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Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend 365

Posted by timothy from the rational-actions dept.
soneca writes "From the last two years, Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has turned the country into a tropical outpost of the free software movement. The government is switching from costly operating systems made by Microsoft and others to free operating systems."
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Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend More

Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend

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  • More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rodgster ( 671476 ) <rodgster@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:00AM (#12086929) Journal
    US needs to follow that path.

    • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lasindi ( 770329 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:15AM (#12086985) Homepage
      Yes, but unfortunately, that probably won't be what happens (at least for a very, very long time). If GNU/Linux becomes a major desktop OS, the beginnings of the movement will happen elsewhere. China is pushing bigtime for it, other Asian countries, Brazil, and patches of Europe. The US is where Microsoft is more entrenched than anywhere else, and it will probably be last to fall (if this change does indeed occur).

      lasindi

      • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Zemran ( 3101 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @06:35AM (#12087205) Homepage Journal
        There is more reason for China etc. to switch than most people think of. Try installing Windows or Office on a machine and ignoring any text written in English. Even after you have got the OS on, when you try to install Office, if you have set the machine to Chinese (or whichever) it pops up windows in English to ask you questions. China and most other countries in this area realise that they want to be able to have an operating system that suits their needs (which Microsoft does not) and to be able to use that OS to communicate in a local as well as a global economy. Many people over here do not understand a word of English. Many educated people do but computers are now in the homes of those that do not, so they want something they can use. Linux allows them to create that OS and stay in touch with the rest of the world. Cost has nothing to do with it because as has been said elsewhere, I can get a copy of any software for 2-3 dollars per CD regardless of title. If they bring out Red Dragon Linux, or whatever, it will still cost the same as XP. The cost of bringing out tailor made versions of XP would be ridiculous, so most asian countries have got together and decided to work on their release of Linux that can be tailored to each countries needs. They know that they will be able to do the same with OO etc.

        Brazil may considering the cost as they are trying to get away from the 2 dollar per CD image (no pun intended) but the same sentiment will still be there when they try to install Office. I have had Office refuse to install on a machine that no longer had English on it.

        • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

          by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:30AM (#12087354) Journal
          Thinking about using a specific distro, I am thinking in Mandrake-Conectiva here. And here is where I think Mandrake really made a good move buying Conectiva .

          As for the government decision in spending tax payers $$ in FOSS instead of a proprietary system I think is the most sensate thing a government can do.

          You see, in some undeveloped countries as Mexico (mine), Brazil, there exists corruption and often people from some offices buy Adobe Acrobat (no, not the reader) or other expensive-like-software just to spend the money the government gives (so the government give them more money the next cycle). They usually use it only to create PDFs... from .DOC or things like that (yes, i saw it myself at least in Mexico).

          So, at least as a tax payer, I will know that the money (at least some part of it) I am paying is ending in something specific (those Government-funded-OSS) and that, at the end, they are mine, I can use it I can destroy it I can install, uninstall and do whatever the hell I want with them.

          I think that was one of the motives for the government to use OSS, as some politic (don't know who) from Brazil told to someone from Microsoft, it is not possible for the government to be "transparent" and use some proprietary software (at the end, it IS information no?).

          Well... I think more countries should learn from the example. For me it is a really good move, not caring about the OSS advocacy, but about the government/political side of the coin.

          • Re:More power to them (Score:3, Interesting)

            by rikkards ( 98006 )
            just to spend the money the government gives (so the government give them more money the next cycle)

            That isn't just Mexico. Canada and the US do it as well. On my last contract, Santa took orders around January to February to make sure that our budget was used up. The arguement was that if we didn't we would lose money next year when we may truly need it.
        • Your point is valid in that they need something customized in their own language. However Xp has both the Multilingual pack for XP as well as localized versions of XP which everything is in the language you use (try doing an install of XP in Japanese without speaking a word of it). The same is true with Office as well.

          • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Informative)

            by Zemran ( 3101 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @08:10AM (#12087470) Homepage Journal
            I am in Thailand right now and I have in the pack in front of me, next to the PC, the localised versions of XP and office and they put some windows up in Thai and others up in English. I am talking from very current experience. I have not tried Japanese so I cannot argue but I know that the Thai version keeps reverting to English and I had to install Office on another machine here that had English removed and the install refused, telling me that it needed English.

            • Re:More power to them (Score:3, Informative)

              by rikkards ( 98006 )
              Chances are they (MS) have put more effort into the Japanese one. I didn't see one english character except for the boot up screen when I played with the Japanese localized version.

              Of course this is a perfect argument for open source as you don't need to rely on a company to add or improve the functionality of the software if it is lacking (if you know how to do it of course).
              • Of course this is a perfect argument for open source as you don't need to rely on a company to add or improve the functionality of the software if it is lacking (if you know how to do it of course).

                Very important. They'll have all the tools at hand to make the improvments too. Will the reduced cost version of Windows ship with Visual Studio?

                The article insinuates leftist leanings of the president, but I see his choice as a very practical one. It's the choice of a man who will either get a free fish or
        • Brazil may considering the cost as they are trying to get away from the 2 dollar per CD image.

          A blank CD is sold here for about 35 cents of dollar (one real).

      • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:48AM (#12087418)

        Absolutely right!

        The interesting part of this is to consider the damage this will do to the American Economy. When we become the last of the olde guard, we will be in a position of catching up to the rest of the world. We haven't had to do this for a very very long time.

        The Corporate America will push on this until it starts to damage the American Economy enough that they have to migrate in order to remain profitable.

        We've done this before and we will do it again. Probably the best example I can think of is the 1970's automotive industry. We just decided to keep making big cars because we assumed people would buy them out of habit. The Japanese and Europeans proved us wrong by providing better products. And nothing the Big Three could do would stop it from happening. Trade tariffs delayed the process, but did not stop it.

        The same will happen with software. Only this time there will be additional damage becuase the labor force will not be American in America, it will be someone else (Indian, Chinese) and we'll have to export even more money to do any business.

        We are a nation in trouble.

    • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:42AM (#12087396)

      You're on crack right?

      I don't know that the US needs to follow that path and I'm not sure I personally want the US to follow that path. Here's why:

      The US will not willing choose to follow that path. They will only do it out of international/grassroots pressures.

      • USA is the home of Microsoft and most of the other major players in Private Software industry.
      • As such, any individual or company that chooses to use something else is a loss of market share.
      • Microsoft et al has Billions to invest in the US Government to develop rules & regulations to limit, block, and discourage the incorporation of FOSS into the American market or government. FOSS has... less.
      • Since the government is elected based on political contributions, there is no way to win on that front. The only alternatives are EU incentives (see Steel Tariffs of 2004) or through some kind of grassroots effort, but this is highly unlikely considering how owned grassroots methodoligies have become.
      For the most part, the US Software industry will exhaust themselves financially trying to block any kind of adoption of FOSS unless they can be convinced that they can make more money with FOSS, and the "more" part is where you can't sell it.

      On a more personal and light hearted note: I don't want the US to adopt Open Source because I'm enjoying a wonderful hiatus from being the Family Computer Guy (Nick Burns style) because anytime I go to someones home, I have the ability to say, "I'm sorry, I can't do anything to help you. I haven't used Windows since Windows 95b". No questions asked. It's kind of nice.

      If everyone in the US adopted FOSS, say Debian (for sake of argument without financial endorsements, pick what you want), then you will have to deal with the onslaught of problems this will introduce.

      • Virus writers have been steering clear of Linux because it's such a low ROI. Linux may be better but you're a fool to declare it is immune.
      • Today mailing lists are more/less populated with people who have some element of Clue. If all those really fucking stupid windows users starting using the mailing lists we would all experience a lowering of our own personal IQ as the result of it.
      • Personally, I enjoy the elitism. Not altogether healthy, but I can't deny it isn't there.
      • Politics: Imagine the politics that will ensue if everyone is trying to get their hands into the cookie jar. Look at the UN and the Internet..
      • Peer Pressure: FOSS will be pulled into some really stupid directions because of really stupid user pressures to do really stupid things. For example, "I want to install anything I want without being root all the time!" and "why can't you do (all the stupid crap) that Microsoft does (which makes them fundamentally insecure)?".
      • Personally, I would avoid pushing this faster than it needs to go.

