And as Svetlana Semavina, PR manager for ASP Linux, says, a "rather large GNU/Linux community exists in Russia. There are more than 30 GNU/Linux user groups in different Russian cities."

And its largest user base is in the business sector, rather than at home. While admitting the unsurprising thought that it's "not so popular as Windows," Michail Kuzmin, also of Hard'n'Soft, notes that new Russian laws "allow any fiscal organizations to check the software licenses of small and medium companies" with whom they do business. So many of those companies are moving to "use server versions of GNU/Linux, since the GNU/Linux OS license is free and most GNU/Linux software is cheap."

According to Aleksey Smirnov, director of ALTGNU/Linux , the Russian implementation of MandrakeSoft, "more than 30,000 copies of ALTGNU/Linux are sold yearly". But he admits RedHat and Debian are the most popular distros. And he cites the "Rusification" of ALTGNU/Linux (and its RedHat opposite number, ASP Linux) as major reasons for the increased take up of the operating system.

"Now many internationalization problems are solved," he explains. But, he says, "there is a lack of Russian OCR and financial software for GNU/Linux."

And, he's not alone in that assessment. Semavina notes, "The main reasons for lack of popularity of Linux in offices and homes is that the most popular Russian accounting software, 1C, is designed for Windows," and, she adds, another problem is there's a "lack of games for Linux."

Another oft-cited problem for GNU/Linux is that pirated software is as easy to come by in Russia as sunny days in summer. "Home users," explains Alexander Rusin, R&D department manager and software designer at NooLab Corp., "on the contrary, don't use GNU/Linux, with very-very rare exclusions." NooLab develops linguistic databases and engines, expert systems based on natural language analysis, and other IT products.

The reason home users are few and far between "is very simple", he says, "Windows is more equipped with different end-user software, it's standard and prevalent." In addition, Rusin points out the piracy issue, "Windows cost is not a concern, Russian home users install pirate copies - that is absolutely total practice, at least outside Moscow."

Moreover, according to some, Microsoft OSes have traditionally been the OSes of choice. For example, Kuzmin, who says, "the use of Microsoft in Russia has a very long history. For many users, the phrase 'operating system' and the term 'Windows' are synonymous. Windows has a special Russian version, so for non- English users, Windows Rus is the preferable software."

Maxim Vorsobine, developer of FurtherTime, a Windows game soon to be coming in a GNU/Linux version says, "Windows is everywhere. It is also a well-known fact that domestic banks/police databases/social services computers still run MS-DOS. Yes, DOS, due to the enormous value of inertia. I suggest they are going to run DOS until their employees die watching their old pc crumbling to pieces."

Vorsobine was interviewed during Russia's 12-day Mayday holiday period and explained that "everybody is under strong influence of drink and cannot demonstrate any degree of intelligence in behavior at this time." Which could account for any exaggeration in his comments. And like Semavina, Vorsobine notes that "there are many translated and original books on GNU/Linux so one may say that popularity of GNU/Linux is increasing."

Rusin also believes GNU/Linux "and UNIX generally" is more popular in Russia than in Europe/USA, "at least for web-servers. In Russia about 80 per cent of web-servers are powered by UNIX'es. In the rest of the world it's only about 65 percent," he said. "UNIX in Russia is a business- servers-solution and the IT-institutes' (schools) choice, unambiguously. All professional hosting-centers, server-centers, it-centers, hi-tech departments, institute IT-labs choose UNIX for servers. Exclusions are very rare."

He notes that Windows-based servers are only used "where there are important win-applications to be installed on the server, such as the need to install MS SQL or Intarbase (rather popular here), or where the sysadmin is not so experienced to setup UNIX."

But while he doesn't believe there's much that can be done to improve its popularity in the home in the short term, he does venture a guess that home users "after some years - there may be a lot of GNU/Linux- soft, due to KDE improving, and" he believes, "the fall of pirate- practice will cause GNU/Linux-percent growth."

Peter Novodvorsky, who also works for ALTGNU/Linux, thinks the big Linux news in Russia is that it's "the same as in the big world -- the release of OpenOffice 1.0. We have our own project, openoffice.ru." In addition he cites, a few other current projects underway in Russia, which include updated URW fonts converted to TTF with good TTF hinting ; the OpenWall GNU/Linux distribution, and GNU/Linux security patches ; MnogoSearch, site search engine ; and Namesys, the company that makes reiserfs.

Semavina wraps things up pretty well, noting that since "most of copies of Microsoft Windows in Russia are illegal, many SOHO firms are now migrating to GNU/Linux because they don't want to have great expenses to legalize their Windows."