Former director of the school in Sepych, Perm Territory, Alexander Ponosov
Photo: Толгат Тагиров
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Village School Director Backs Linux
Alexander Ponosov, director of the school in the village of Sepych, Perm Territory, who has found guilty of installing pirated Windows software in 12 school computers, has changed jobs. He is now engaged in popularizing the free Linux operating system, Window's biggest competitor, after winning a competition held by the Russian Federal Education Agency (Rosobrazovanie) to test Linux in school computers in three regions of the country. Ponosov received wide attention after the local prosecutor charged him with installing pirated software in school computers.
The Vershchaginsky Court in Perm dropped the case against Ponosov on the grounds of frivolousness in February 2007, after Russian President Vladimir Putin called it “nonsense.” Former president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian Minister of Education Andrey Fursenko also expressed their support for Ponosov. In May, however, the prosecutor insisted that the case be reopened, and Ponosov was fined 5000 rubles. An appeals court upheld that sentence. Ponosov has declared that the will take the case to the Russian Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights.
After the Armada Co. won a competition held by Rosobrazovanie to test Linux software in Russian schools, Ponosov received several copies of the Linux operating system. They were given to him personally by Alexey Novodvorsky, deputy general director of ALT Linux, part of Armada. Ponosov is not at present an employee of that company, but he is, nonetheless, coordinating the installation of Linux software in local schools.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 05, 2008
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