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Venezula Producing Its Own Linux PCs
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 16, 2007 08:49 PM
from the another-stick-in-the-eye dept.
from the another-stick-in-the-eye dept.
christian.einfeldt writes "The Venezuelan Government announced the roll-out of four different models of Linux-powered consumer computers, three desktop models and one notebook. Branded 'Bolivarian Computers,' they will be will be produced by a joint venture of the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce and a Chinese company named Lang Chao. The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America. At the ceremony introducing the program, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez claimed that the Bolivarian Computers cost 40% less than other commercially available models and come with a 3-year warranty."
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Full featured linux distros (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad how Chavez will be remembered around the world for the one thing he's been consistently right about, rather than an honest critical assessment of his achievements and methods. Hell, even Saddam Hussein, who used to be reviled throughout the Arab world, managed to resuscitate his historical legacy a bit through his opposition to Bush. Apparently if you oppose the biggest threat to peace and democracy in the world loudly enough, everyone forgets you're a slightly smaller threat yourself.
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Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:5, Insightful)
Although one of those TV stations provided material assistance to the anti-democracy coup, so they got off easy by losing their license to broadcast. Other countries deal with treason more harshly.
Parent
Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:5, Informative)
* You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?
* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
* You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"\
Nah, let's demonize Chavez and distort the facts!
shutting down opposition TV stations
* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
* You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?
Nah, let's just demonize Chavez and distort the facts!
unchecked inflation
* You mean an inflation rate that was 31.2% in '03, 31.1% in '04, 22.4% in '05, 16% in '06, and 15.8% in '07? [indexmundi.com]
It's high, but it's dropping, not rising. Despite the best efforts of the opposition to destroy the economy.
But nah, let's demonize Chavez!
or doubling the murder rate?
* With 11,000 murders in 2003 and a population of 26.2 million, that's 42 per 100,000 [globalsecurity.org], compared to their US-loving neighbor Colombia's 63-84 per 100k and Washington DC's ~50 per 100k.
Bad numbers, and certainly worse than it was before. But, sadly, that's Latin America for you.
They are certainly achievements. But if I were him, I would rather be remembered as a Bush basher than the rest.
I'll note what you *didn't* mention, like the percentage of those without healthcare, or the illiteracy rate. Or like having to do this stuff with an opposition that wants to wreck the economy and once overthrew him in a coup, and the US who would like to do both of those as well.
Parent
Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:5, Insightful)
Five times. During specific crises.
* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
Limited? This is the broadest use of the decree power ever granted. "This law applies to eleven key sectors including the economy, the central bank, telecommunications, food security and energy security." Previous uses of this power focused narrowly on single subjects.
* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote? * You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
Those 5 and 10 percent numbers are for percentages of registered voters to request a referendum on that particular decree. Once that hurdle is passed, fifty percent is the target number. The killer, though, is the provision that 40% of registered voters must vote or the referendum is invalid. Venezuela has had the most ambitious voter registration campaign in the Americas the past several years. When looking at historical voting percentages, this means that repeal of any decree is highly unlikely.
* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"
What? Congress gets a yes/no vote on a treaty with no ability to make changes. Very narrow scope. I would not expect the Venezuelan legislature to modify anything. Something about one hundred percent Chavez supporters in the legislature makes that quite unlikely. Makes it even stranger that he would need decree powers in such a situation.
* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him? * You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?
Helped organize? The worst accusations I have heard were more in the range of lent support to. Even that has been denied by the station personel. *shrug* I have no firsthand information, but every single media watch group in the world that I have come across has opposed this shutdown. I am more likely to put my faith in them, than the claims of Chavez and his government.
Same with the world's democracy watchgroups. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with economic organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with human rights organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez.
But nah, let's demonize Chavez!
But nah, let's canonize Chavez! There are postitive and negative numbers in abundance for pro and anti Chavez folk to argue from here to eternity. What do you think of his long term future? Right now record oil prices are keeping his head above water. If those ever slack off, his happy ride with the people is going to get rough.
and once overthrew him in a coup,
I wouldn't play up coups as being justification for his actions. People might start to remember that Chavez was a coup leader himself back in the nineties -- one considerably more bloody than the one he survived. I believe the only dead in this coup were anti Chavez protesters shot down in the streets a couple days before the coup attempt.
