The quest for freedom from US technologies and patent fees has been a persistent theme in China and has helped shape the new mobile landscape, in which Baidu and Alibaba, not Google and Amazon, dominate the user experience. Less is heard about another massive market, Russia, but here too, the push for technology self-sufficiency is gathering momentum, creating opportunities for alternatives to Android and iOS. The Russian government has chosen Sailfish – a Finnish Linux-based mobile operating system created by start-up Jolla – as the basis of its own mobile software platform, which will be developed by new venture Open Mobile Platform (OMP) and will be adopted by government agencies and state-owned corporations. This is a major boost for Sailfish,…