Show Sidebar Log in

Russian government to switch to desktop Linux?

The Russian government is reported to be contemplating dropping Microsoft Windows and adopting Linux as the operating system for agency PCs according to its internet czar, German Klimenko.

headshot of German KlimenkoMr Klimenko is reported as saying in an interview with Bloomberg, the business, financial and media company that Russia will consider moving all of its networks off the Microsoft platform and onto an unspecified Linux distribution instead.

The pertinent extract from the report of what Bloomberg describes as “a 90-minute interview peppered with expletives” reads as follows:

Microsoft, Google and other U.S. companies “reached the point of no return” when they complied with sanctions over Putin’s annexation of Crimea by halting all business with the peninsula, according to Klimenko. As a result, it’s “inevitable” Russia will switch state networks from Windows to an open-source system based on Linux, a move 22,000 municipal governments are prepared to make immediately, he said.

“It’s like a wife seeing her husband with another woman — he can swear an oath afterward, but the trust is lost,” Klimenko said.