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Guess wh
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That's some parts of Latin America for you. In Uruguay I think there are about 300 murders a year, I'm not sure if in all of Uruguay (3.5 million people) or just Montevideo (1.5 million people), that's 8.5/100K or worst case 20/100K. Not all of Latin America is Colombia, Mexico or Bolivia, you know...
Re:Full featured linux distros (Score:4, Informative)
The TV station wasn't closed, it merely lost its license to broadcast over the air. This means that it can now only be viewed using cable.
You seem confused - "unusual circumstances" doesn't really explain anything, and the constitution wasn't "tampered", Chavez declared a referendum, and 92% of voters wanted a new constitution. Hard to see what's wrong with that.
After my first comment in this thread, I did some research, and found this [google.ca] documentary about the failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. After watching that, I can't really blame Chavez for not renewing the license of a private TV station, they seem to lie through their teeth. Also, Chavez is so tolerant of opposition that after regaining power following the 2002 coup, he didn't go around and exile or imprison everybody involved. Some have most probably been charged for their actions, but some prominent leaders from the coup government are still supposedly part of public life in Venezuela.
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Hitler had his Volkswagon (Score:3, Insightful)
It's far too early to tell how long the Chavez regime will last, but I hope the next government keeps the program alive.
My First ever First Post (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My First ever First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
Government direction can be a good thing. Government intervention will never be.
This project is doomed from the start — take the pink glasses off for a second, and imagine the US government trying anything like it. This very forum would've been all mad about it — and justifiably so.
For example, consider the expected quality of support. We all complain about the poor Indians, who can't properly troubleshoot Dell computer problems. That's with English being the official language in India.
Now imagine the Chinese supporting these "Bolivarian computers". In Spanish...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This project is doomed from the start — take the pink glasses off for a second, and imagine the US government trying anything like it. This very forum would've been all mad about it — and justifiably so.
For example, consider the expected quality of support. We all complain about the poor Indians, who can't properly troubleshoot Dell computer problems. That's with English being the official language in India.
Now imagine the Chinese supporting these "Bolivarian computers". In Spanish...
Still it is a perfect example of how GNU+Linux will survive out side the US if not in it. RMS has even suggested that they MIGHT have to move the FSF overseas. We all have heard him say that the US government is just a tool for MS and he is not that far off.
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Brazil (Score:4, Informative)
--
Solar power with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
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As much as I hate Chavez... (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bad he's choosing Free Software to promote his government where personal freedom is gone.
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I wonder if they will follow the GPL when they introduce nastiness into the kernel?
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I'm mentioning this because I think this is the first concern they have, having their own brand of spyware can be a nice after effect. The second
Re:As much as I hate Chavez... (Score:5, Informative)
Another "good" thing he is doing. 53 million lightbulbs have been replaced to fluorescent versions. An agreement with Vietnam was reached to start manufacturing the philips lightbulbs here. Vehicles will be able to run on natural gas soon, and the conversion will be free to users. They are testing solar panel use.
I hate the guy, but i want those programs to succeed.
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Re:As much as I hate Chavez... (Score:5, Informative)
OTOH, as I have seen time and time again, acess to technology increases ones ability to persue profit, i.e. happiness. The ability to use machines, and thus improve personal productivity, is the greatest asset one can have. The problem is that in many parts of the wold capital to acquire such technolgy is limit. There are no credit cards, or banks loans, or anything. Therefore anything that can be done to reduce the costs of technology to the point that an individual can purchase said technology from existing liquid assets means that the technolgy will not be just a toy for the rich, but a mover for the masses.
And this is the reform that many in south america are trying to make. Many countries in south america are at the place where the US is moving toward. Money concentrated at the few, gated communities, aggressive police presence, inadequate medical service. It may be that 10% of the people in Venezuela controls 50% of the capital,which and 40% live in poverty. Just like in the US, if you can train a person to catch fish, and not just give him a fish, and also make the fishing pole affordable, then we can begin to help people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps without the dole. If a computer costs $200 instead of $400, then more people can save that over a year.