      If FOSS is the Right Thing then it will eventually win. Nothing anyone can do will prevent this from happening, only delaying it. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy it for what it is.

      • That's a common misunderstanding. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @08:42AM (#12087559)
        Virus writers have been steering clear of Linux because it's such a low ROI. Linux may be better but you're a fool to declare it is immune.
        It doesn't have to be "immune". A virus is a failure in the security model/implementation.

        All Linux needs is for the infection rate to be lower than the identification/repair rate.

        If the viruses cannot spread faster than they are identified and dealt with, then they will "die" and Linux will be "immune" as a whole.

        But that doesn't include trojans. Trojans will be with us forever. They use social engineering, not flaws in the OS. Most of the email "viruses" that you see on Windows are actually trojans.

        But trojans can be dealt with much more efficiently on Linux than on Windows. See the next section.
        Peer Pressure: FOSS will be pulled into some really stupid directions because of really stupid user pressures to do really stupid things. For example, "I want to install anything I want without being root all the time!" and "why can't you do (all the stupid crap) that Microsoft does (which makes them fundamentally insecure)?".
        That's mostly solved already. Look at Ubuntu. Anyone can install anything. But the system will ask you for the root password.

        The extra steps that people would have to go through (assuming no Outlook-type email app becomes popular that runs installs from email attachments) will cut down on the number of email trojans that get installed on Linux.

        The more work the trojan writers have to expend
        +
        The more work the end user has to expend to get it installed
        ==
        Fewer trojans installed on Linux.

        Spyware crap that the user installs himself is a different category (Bonzai Buddy).

    • Re:More power to them (Score:5, Funny)

      by ppz003 ( 797487 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @09:42AM (#12087819) Homepage
      The US will switch to a free OS about the same time it adopts the metric system, which according to my 1980 something encyclopedia set, should be around 1990.

  • erm, duplicate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by badger.foo ( 447981 ) <peter@bsdly.net> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:02AM (#12086938) Homepage
    This story was posted yesterday too, wasn't it?

    • Re:erm, duplicate (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mfearby ( 1653 )
      Yes, it was. Perhaps they're trying to make sure that it gets noticed, as it wasn't a headline by itself, before. I know that I, personally, wouldn't miss an opportunity to thumb my nose at Redmond :-)
    • Subscribe to Slashdot and get your dupes before everyone else does!

      Is there a "no dupe" option I can click in my preferences that I missed? I mean, come on...this is getting ridiculous.

    • Re:erm, duplicate (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by ttys00 ( 235472 )
      The more cynical minded of us might see all these dupes as a way to get more ad revenue. More articles = more ad space to sell + more impressions = more money for Slashdot.

    • Re:erm, duplicate (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amanox ( 862297 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:38AM (#12087068)
      Not everybody is on Slashdot 24/7.
      Although I read slashdot on a daily basis, this is the first time that I see this, and I'm glad it has been brought to my attention.
      Ah.. Brazil... it just moved up on the list of countries that I want to move to.
      • Sure. Then, please editors, mark it in some way.

        With a different color, with sticking a link - "Repeat of this and that", but the most importantly with an option in preferences to switch showing dupes off.

        Editors can go on the way and say "uh, it's not a bug, it's a feature", but then act like as if it would be a feature! I would even be happy if they would offer the option to switch off dupes for subscribers only.

        My personal opinion is that it's a bug and editors don't do enough to handle it. In my p [slashdot.org]
    • It's not a dupe. Brazil became an even bigger and bester friend to free software since yesterday.

    • NOT a dupe! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @08:08AM (#12087464) Journal
      Slashdot is just implementing RAID 1

      (NB: RAID = Repeat Article In about a Day)

  • 2x in one day? (Score:2, Informative)

    by scubacuda ( 411898 )
    Geez, I wonder why the link in the /. submission was already grey...

