Also, the Office 2010 source

Jul 8, 2010 09:54 GMT  ·  By

While proprietary software is characteristically closed-source, there are exceptions to this rule, with select third parties being allowed complete access to products such as Windows and Office. Microsoft has announced that it plans to share the source code of Windows 7 with the Russian federation, also opening up additional programs as per an agreement inked in 2002. Russia was the first country worldwide to enter an agreement with Microsoft, through which it received access to the source code for the company’s top software products.

In accordance with the Government Security Program (GSP), Russia has already enjoyed access to the source code of products such as Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2000. A supplement to the Government Security Program singed by Microsoft and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Atlas" with the support of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB Russia) now allows authorities in the former communist state to go under the hood of such products as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, SQL Server and Exchange Server. The quotes included below have been translated with Google Translate, so please pardon the poor English.

"We are pleased to open the company Microsoft and expand our cooperation. This is a logical step, raising the fruitful interaction parties for the past eight years to a new level of innovation, and marks the transition from certification of individual products to Microsoft certification platform for electronic documents and personal data protection in the interest of public authorities and, in particular, the implementation of the e-Government program in Russia. Microsoft software achieved good results to date, in particular, the Russian FSB certified Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, SharePoint Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008 Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 with integrated Russian means of information protection,” noted Alexander Alferov, Deputy Director General of Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Atlas."

“Signing this agreement means for us to yield to a qualitatively new level of cooperation with public authorities of the Russian Federation. We expect that the adopted changes would not only enhance the credibility of the software products of Microsoft, but in general will be an additional catalyst for the development of high technology in the country," added Nikolai Pryanishnikov, president of Microsoft in Russia.

GSP was initially put together in order to increase the level of trust Russian authorities had in Microsoft software. As the Redmond-based company delivered additional releases to its products, the agreement was expended, advancing the cooperation between the software giant and the Russian government. The new shared source code will be leveraged in order to build next-generation solutions for secure document management and e-Government solutions deployed by the country’s public authorities.

Windows 7 RTM Enterprise 90-Day Evaluation is available for download here.