Of course, US officials who have been on the dole and the take for their entire lives find this very scary, as the United States interests are going to be threatened by an educated and technical savvy population. Of course, if the US were not so afraid of an educated and technical savvy population, perhaps we would not have the trade deficit from which we currently suffer.
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Re:As much as I hate Chavez... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It really depends on the end result.
For example, there would have been no way to oust foreign influence and weld China beck together without something like Maoism. Processes to build a modern nation from divided countries with backward populations are often bloody. Old structures must be smashed and unity forged by force.
In the very short time since 1948, China went from warlordism and anarchy to economic and military powerhouse. Revolutionaries understand this. (I am NOT p
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
According to polls conducted by his own ministry of propaganda. BTW, did you know that the repugnant little elvis impersonator who rules north korea is worshiped as a god by most of his subjects?
-jcr
Congratulations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't the troll you are looking for (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Chavez needs to work on his math. (Score:3, Insightful)
$690 is nowhere near 60% of $930. It's closer to 75%.
Of course, 25% wouldn't sound impressive to the masses.
All the irrational replies explained (Score:5, Informative)
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Central planning failed everywhere? Singapore? Nordic countries?
They are not centrally-planned economies, not by most standards, at least. They have meddled with the market as all governments are wont to do, but not on the scale of nationalizing entire industries, etc.
Re:All the irrational replies explained (Score:4, Informative)
Central planning failed everywhere? Singapore? Nordic countries?
Eh? Read up a few things. If you're calling Singapore a planned economy [wikipedia.org], that is rather daring, to say the least. And scandinavians would simply shake their heads about such an assertion. Don't mix up high levels of government expenditure as percent of GDP with the absence of market economy (background [imf.org]).
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Inside the Coup (Score:3, Interesting)
Chavez may seem like a bad man to some, but really is a result of the grass roots organising - aka The Bolivarian Circles [wikipedia.org].
They claim USD$930 comparable? That's high. (Score:2)
Manufacturing computers isn't an IT activity (Score:3, Insightful)
So they're going to put free (as in beer as well as in "RMS-speak") on commodity hardware that they won't be able to manufacture any cheaper than US companies do. It doesn't sound like a big winner to me.
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Oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
Venezula? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Venus.
Volksempfänger (Score:4, Interesting)
It's amazing what people are willing to forget because someone is a enemy of their enemy. Chavez is rapidly militarizing, is the only leader in the entire world who seems not to have gotten the Communism is dead memo, and is now ruling by fiat.
Not good things.
Go Team Ven, ezuelan Penguin! (Score:5, Insightful)
One or two points.
Venezuela is a Democracy. They have elections every so often so the people get to decide who gets to run the place. They have decided that they prefer Chavez to the alternatives.
Chavez was democratically elected. And re-elected. Something like 60% of the populace want him as leader rather than the traditional oligarchies that used to run the place for their own benefit. They of course hate him for this. Almost all of the media in Venezeula are owned by the wealthy elite.
Chavez is not a communist. He is a socialist. There is a huge difference.
His socialist view is that *all* of the people of Venezuela should have affordable healthcare, at very low cost, if not free.
His socialist view is that *all* of the people should have low cost
Ditto with affordable decent housing for all.
And he is well on the way to achieving these aims.
His policies are meant to benefit the whole country, and not just the wealthy elite oligarchies.
So yes, Washington hates this, and him as a result.
Washington is having conniptions with this because I suspect they are frightened that the rest of the world might look at this socialist, benefit the maximum number of the population thing, and think "Hey, maybe there is something in this." Affordable healthcare for all? Affordable Education for all? Affordable Housing for all? Why haven't we got this?
This is why they have tried to back a coup to remove him from power, Against the democratically expressed wishes of majority of the country.
So, for trying to raise the standard of living of the population, he is automatically reviled and vilified. All this crap about spyware installed by the government on Linux, anti-Bush screensavers and the like is ignorant spite.