    Hmmmm, could it be that it's a dupe [slashdot.org]?

    • Dupes on slashdot? Never seen that happen.

    • Re:2x in one day? (Score:4, Funny)

      by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:29AM (#12087036)

      Maybe there just isn't any "News for Nerds" out there this week, hence the dupes. I mean, the technology world is so slow moving news is hard to come by. Hang on a minute, Technocrat [technocrat.net] has a load of interesting stories.

      • I just discoverd Technocrat not to long ago and now have a really cool member number of 1725(im not a member number fanatic but "RFC 1725 (rfc1725) - Post Office Protocol - Version 3", if i were i would of joined slashdot as a member when i first found the site in 1999) .. but i digress ...
        I do belive this news is important enough to stay atop for a while , perhaps this was the reasoning ,,,, ok im just trying to find excuses .

        Brazil having a strong stance on OSS is great and will hopefully be joined by s
    • Dupes on slashdot? Never seen that happen at all.

  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Handbrewer ( 817519 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:05AM (#12086952) Homepage
    Its great to see governments spend their taxpayers money wisely. Also it helps their trade balance positively, it makes sense in so many levels to not use Microsoft software for every other country than America, so im surprised only Norway, Germany and Brazil are seriously rolling it out. And for the projects i heard about in Norway and Germany its just a few counties. But, 5, 10 and 15 years from now i would be very surprised if Microsoft had a dominance of even more than 70% of the shipped OSes.

    • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kwoo ( 641864 ) <kjwcodeNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:21AM (#12087010) Homepage Journal
      Its great to see governments spend their taxpayers money wisely.

      This is true, but I think there's a lot more to it than that.

      What I see as the biggest benefit to government adoption of open source operating systems is that it means local demand for developers for those systems. The cost of entry for people who want to develop for the systems is low, so it's possible for more people.

      Another high point is that when the government wants a skill set in the populace, it tends to be pushed a bit in schools. I would love to see the results of fifteen years of open source software use in schools in any country.

      • Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)

        by archeopterix ( 594938 ) * on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @06:12AM (#12087152) Journal
        Another high point is that when the government wants a skill set in the populace, it tends to be pushed a bit in schools. I would love to see the results of fifteen years of open source software use in schools in any country.
        Microsoft understand this. You won't believe the pressure from them to turn universities into MS training centers. There is a constant stream of invitations to free conferences for the staff. I said free? Considering the tons of gadgets dumped at the participants they are more like 'paid'. Free books and licenses of MS software for staff and students are the norm.

        Fortunately, Linux is strong where I happened to get my M.Sc. The OS-dependent subjects (Concurrent & Network programming, Operating Systems etc.) are taught on Linux. There is a .net course but it's outside the main curriculum.

    • Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)

      by traabil ( 861418 )
      Norway has actually a very good project in this regard Skolelinux [skolelinux.no]. The project aims at making a bespoke Linux distro for Norwegian schools, including supporting both "flavours" of the Norwegian language (something MS have been reluctant to do). Statskonsult [statskonsult.no], the state-owned company dealing with public management development, has actually called SkoleLinux "the only ICT solution taking the schools'resources and plans seriously".

    • Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nik13 ( 837926 )
      The governments going for microsoft software isn't necessarily not spending the money in a wise way. The cost of licenses is only a small part of IT costs, and keep in mind that switching away from windows doesn't bring licensing down to 0$ either (last I heard, they're not giving Oracle away).

      What switching to linux means in a gov't setup:

      -All gov't employees (users) have to learn to use a new desktop. For some people that aren't really computer literate, it already took years to be functionnal and learn
      • You'll decrease productivity by a LOT, and you'll have a lot of training costs.

        Looking at your typical Canadian Public Servant (at least in Ottawa, the ones outside tend to work more) there isn't that much productivity you will lose. I made the joke that when the union says that they will work to rule which meant that they will work 7.5 hours a day that more work would actually get done.

