Open source software development in Russia is one of the most important directives for Igor Schegolev - the Head of the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation.

Schegolev met with Werner Knoblich, Red Hat Vice President for EMEA at the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation, and other industry leaders on February 5 to discuss the software.

The Ministry is supporting Red Hat's initiative to create a Russian association of Fedora developers. Through this association, Russia has become one of the countries, including the USA and India, which participate and influence the development of Red Hat's Linux project.

The Ministry moved beyond the limits of operating systems to further open source software market development and use. For this purpose the Ministry is ready to support working in co-operation with Red Hat.

Milan Prohaska, director of VDEL - the Red Hat Master distributor for Russia and Eastern Europe, who was present at the meeting stated afterwards:

"We believe that the creation of a best practice competence center is the most logical next step in wider adoption of Open Source in Russia...Both Red Hat and VDEL, the organizers of Russian Fedora projects, will provide this center with financial and technological support and also help to build the wider local and international IT industry network needed for this Ministry initiative."