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I live in one of the places of the world where excellent quality wine is produced: Catalonia (Spain). This is north of Spain, south of France.
Priorat Wines are made here, and many other very good wines.

This has been and extremely warm summer and some country people started telling this harvest was going to be one of the best since 100 years. This is a false asumption due to the fact that grapes mature sooner and got many sugar. Sugar is the key to develop alcohol.

So you got it, lots of sugar, lots of alcohol, better wine. Wrong. The harvest has been done in a hurry because the grapes got so matured that they
started get rotten in the wine. There has been little time for the grape to develop.

In short : you could get grapes with more sugar ( so wine with more alcohol ), but the quality of this grape is worse, and the harvest is short.

This will never become law. The prior "administration", whose party (the PRI) ruled the country for 80+ years is simply doing what they do best - make empty populist gestures and try to push crap through congress to see what happens.

And the current administration is unabashedly pro-business (and unfortunately pro-church as well) and since the system is similar to the US, I doubt the prez will sign it. He'll just veto it because along with his party (the PAN) he's in bed with everyone from EMI to Coca-Cola.

And the company doing this? I know them - my brother used to work here. They're used by the various families who own newspapers in Mexico to hassle each other with stupid copyright claims all the time. Of course "OLIVARES & CIA." obliges gleefully since they take a cut. Ambulance chasers of the 21st century.

Mexico's thoughts on the recent Microsoft visit and the technological choices that they are faced with here. Again, in Spanish.

Steve Ballmer recently (Aug 22) visited Mexico and had a meeting with President Fox about the e-Mexico project proposed by Fox. While no conclusive evidence has surfaced, based in Ballmer's declarations Microsoft would "help" the government with Windows licences.

If you can read Spanish see the following article in the respected newspaper Reforma of Mexico City.

Ballmer decried using Linux or other open source in government projects and discarded criticism regarding the possible technological dependency of the Mexican Government on MS. Quote: "The grovernment will make a wise decision," said Ballmer, obviously meaning using MS instead of Linux.

The past August 24, after the meeting between Vicente Fox and Steve Ballmer mentioned in the article, I submitted a badly worden article, made in the heat of the moment, which was obviously rejected by our dear editors here.

But with this article about Miguel, I think it can shed a little over the "commitment" made by MS with Mexico's government.

Uatu

P.S. Originally it had two articles, but I present just one of them.

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Microsoft will support e-Mexico project

I just read some news about the interview Steve Ballmer had with Mexico's President Vicente Fox about the e-Mexico project (in few words, to deploy an internet backbone around the country and install at least kiosks in small communities. Something like that.)

Well, my worst fears are coming true. Now I say this even when I make a living developing solutions mostly on Microsoft technologies and I haven't give that much thought about what exactly would be best, but I think what my country (or any developing one) needs is :

1) Try to cover the most territory/town/etc. in your project

2) Try to save the most money trying to do it. On other words, do it cheaply.

3) Not to tie your project/future in a technology that may require further payments. (.NET, license rents, etc.)

4) Use technologies that can be cheaply replicated.

And going the MS way does not cover these last 3 points and can affect the first one because the rised costs.

About other cons, we have seen something similar in UK, where the websites needs the IE browser. (I can't loacet a Register article about it.)

I think that to deply an all-Linux solution needs more people, more training, etc. Also, I don't know what company would recommend an all-open-source solution (any ideas here?), but maybe we can do something "quick" giving some concesions, like maybe clients with Windows machines but the applications being made with open source tools (Apache, PHP, Java, etc.) so that the applications and the future of the project don't be tied to a company's (specially THIS company) whims.

Why not do something like China for that matter, who appears to be using Linux ?
On the other hand, it's better to wait until senator Helms retires, before he label Mexico as a communist country if we do that.

About the article, when you read it it sounds as if they'll actually spend those 60 million dollars, and when you do the math ($60,000,000 / 20,000 people == $3,000 dlls.)
I don't know what the training will cover. Anyway, in Mexico you can train someone VB, SQLServer, Access with less than that.

When I read about the "investment", I couldn't help but remember the local articles when X company makes a donation to an university and says they gave away thousand and thousand of dollars... if you use the price list that nobody pays anyway because on that scale you can use site licenses, etc.

Also, a book named "How to Lie with Statistics" comes to mind.

I know I sound "ungrateful", but I can't help it being so cynical.

Now a little "Ask Slashdot" here: What would you do if you think MS is not the best way to go. Or better: What would you do about this project.

Anyway, here are the articles and the translations.

http://www.elnorte.com/tecnologia/articulo/140950/

and here (this is other paper from the same company) with small modifications

http://www.reforma.com/economiayfinanzas/articulo/ 119904/

Here's a translation of the article. Please note that Ballmer's comments are translated from the spanish article, so I don't know what he said exactly in english so it can (or better sai, I'm sure to) be different.

Microsoft will support e-Mexico project

Microsoft will invest on the certification of 20 thousand mexican developers who could create software technologies.

Ciudad de México, México.- Steve Ballmer, Microsoft President, announced today his company will do an investment of $58 million dollars through five years to support the Mexico's Government informatic
project e-Mexico.

Ballmer, after an interview with President Vicente Fox in the oficial house of Los Pinos, said the investment will be used to prepare 20 thousand people to develop software adequate to the mexican technological necessities . he indicated that for the company it's very important to invest in the country since it "will duplicate it's
profits in the technology industry the next years and Microsoft don't want to miss it."

Ballmer commented that the Fox's administrationalready has the necessary infrastructure to get the people of all social classes near the e-Mexico project. The project will try to extend high-level education around the people,
benefit the operation of the small and medium enterprises and to advance other aspects that favor the development of the country.

The Microsoft executive said that after his conversation with Fox his "optimism" toward the project has increased. He indicated that Microsoft's work will begin with the preparation of 3 thousand teachers, so that they could train other groups of education professionals.

Ballmer said that Mexico is a strategic market for the future of Microsoft,
especially for the development possibilities the country presents.

Microsoft began operations in Mexico 15 years ago, and is associated with Teléfonos de México, the biggest telecommunications company in the country in the portal T1msn.

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Other similar article from the same press conference:
http://servicios.t1msn.com.mx/noticias/computacion einternet/cei.asp?tema=19&subtema=81251

(Yes, it's from Telmex & Microsoft's portal.)

At least according to this article published in March this year:

http://www.reforma.com/ciudad_de_mexico/articulo/0 78598/ (Reforma, Spanish language)
or
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,42456,00.ht ml (Wired, English language)

Also, last I looked the Linux for Schools Project is pretty active, and I know there are equivalent projects around the world that are focusing on multilingualising stuff like this.

-Tristan.