        Another thing, during the last big labour dispute I overheard a public servant complaining that they were trying to get

      • Not really. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @09:13AM (#12087691)

        -All gov't employees (users) have to learn to use a new desktop. For some people that aren't really computer literate, it already took years to be functionnal and learn to do the basic stuff. Take that away from them? You'll decrease productivity by a LOT, and you'll have a lot of training costs.

        Nope. The desktops can be configured to appear almost identical to the Windows desktop.

        The switch to Linux would be easier than the switch from Win2K to WinXP's layout.

        All gov't employees in the IT support field would need to be retrained for this new OS (can't just fire them or replace them, doesn't work like that). That alone could cost WAY more than licensing fees. Salaries might go up over time too...

        Yep. They'd have to be re-trained. But salaries wouldn't need to go up. It takes less time to manage Linux systems than it does to manage Windows systems.

        -All the in house applications. Just about every desktop (or employee) makes use of in-house software, and a lot of our corporate apps runs only in windows. Port all our in-house built apps? Replace all them big corporate apps? That's far too time/money consuming to even be considered. Best case scenario, users would have to login to remote servers (citrix or such) or something along those lines. 99%+ of our intranet is ASP/ASP.Net pages too (using SQL server too)... This alone is a good reason to stick to windows.

        The Windows-only apps are the only real block to migrations. But, if you have a migration plan, you can deal with these apps over time, before you actually move off of Windows. Simply start porting your apps to an Open Source database and scripting language now and don't do any new development in ASP/ASP.Net.

        Open Source is a strategy, not a drop in replacement.

        -Management. I'm no linux guru, so there might be (very good) alternatives to do this with linux, but I'm not 100% sure. Everything across country is monitored by a central NOC 24/7 easily. We have Active Directory, SMS, VBScript/WMI and a whole lot of other mangement/scripting/automation/(...) options. Again, not too sure of what linux has to offer here... Sure thing is, you just can't take away all our tools, you'd definately have to have equivalents.

        Linux easily beats Windows here. Linux's scripting ability (from shell scripts on up) is beyond anything you've seen in Windows (unless you're running perl on Windows).

        The only thing Linux doesn't have is the group policies capability of AD. But if you're deploying Linux, you don't really need those. Everything is locked down already.

        -Exchange-like calendaring and everything else (shared mailboxes, boardroom booking, ... the whole 9 yards). AFAIK, there is no real replacement (I very well may be wrong).

        There are a few Open Source projects, but nothing that is a drop in replacement for Exchange. That still needs work.

        Add to that the tons of ms office (proprietary) format documents... Using an office suite that may open most of your word & excel files isn't good enough here, you pretty much need 100% support.

        You can't even get 100% compatibility when using MSOffice. My HR department has tons of trouble with resumes that come in, in .doc format, that just don't print correctly. There are too many variations between printers and fonts and so forth and those all get included in the documents.

        BUT from a GOVERNMENTAL standpoint, they SHOULD be demanding plain text files. Having your data in a proprietary format (which may not be supported in future releases) means that you can lose those documents and the data contained within them. That is unacceptable.

        There's even more reasons, but I think this helps to show why windows may not be so much of a bad choice after all.

        • Re:Not really. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by TheKidWho ( 705796 )
          "Yep. They'd have to be re-trained. But salaries wouldn't need to go up. It takes less time to manage Linux systems than it does to manage Windows systems."

          I stopped reading there.

          Do you REALLY think linux is easier to manage then Windows, because for some reason I don't think it is at all. Especially considering all the constant pains in the ass I have been having with it(OHH BUT ITS EASIER TO MANAGE#%@#%!@#) How about the fact that my friends who have been using linux for at least 4 years still have ma

  • Reg-free links (Score:5, Informative)

    by icejai ( 214906 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:05AM (#12086953)
    Google news [google.ca] (includes reg-free nytimes link).

  • Their stance is probably a consequence of.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xiph ( 723935 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:11AM (#12086969)
    The fact that Brazil does not have any major IT industry that will benefit from Brazil only using propriatary software.
    Though i do admit to not knowing the ins and outs of Brazils software business, i know that governments in contries that do have those IT-Giants are under all sorts of pressure to accomodate for their companies.
    Something that would be far more interesting was if a Microsoft nation would adopt similar policies.

