On June 9, 2015, a meeting of the Russian Presidential Economy Modernization and Innovative Development Council Presidium was held, and Igor Boychenko, General Manager of RELEX Group, took part in it. The meeting took place in Innopolis High-Tech City in Tatarstan on the day of its inception, and was devoted to the National Technological Initiative development and implementation, and to innovative development of IT.
This is what Mr. Boychenko told us:
«The meeting was held to sum up the extensive preparatory work performed by the experts and executives in charge.
Several brief reports were made, outlining the points of the agenda. As part of the National Technological Initiative, the first three market roadmaps for AeroNet, AutoNet and NeuroNet were introduced. The second block of reports focused on the innovative IT development, the results achieved, and aspects of future work.
The Council agenda did not include any discussions, but the participants could ask questions and offer feedback.
In my inquiry to Mr. Medvedev, I expressed a concern with the existing policy implying domination of free software products and solutions that tends to be a single option at times. Moreover, all free software is defined as domestic, and its “developers” seem to believe it.
I pointed out that this approach is currently an effective solution for import substitution of some proprietary products, but it should be in no way be seen as the only or the most important one. If so,
DBMS projects and products that are explicitly or implicitly proprietary will not be able to compete with DBMSs based on free software.
An example of a long-term (25 years!) and successful Russian DBMS development school is RELEX Group, including the new company “RELEX Scientific and Technical Center”, a resident of Skolkovo.