Case dismissed against Alexander Ponosov

If you have been reading this blog as well as following this case, some good news came out today:

A Russian court on Thursday threw out a criminal case against a school principal accused of installing pirated Microsoft software in school computers, calling the prosecution's case "trivial," a court official said.

The Vereshchaginsky District Court in the city of Perm, about 620 miles east of Moscow, dismissed the case against Alexander Ponosov, court secretary Galina Syelevanova said. Prosecutors now have 10 days to appeal the ruling, she said.

"We're off to drink champagne now," Ponosov told The Associated Press by telephone. "Of course, it was trivial."

There was no immediate reaction from Microsoft nor from Alexander Troyanov, the district prosecutor pursuing the case.

Microsoft had already gone on the record as stating they were not the ones behind this prosecution, so I'd be very surprised if they had a negative reaction or tried to encourage the Prosecutor to appeal. Let's hope this drops and the lesson learned is yes, Ponosov should have made sure he was being given computers that had legitimate copies of Microsoft Software but that people who are not purposely trying to break the law should get a break...even in Russia...