RuNet's Open-Source Roots

On a lighter Russian note to the previous post, a link to a Moscow Times article that tells of the roots of the Russian internet, the RuNet, and one of its early pioneers, Sergei Kuznetsov. Publishing on the RuNet still carries (the burden) of the open-source approach of the RuNet's early days:

While RuNet's graphics and technology have snapped to Western standards, much of the Russian segment of the Internet has yet to internalize the copyright protections that regulate online information abroad. Numerous electronic libraries -- the oldest and richest among them being Maxim Moshkov's Lib.ru -- regularly publish copyrighted material, including scanned versions of brand-new print publications, with the stipulation that writers who would rather not have their work published online can ask to have it taken down.

Kuznetsov himself keeps firm to the roots and must estrange more than a few writers: "The only right the author has is the right to ask -- by no means to order -- not to have his work published online."