And one commenter compared him to Satan?
More than one "hate his guts".
I would be interested to know why exactly.
For those with an enquiring mind, there is a good book called "Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope" by Tariq Ali. It is about Chavez in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba and Morales in Bolivia. ISBN 978-1-84467-102-1. Published by Verso 2006. Read it and you may learn something.
Sigh. Bye bye karma.
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialism CANNOT be allowed to be a successful sociopolitical system because it would represent a threat to the profit-making machinery of plutocratic market capitalism. The uber-wealthy folks LIKE being able to game the system for profit. While America's economy is growing and corproate profits are at record highs, the middle class is evaporating and life for the poor is fast heading into the toilet - crappy healthcare, crappy education, and on and on.
Now if someone ever actually manages to prove that there's a better way to do things, well, it could all turn very ugly for guys like Dubya. They can't vilify countries full of successful white people - like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc - where socialism really works. But a country full of poor brown people is an easy target for their brand of rhetoric.
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That's not socialism (Score:4, Interesting)
In socialism the people via government own and control the means of production. Communism is not alternative to socialism, but a way to enter socialism via armed struggle. Social democracy is an alternative way to achieve socialism by transforming the state peacefully into socialism step by step. In the world where we are living, there is no country that is practising socialism.
You said that countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark are socialist, that's dead wrong. The countries you cited are free capitalistic market economies. The only difference in Nordic and usually in European countries is that they have set up safety nets for their citizen: i.e. well-fare, public education and health-care etc.. Having these things doesn't make a country socialist, it makes it a well-fare state.
When we look at south America and especially what Chavez is doing to Venezuela, they are more or less committed on idea of national socialism: using the economy of a country and it's means of production to further national agendas and it's manifested destination. That is wrong and stupid. They are only going to wreck their economies and after they have used their national resources like oil and gas, their economies will crumble down. The only way to achieve prosperity is to invest in infrastructure, means of production and to abilities of citizens. Nordic countries nor Europe weren't build in a decade, the prosperity that we have and that takes care of welfare state is the product of hundreds of years work and investment into infrastructure and means of production.
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ok you have to understand where this comes from. (Score:3, Interesting)
You see, you cannot have freedom without responsibility, they are the same thing. If you take away someone's responsibilities you are also at the same time taking away their freedom. A socialist state removes the personal responsibility from the individual and at the same time removes those same free
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also known as taxes. Something any government must collect, if it wishes to defend its people from other governments.
And I, for one, really like the concept of welfare - makes life a lot less stressing when I know that financial difficulties don't lead to starvation.
Please
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Besides which, how is a Chinese corporation operating in Venezuela the same as the Chinese government meddling in the oil supply? Furthermore, since when did the Monroe Doctrine apply to Asian nations? And third, where the hell do Americans get off claiming Venezuelan oil for themselves?
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Ahh, but not all commies are yet Linux users. There is still an untapped market of commies that use Windows (Gasp! How can anyone read the "Criticism of Gotha and Erfurt Program" and do that is beyond me!) or OSX - these more popular in the agit-prop subculture of commies, they design posters calling for general strikes in it because they want "colour calibration". Or so they say, still smells like burgeoise behaviour, bloody revisionists.
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Not being from the US, I'm not torn at all. If I have to give money to a foreign economy I would much rather the money goes to a poor but aspiring economy where the work and the economic improvement makes a very significant improvement in the quality of life for a lot of people, than further feeding an economy that is already the largest in the world.
In fact, given the choice I certainly prefer getting stuff or services o
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Then they're lucky (Score:4, Insightful)
it will be till somebody pokes around the prepackage and finds it able to only load approved state software, calls home, etc.
Then they'll be lucky to be running Linux. They can download a clean install from almost anywhere, blank the state software and start over. Download free tools to monitor their network traffic and watch to see if the hardware or BIOS has been borked.
But their plan was foiled by loading OSS on that machine, otherwise they would have gotten away with it. A fortunate oversight, don't you agree?
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