A few thoughts on the NPP and open source software in Russia

NPP - National Software Platform .
SPO - Free Software .


First of all, I want to note that I treat the current version of the development of events around the NPP in a very negative way.

In general, in my opinion, they went from the wrong end. It was necessary to first make a list of the functional requirements for the software used in state organizations, to systematize and catalog it. Simply put - find out what software is currently being used, what tasks are being solved. And already on the basis of this catalog to plan work on the gradual introduction of open source software, developed specifically for the task.
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By and large, the OS is not important here. What is important is the set of standards that the OS supports. For example, it was possible not to reinvent the wheel, but to take LSB as a basis, plus consider Debian in the same place. After all, it’s not so difficult to pack in rpm and deb.

But what we have, we have. What profit can still be thrown by the state to independent Russian software developers?

NPP as an entity has one positive property. Suppose there is a standard for a free OS, and this OS is installed on all computers in state organizations. In such a situation, independent software developers have an extensive market in which you can promote your product. But who will financially support these developers? It is obvious that only the state can act in this capacity.

One way or another, a directory is needed, which I have already mentioned - not a software directory, but a catalog of certain functional requirements. For example, describing accounting software, software for homeowners associations, etc.

The software delivered by independent software developers should contain a file with an identifier (or a list of identifiers) from this directory and its own identifier of this software. Then, a program similar to the popularity-contest collects statistics on the installed software, and based on these results, a certain fund of funds allocated to this area is distributed among the developers. This can be done every month.

Thus, you can reach the level of development of your own open source software market even higher than it is now in the EU, as described in one of the documents on the topic . In the EU, implementation of tenders is still expected, and using such a scheme one can avoid generally costly (both in finance and in time) procedures that precede implementation.

Of course, a cut in such a scheme is possible - for example, the same minister can issue an order that you need to install such and such software on all the machines of his department, and by sheer chance this software will release his firmware. But this is no longer a problem of implementation procedures, but of honesty and transparency of officials, and in my opinion it should be resolved in other ways .

Most likely, this is a bicycle, and a similar scheme has already been implemented somewhere, but I don’t know about it, and I will be grateful to the readers if they point to the existing world experience in this field.

Thanks for attention.