[ Thanks to codez for
this link. ]
Stuffed into a small office on the top floor of the Institute of
Philosophy in downtown Moscow, Alexei Smirnov and a dozen other
techies sit hunched over laptops, pecking rapidly at their
keyboards as open source code flickers across their screens. This
is the nerve center of the ALT Linux team, a chain of
Russian-speaking Linux programmers that stretches from Siberia to
Israel. In many ways, this is also the core of this country’s
burgeoning open source movement. In this nation long known for its
skilled programmers and a love for anything that is free, open
source is starting to take hold.“Six years ago ALT Linux began as a volunteer corps of coders
eager to improve programs and show off their programming skill. In
the last few years it has morphed into a company with 30 staff
employees in four cities, plus another 120 unpaid programmers who
participate just for kicks…”