    What will be really interesting is to see which benefits they do reap from opensource, and whether others will follow suit.

    • Re:Their stance is probably a consequence of.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Koyaanisqatsi ( 581196 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @06:41AM (#12087220)
      That is not entirely correct. Brazil does have very strong software companies that build business apps; invoicing, accounts receivable/payable, supply management, tax automation and the whole nine yards. Only that software tend to be targeted at Brazilian companies mostly (Portuguese language, sometimes Spanish as an option) and to small to mid-sized businesses.

      We don't have anyone writing operating systems (out of academia, that is) and office applications, so it's natural that FOSS look appealing in those areas.

      Other than that, IT is very strong in services, support and custom apps, here, and in that realm FOSS is again a very good fit, as it allows one company to fully customize a package to suit special needs, while not being encumbered by proprietary licenses.

  • Since this is a dupe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nate nice ( 672391 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:18AM (#12086999) Journal
    ... let's have a discussion on how hot round booties in Brazilian thongs are. Better than porn I argue! Seriously, if you mod this down as offtopic or whatever, you are seriously messed up. These amazing butts warrant a good discussion. What do my fellow slashdotters think of these things? I can hardly wait for summer! Shawing!!!

  • Why is OSS equated with Leftist ideology? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:21AM (#12087009) Homepage Journal

    FTA: But the preference for open-source software has been controversial, with critics inside and outside the government saying Mr. da Silva's administration is letting leftist ideology trump the laws of supply and demand.

    I really fucking hate this. This is the typical newspeak propaganda used by companies terrified of losing their stranglehold on consumers by loudly bleating "Communist" into the air in order to get support from the more paranoid fringes of society, such as politicians who get kick backs from such companies.

    What Supply and Demand is this guy talking about? Does he mean to infer that all those people should remain uneducated because they can't afford to buy some bullshit company's overpriced product? Tell that to the people yourself, you cunt. Also tell them that buying Microsoft's Windows will make them even poorer than they currently are, since the only way Microsoft is ever going to sell Windows at a low price is to sell some ultra crippled piece of shit such as the Starter Edition which no one wants.

    (P.S. Mods, +5 informative [slashdot.org], thanks)
    • While I understand your point, one argument often used is that the government should not mandate all govt-purchased software to be FOSS.

      The idea is to follow the "best tool for the job" argument; you favor FOSS because it gives you orders of magnitude more freedom, but if no adequate (and polished) software exists for the task at hand, look at the proprietary options.

      In the euphoria of some speeches that concept is sometimes lost and people talk about simply banning proprietary software at all costs. That
      • I agree with your last paragraph, but I think that a fair counterpoint to the rest is that the educational value of having access to source code is not experienced by the purchasers themselves, so that the demand immediately derived from efficiency in performing the task at hand isn't the only relevant factor.
      • Banning propritery software at all cost, yes. However there's more to a government than the cost of the software itself.

        For instance, if the money is spent locally instead of sent out of the country to a foreign company the government can easily be better off even if more resources need to be spent to support that software.

        And one of the elements of the freedom of open source is that you can hire someone to make improvements if the gap to properitary alternatives are small enough.

        Also, a good governme

    • I think the reference is to fact that the government is going into the budget computer business. Remember how before the wall came down East Germany was about to release a car by the people and for the people? It didn't work out for them and they spent several years with nothing to show before the wall went away.

      This is like that with computers. The government is in charge of the creation of the computer and the pricing of the internet service "despite" the costs to the manufacturer and telephone companie

    • Because... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      Why is OSS equated with Leftist ideology?

      ...it is remarkably similar to some of the core ideas like this one: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". With OSS, there is no requirement to contribute anything (usually money). You can have as many copies as you want.

