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Interview with Dr. Villanueva
cigarky writes "I think many of us were very impressed by the recent letter of Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez. Linux Today has a followup interview with more in-depth information."
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Any chance he'd be willing to run for President in the U.S. in 04?
You are not the customer.
When you hear people complaining that free (as in beer) software is going to cost programmers jobs or cut their salary, or that free software will send us into an economic tailspin, remember this: Both free (as in speech) and free (as in beer) software are making technological revolutions possible in places where it just couldn't happen otherwise. And you can bet that we're going to see good stuff (more software!) starting to flow back the other way.
Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
If every Slashdot reader wrote him in on the ballot, he would end up with more votes than Ross Perot.
I think this recent post would reasure not only Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez position but the rest of the Open Source advocates that a secure OS is needed. Would you install a OS when it's creators tell you it is not secure?
If you could sum it up in a nutshell, maybe you should be writing O'Reily books. --- Domasi 2001
More important point: I am glad he wrote the letter; I can now explain to all my friends in México why Linux is important by having them read the original Spanish version of his letter.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
What intrigues me about the entire software industry, is that they charge relatively different prices around the work. In Europe, a copy of XP is maybe 1 week of average pay. In inner Africa, a copy of XP runs well into the months. Asking companies there to pay full price is plain ridiculous. When I'm rich and famous at 35, I'll go to Africa to teach them how to unleash the then awe-inspiring power of the Penguin. Hopefully, I'll be many years too late.
Stop the brainwash
I didn't see an interview.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
> Would you install a OS when it's creators tell you it is not secure? It is precisely *because* people are willing to accept that Linux (and no software) is totally secure, that I use it. Would you install an OS when it's creators tell you it IS secure, but they keep releasing "critical updates"?
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
Since most of us don't vote in Peru, all of us in the OSS community should pay special attention to any requests for tech assistance from Peruvian sources.
Spread the word.
More coverage on this entire topic here
You rush a Miracle Man, you get rotten miracles - Miracle Max, TPB
This is all a real blow to my cynicism.
People say "the internet will change the way the world works!" and I say "yeah, right", because people who say that sort of thing (often involving the non-word "paradigm") don't even know what a packet is. "It's shifted the whole paradigm for the sex movie industry", I say derisively.
Well, this, and by this I mean the whole imbroglio where Dr. Villanueva is now the cause celebre of the open source movement, could never have happened without all that international packet switching, and the culture that has grown up around it, and this is very significant.
This isn't a fake economic event - like stock quotes. This isn't a manufactured cultural event with no social or political relevance - like the pop music we're swapping. This isn't the sophistry of most modern political news which is nothing more than the latest lies to promote your own self interest.
This is real and genuine and the internet has made it possible.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The Doctor's letter is more than impressive. His point by point rebuttal of Microsoft's falacies was both thorough and consise. He clearly called out the internal contradictions that are so common in Microsoft's arguments. I was stunned by how well he made his points. For anyone who hasn't read it, regardless of your position on the issue, you should.
Villanueva was once invited to an event in Columbia where he was to meet with the Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman, and to his great disappointment this event had to be cancelled.
They refused to re-name the country GNU/Columbia.
Karma: Professionally Doomed (mostly affected by inability to keep opinions to self)
How about a Slashdot interview with this guy? I haven't know many politicians to shy from another couple million eyeballs regarding their pet project, even if it comes from non-constituents.
--
$tar -xvf
Peru is far from a paradise, I'm afraid:
Kidnappings, murders, armed robberies, and drug-related crime remain serious problems, especially in Lima. Corruption is deep-seated in the police and security forces. Despite the near-destruction of the left-wing Sendero Luminoso guerrillas, main cities frequently have curfews and those who can afford it protect themselves with high-security homes and armed guards.
'cos I'll be jiggered if I can figure out how to get any international characters out of my Linux box w/ a US 101-key.
Actually, this is the text of a bill proposed in Argentina, but it is almost identical (to the point of s/Argentina/Peru/g). The free software deffinition used in both is the same.
e) Free program (software) is any which use gives the user, without an additional price, the following rights:
...
d.1) unrestricted execution of the program for any purpose.
d.2) unrestricted access to its source code
d.3) exhaustive inspection of all internal operating mechanisms of the program.
Very good: patents are not allowed for government software!
But, hmm, hat does rule d.3 mean?
This is also interesting:
g) Open data format is any digital information coding method that meets the following conditions:
g.1) its complete technical documentation is publicly available.
g.2) the source code for at least one complete reference implementation is publicly available.
g.3) there are no restrictions for writing programs that store, transmit, receive or access data codified this way.
So a standard is not an open format until there is an open source implementation. This means a lot of the stuff by w3.org is not an open format!
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
If you are oversensitive, then it's because you obviously have some sort of vested interest in posting difamatory material as you do. I won't say you work for Microsoft but I will ask you where on earth you get your claim that Villanueva doesn't value human life and believes it to be expendable? I will also ask you on what you base your claim that he is spreading hatred and malice when it seems that that is more what you are doing? In addition to this I would ask you on what you base your claim that he is making the lives of the sick, old, disabled and unemployed miserable, since, judging from everything I've read about this man and looking at his origions and his work in improving the computing access in a region with extremely limited financial means, this is exactly the opposite of what he is trying to do.
Finally, i would ask you who you are?
