The pilot project to migrate schools of three Russian regions to Free Software has recently expanded its geography. Now it is possible for the schools outside of Tatarstan, Perm krai and Tomsk region to voluntarily apply for participation by completing a special form (Russian) published on the project website.

Russian Linux software developers have created an alliance to jointly participate in tenders to supply schools with open source software. The total number of specialist entering the alliance has exceeded the given number in Mandriva and Ubuntu Canonical producer, all in all.

A free online alternative to the Windows operating system is set to be introduced in schools in three Russian regions by 2009. If the pilot project proves successful, all schools across the country will make the switch a year later.

The company Microsoft Rus together with Intel and Volnoye Delo Fund intends to double the number of school PC in Russia in the near future. The software installed on computers within the charity project launched by the fund will cost four-fold less than within the existing education projects, i.e. MS Office + Windows XP will be supplied for $3.

Russian OS is to be installed on every school computer in Russia by 2009. Furthermore, every pupil will get the opportunity to operate the applied software produced in Russia, Leonid Reiman, acting Minister of Communication stated at a press conference. Experts and market participants consider the terms within which software is to be developed quite reasonable. According to Mr.

The plan is that 60 thousand Russian teachers will be able to complete the training and testing procedure by the end of 2009 which means that as soon as next year all the schools in Russia will be able to switch to open-source software which definitely should be appreciated by the open-source community.

I've often lamented how few schools in the UK use free software, and how difficult it is to break the lock that Microsoft has on the entire educational system. The pathetic state here is highlighted by contrast with Russia, which is making amazing strides in rolling out open source to schools.

"I've often lamented how few schools in the UK use free software, and how difficult it is to break the lock that Microsoft has on the entire educational system. The pathetic state here is highlighted by contrast with Russia, which is making amazing strides in rolling out open source to schools..."

Russia is rapidly turning into open source's best-kept secret. I wrote about plans to roll out free software to all schools; more recently, there has been talk about creating a Russian operating system based on Fedora. And now there's this...