      In itself, it is a wonderful idea. But imagine OSS was a "real", physical product. There'd be replication costs, and even if there was enough for everyone, people would hoard it so as to make it scarce. That has hap

      • Re:Because... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DarkSarin ( 651985 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @09:26AM (#12087733) Homepage Journal
        Frankly, I find the connection as annoying as can be. First, there are a LOT of folks who equate communism with Soviet Russia and the nutjobs who run many communist dictatorships. Seeing this connection causes them to equate communism with evil. Of course, you probably know this. Whether or not you like it or agree is immaterial to this conversation, so forget about that for a minute.

        The sad truth is, however, that many people hate communism for some very poor reasons. Personally, I think that communism has some good points, but that too is immaterial.

        Now, with your description of OSS, I must assume you mean F/OSS, which is different. Free OSS is exactly what you say it is, but OSS may cost money. There is NOTHING in the license that requires it to be free of cost, just that the source is available (and I think at no extra cost). To me this is important, because it allows a company to sell the software and make a profit. Yes the customer may take the software, make changes and resell it, but it generally doesn't make sense to do that.

        The advantage of open source for the customer is NOT the ability to modify & sell, but in the ability to modify & use. I am not a serious developer, and so I will probably never modify an office suite or linux distro source to fit my needs, but I like to know that I can.
  • If their IT people are anything like US federal employees, there are only two possible outcomes, unfortunately:

    1. They fuck everything up beyond any recognintion
    2. They fuck everything up and then go back to Microsoft, ready to pay anything MS wants them to pay.

    There's no way in heck a large migration like this will succeed without top notch IT people ready to tackle the most dramatic of the scenarios. And governments (of any country) aren't well known for employing top notch IT personnel.
    • There's no way in heck a large migration like this will succeed without...

      It's starting from scratch -- cheap PCs with OSS installed for poor familes who mostly have never had one. No legacy, no "migration" problems.

    • Re:Too bad there are only two outcomes (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iksrazal_br ( 614172 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:27AM (#12087341) Homepage
      I've worked for the Brazillian government as a consultant for the last few years. A couple quick things:

      1) Inside the govenment itself 'mandates' like these are mostly ignored, or not even known about, partly because of 'jeitinho' - wiggle room for everything built into the culture.

      2) However, about half the developers already run linux on the desktop - most of them are Java developers.

      3) Big Solaris boxes run the majority of applications, and there are still a lot of mainframes that just haven't been migrated yet. I think its a question of Intel, rather than Linux or even Microsoft. You will however see plenty of Linux servers running firewalls, Tomcat, OpenLDAP and the like.

      4) That all being said, the general feeling is that Software Livre here is definetly gaining momentum. That and Creative Commons. This is all highlighted every June at the excellent international Software Livre conference in Porto Alegre. Good government and international speakers every year.

      5) As an expatriot North American who had worked in the USA as developer for some fortune 100 companies, I can safely say that at least here in Brazil most developers are consultants, and on average are much better that anything I seen in States - perhaps due to that good jobs here are hard to come by.

      iksrazal

  • so.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:29AM (#12087037)
    Something more to think about: Microsoft Office XP Standard costs $479.95.

    $479.95 isn't that much in USA. I bet most of the people here make *at least* this over a week - probably much more. However, right here, getting that much money *a month* is considered more than average. The minimum wage is like 1/10th of that.

    This is not to say 'the country is a poor country, boo-hoo sell us cheap software' (although it *is* a poor country). The thing is, values here are different; a software like that is *too expensive*. You can buy food here for a tiny fraction of how you'd pay for in on USA. Wages here are also a lot cheaper than they are in the States - even for the same job with the same qualifications. It's just that not only the country is poor, but living cost is also low; the values and the scales are different. You can get to a really good grill restaurant and get totally wasted with so much good food - and spending less than us$ 10. The same thing would cost around us$ 150 on USA - with the same restaurant chain! (Fogo de Chão - there's one around Detroit I think).

    When selling software, people don't think "ho well, I'll use one third/half/quarter of my salary to pay for this software..".. they usually think "ho well, I'll use 1/2/3 months worth of salary to pay for this software.. well nevermind, I'll just buy a copy next corner for $3".

