https://decrypt.co/11947/moscow-bans-sale-of-gadgets-without-russian-made-software
The potential to integrate mass surveillance into the common Internet infrastructure has analysts worried. A booming blackmarket for foreign smartphones seems likely.
A law requiring that foreign-made consumer-electronic devices must be pre-installed with Russian-made software was passed by Russia's lower house of parliament on Thursday. It covers smartphones, computers and smart televisions, and will go into effect in July, 2020.
The aim of the new legislation is to promote Russian technology, according to its proponents. But some fear that making Russian-made apps mandatory will provide a backdoor for surveillance. Critics also claim that this promotes technologically inferior software, and might cause international manufacturers to pull out of the Russian market.
[...] On Reddit, users expressed concerns about the quality of the Russian alternatives, in comparison to international brands such as Windows and Google.
"I'm sure you meant Gugal, comrade. You no use Gugal, you go to Gulag," quipped one Redditor.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:28PM (3 children)
Make Mother Russia Great Again?
Seriously speaking - we sell a global product, including Russian translations and a few Russian sales - approximately 0.5% at last check. Now, our gadget with USian made software in it isn't really the point for us, the point is to sell our disposables, so if Putin wants to pay Russian coders to spend a couple of man-years developing software for this device, have at it: our software development time is 200x more efficient due to the broader global market we sell it into... and, if your people still want to buy our disposable product that goes with it, that's where 90% of our revenue comes from anyway - we lose 0.05% of our overall revenue stream to the Russian gadget software, and Russia gets a software maintenance burden 200x higher than ours.
Makes about as much sense as a US-Mexico border wall, or a Chinese trade war.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:05PM (1 child)
I'd have to read the law is question - which I don't want to - but perhaps it is similar to automotive rules. Almost no foreign built cars are sold in Russia. Instead most manufacturers have assembly plants on Russian territory. While say Hondas are missing, the diversity is higher than in the US. They use similar strategy for many other expensive items and perhaps decided to try to corner software as well. Let's see...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:11PM
It's such a different animal, the economics are very alien...
The Tesla Cybertruck is inside the US "pickup truck" firewall of a 25% import tariff, no doubt part of why it's being pursued.
Our product we sell to Russia isn't a "consumer gadget" and therefore probably isn't targeted, but... if they do start into our turf they'll just be losing our tech, which means their hospitals will be that much less capable of performing safe effective operations on the various things we provide. They can develop similar tech domestically, but that takes time and money which they're not likely to spend...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday November 24 2019, @04:21PM
People interested in control are often completely uninterested in efficiency until they get to the rotating knives section of the apartment complex design.