The Government of Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies has launched MOS.Hub, a platform aimed at becoming the “Russian community of developers of software code”. This new online hub is an extension of the city’s software repository, which has been in the making for over a decade. The MOS.Hub site allows users to share their own software developments and also re-use individual elements of Moscow’s digital services. Upon registration, users can create their own groups and public or private projects. However, the number of public repositories included on mos.hub is currently limited, with only two test projects available.
MOS.Hub is expected to function as an analogue to well-known global repositories like GitHub and Gitlab. All the information on the MOS.Hub platform is secured in a Russian data center. Despite this, an initial inspection of the code on the platform’s main page suggests that the system is based on the open-source platform, gitlab, which was developed by the American company gitlab inc. MOS.Hub employs the Google Recaptcha cloud service, Kapchu, for verification. The platform also draws on the image-hosting service, gravatar.com, which is owned by Automattic Inc., to display user avatars and track user activity.