    There are lots of wrong stuff going on the government of this country. And one of them is the coice for Microsoft Software. My dad used to work for the state a while ago.. Basically the entire office ran on pirated win95 with microsoft office, and of course, they had no 'central' support or IT management so I used to go there fix their computers. Switching to some linux based solution with open office (or whatever) would pose an obstacle at first but would be just as it was before on the long run. With less virus and trojans, that is (I remember I spent an entire weekend getting the entire office rid of macro template virii - man that was fucked up).

    I, for one, commend them on this choice. On the long run, this will prove to be the best choice, contrary to the FUD the local Microsoft is spreading.

    Of course, money saved from going to Microsoft's pockets will end up going to some politician's bank account, so who am I fooling. Nothing of this matters.

  • Sung to the refrain of Duke of Earl (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:29AM (#12087039)
    Dupe, Dupe, Dupe, (Dupe of URL!)
    Dupe, Dupe, (Dupe of URL!)
    Dupe, Dupe, (Dupe of URL!)

    Everybody Together!
  • Are they saving money? Is it working better? And does it work better at Carnivale?

  • Don't expect Lula to be reelected. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @05:43AM (#12087087)
    The US administration and/or Microsoft will make sure that his political opponents get plenty of advice and money.
  • I wonder if Brazil is interested in letting other international businesses come along and start up under their wing. With the way Australia is starting to become (or already HAS become) another state of the US, I'm looking for a safer place - especially since I think it'll be a few more years yet before Tasmania becomes part of the Dutch monarchy :-)

  • Brazil FS Best Friend? Ask Miguel de Icaza (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheBoostedBrain ( 622439 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @06:53AM (#12087241) Homepage Journal
    I know [ximian.com] he can tell you [ximian.com] why Brazil [ximian.com] is so great [ximian.com] for FOSS [ximian.com] Projects [ximian.com] and developers [ximian.com]

  • Netcraft confirms it (Score:3, Funny)

    by StormyWeather ( 543593 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @06:55AM (#12087251) Homepage
    Hot hot brazillian pron stars use Linux!

    Netcraft [netcraft.com]

    (NSFW) Mike in Brazil [blue-brazil.co.uk] (NSFW)

  • And the biggest thief (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:21AM (#12087315)

    I heard on NPR yesterday morning that they are also the biggest software thief in the world today.

    Don't which one, or both, are true, but you can be pretty sure that if Brazil is the most active software pirate out there the closed source companies will do what they can to set OpenSource==Piracy and imply Evil

  • Good for them! But is is good for them? (Score:4, Informative)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @07:28AM (#12087342)
    I am no means a Microsoft support and I do like Linux and I try to support it when possible. But having a policy of all OSS Software is just as bad as having a policy of Every program needs to be Commercial. While Linux and other OSS application are getting better every year there are some things are just not as good as Commercial Applications, a lot of people would agree the GIMP is not quite up to Photoshop standards, or Linux Printing Services are by no means as easy to setup then Windows (Especially for smaller networks), OpenOffice and all the other OSS Office Clones still don't have a working grammar checker. I haven't yet found an OSS RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool for Linux that is as easy to use a Visual Fox Pro, or even VB. I support the method when they are looking for software to fit there needs they examine the most affordable first and see if it does what they want then go to a higher price. If they nothing does what they really want then go back down to the OSS version.
    • Well, Office didn't have a *working* grammar checker the last time I looked, either - seemed to get every single instance of an apostrophe exactly *wrong*. Admittedly this is a few years ago, but hey... :)

      I think the point is to have open data standards, and use a mixture of software to handle them for (non)-heterogeneity reasons - but this can be achieved entirely within the open-source/Free-software community, without commercial input at all, so I don't quite see that Brazil is necessarily going down the

  • (Yet another) bad link (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Cisco Kid ( 31490 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @09:08AM (#12087669)
    The link posted appears to be to some sort of sign up page, and not a news story. I for one would greatly appreciate if /. would stop posting links to sign up pages.

    If it absolutely must do so, then establish a flag that will be set for those /. entries that include such (useless) links, and allow readers to set a preference to have all such entries suppresed.

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