send patches;
  • unlike commercial software, free software projects release announcements appear on software news sites without your interaction. News site webmasters watch your site waiting for your announcements to post on their sites. Also, free software is registered in various software catalogs by volunteers. Whereas, in the case of commercial software, you need to post announcements yourself, nobody will do it for you;
  • one can start from a very small free software project, and can improve and develop it gradually. With commercial software, one usually has to have a much more complete product to go to market with.

Oleg, you were a Debian GNU/Linux developer: when and how did you first come into contact with free software?

Well, I have been lucky enough to work with computers throughtout the majority of my life. I’ve spent the last 18 years working on microcomputers—I started as soon as the first IBM-compatible machines appeared in our city. My first acquaintance with free software, namely with an ancient Linux Slackware distribution on 5¼” floppies, happened in 1996. I used the only UUCP-based email server available in our town at the time, and got some files via ftp-mail service. Then I decided to practice with ftp commands locally, and so began this highly addictive endeavour. Since then I haven’t stopped. And, with the growth and maturity of free software applications, the proprietary software usage on my work and home computers shrank to very few programs. Now, when I’m forced to use some Windows applications, I hide them under VMware’s virtual machine.

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This article is made available under the "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs" Creative Commons License 3.0 available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Biography

Gianluca Pignalberi: Gianluca is Free Software Magazine's Compositor.

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Comments from the old system

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2006-04-02 04:43.

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From: Jorge Fernandez
Url:
Date: 2006-03-11
Subject: freedom and democracy? WTF

�Former Soviet Union� is a term that often makes people think of a somehow original concept of freedom and democracy."

Holy cow! Did the writer fat-finger that sentence or is he/she a fascist that enjoys glorifying a regime of mass murder and cruelty.

______________________________________________

From: Dave Guard (SUBSCRIBER!)
Url: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com
Date: 2006-03-12
Subject: Hold on! Think carefully about what you have read.

The quote you have offered says: "Former Soviet Union" not "Soviet Union". The author (Gianluca) is talking about the fact that it is no longer the Soviet Union. And this fact... "often makes people think of a somehow original concept of freedom and democracy."

I think, if you read it correctly, it is clear that Gianluca is neither fat-fingered nor does he enjoy glorifying a regime of mass murder and cruelty.

It could be argued that the statement was written in such a way (unintentionally, I assure you) that leaves it easy to misunderstand.

Sorry for any confusion.

Dave

______________________________________________

From: Gianluca Pignalberi
Url:
Date: 2006-03-13
Subject: I'm NOT a fascist!

Hi Jorge,

my wife lives in Belarus. They call their country a Republic. In spite of this, their president is not a president: he's a dictator. And a lot of them call him President, and say he's good (the others say everything whispering).

Since I'm not Belarusian, I clearly see it's not a democracy, and I wrote the introduction the way an Englishman would write it: understatement. If you like, read it "Former Soviet Union is a term that recalls to many people lack of democracy, fear and death". Please, go read the references. Why do you think I quoted those?

Sincerely.

______________________________________________

From: Dmitry
Url:
Date: 2006-03-13
Subject: Relax

clause "Former Soviet Union" just means "territory of ex-Soviet Union" and nothing else. We so call in Russia.

______________________________________________

From: Gianluca Pignalberi
Url:
Date: 2006-03-13
Subject: Relax: yes, we need some :)

Hi Dmitri,

yes, I forgot to mention now this important fact. But I added an old map to the article to think of it.

______________________________________________

From: Sergey
Url:
Date: 2006-03-13
Subject: USSR

Have you ever been to USSR, ever lived there, etc. Do not talk on topics out of your expertise. Flush the propaganda off your head. Try to think, this may help.

To the author: the introduction sounds really bad to russian readers.

______________________________________________

From: gianluca pignalberi
Url:
Date: 2006-03-14
Subject: Good or evil (stop flaming)

Date: 2006-03-14

Subject: Good or evil (stop flaming)

Hi Sergej (or Sergey, as you like :),

Maybe you're right, my introduction could sound bad to some people.

I've talked with a lot of people from the former Soviet Union and many of them were happy living in the USSR (it seems they were happier than they are now, living in the new republics). Anyway, there are people who don't approve of everything they've seen in their "previous" life. You are certainly right in saying what you say; mine is only one point of view. My opinion is based on what I have books I have read and from the (short) time that I lived there.

And, please, forgive me in advance; I wrote what my wife says about USA (and she is not alone in her opinion): it's not democracy. And this is my right to say so.

Anyway, in this sort of flame war we're loosing sight of the main topic: the importance of free software everywhere. I tried to focus the article on 3 republics of the former Soviet Union, and hopefully I'll get to do the same for the other countries.

Sincerely


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