If you're so desperate to throw a vote to some foreign guy based on only one of his stances, you might want to look up politicians who have similar agendas at home, like Ralph Nader. He has been keeping up with the issue.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
It will not solve the problems you talk of but consider this:
Having access to the internet enables those people to exchange information, a process invaluable in terms of solving problems and sharing experiences.
It enables people to find cheaper practical ideas to the problems of getting clean water, roofing, medical aid etc which they might not have known about earlier.
It enables people to gather and process statistics, one of the oldest computing tasks, which is invaluble in helping them to see their problems as a whole.
It helps them to learn, and enables them to get access to learning materials which they possibly could not otherwise do.
I am not a republican, but I AM conservative. Similar, but very different. I am a proponenet of patriotism. American Citizens first. Anti-GLOBALIST companies. Anything that goes against the true meaning of America. I've always said a liberal is a person who's never been robbed :) Democrats should support the Green party (nader) and republicans should support Buchanan.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I don't know if I'm imagining it but everytime Villanueva's name turns up here on /. the anti-OSS trolling increases to a fevered pitch.
It seems as if opponents of this bill are very, very scared of the snowball effect that it could have. Peru is a poor country and is one of many on this earth. While I doubt that many of those countries have leaders that are as interrested in the wellbeing of their populace or as well articulated, I think there would be enough to see the benefits of a law such as this one, especially if it makes a notable difference in the IT landscape in Peru. Certain companies will certainly try to use dubious methods to try to silence efforts such as this, because it leaves them out in the cold, or did anyone think that poor countries had any possibility of expending their IT knowhow in any other manner?
Could you perhaps be the same person who posted that other diffamatory note with the title "Why I don't like Villanueva"? In any case you are doing yourself an extreme disservice. Almost everybody believes that you are from Microsoft and asks why you are posting such stuff here? I would also belive that most people here see this kind of post as Fear on the part of Microsoft.
Oh yeah, that's going to work.
"Deer Congresman,
Please stop using Micro$uck's software in the federel stuff. GNU/LINUX ROX!! Like that letter in Peru. They got it write!
Sinceerly,
Anonymous Coward
p.s. BAN MICRO$HAFT!!!!"
u can check it at here
regards
Again, just to reply to a few points here:
Read up on Public Finance and derived benefit from public goods. Then come talk. -- actually I'd suggest you read some more serious economic texts than you appear to have received in your undergraduate education. Read some Milton Friedman, some Arthur Laffer, and so forth, and you'll see that most serious economists agree that reducing taxes is a very effective way to stimulate growth. And growth means a better standard of living at all levels of society.
my father makes around 900k to 1200k per year -- so perhaps it is you who are not acquainted with the huge tax burden placed on the rich and the upper middle class in this country. In actual fact, as documented here and elsewhere, the upper middle class and rich in America pay an amount in taxes that is completely disproportionate to what they earn or have.
The way to help is to bring those needing help to the level of those not. -- unfortunately, the effect of all attempts at doing so over the last 200+ years has been to bring everyone down into poverty. In contrast, one thing capitalism has done really well is to raise everyone's level. As a perfect example, the bottom 20% of American society currently earns, has, and consumes as much as the middle 20% did in the 1950's, an era generally remembered for it's prosperity. No other system has ever provided growth like that.
The US government, fustrated with vendor-lock-in and the national-security fact that they 'didn't know what was in their software' specifically stipulated that all future programs written for the state by contractors will be written in "human comprehendable COBOL". This was in the late 1950s. . .
.anyone wish to comment on it? It seems to have the same pretense as the Peruvian Bill but was enacted all wrong (aka forcing a language). . .
I was reading this in a computer history book recently. .
We _really_ need to make sure that when this bill passes, the OSS/FS communities make sure that the project gets all the help it needs!! We can't let this project even hit a small snag, let alone fail.
Face it, with the attention that this is getting, if anything goes wrong, M$ is going to jump down our throats about it. This is the poster child project for the whole movement. It's going to be looked at by the whole world as an example of what happens when you go the Free software route, therefore we can't let it fail.
Please help make sure that the project goes as smoothly as is possible. Thanks in advance.
The third LinuxToday response links this native Argentine article (in English) which is less professional but in its own way even more telling than Villaneuva's response.
Read some of the explanations of the motivation behind much software `piracy' in `less developed' countries and weep. Imagine, for example, paying more for a base copy of your OS than you did for your new hardware!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
No, not movies, news.
I'm happy to hear that those problems are solved in Peru. I'm also very sorry for my ignorance. I didn't doublecheck better before quoting what I found with Google. It doesn't help that news agencies were quick to air negative news but don't bother with positive. :-(
It means whatever you want it to mean. I seem to remember it being some sort of bastardization of "Jinkies" from Scooby-Doo, but it could just as easily be a real word with a real definition that I heard once that slipped into my vocabulary.
Typing the keystroke sequences you listed does different things in different programs. For example, Alt-A is the standard keystroke for "select all" and does exactly that if you try it in Netscape. In emacs, alt-A does something completely different.
There is no keystroke standardization in X. I don't even think X itself does anything to trap keystrokes whatsoever - just windowmanagers and any other programs you have running. 's one of the most *ahem* beautiful *ahem* things about GNU/Linux - absolutely NO user interface standardization, and no way for a user to create it without modifying the source code to every piece of program he or she has.