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Venezuela Goes Open Source
Odinson sent in this news blurb from LinuxToday, reporting that Venezuela has adopted a policy for the use of Open Source software in government wherever possible. Apparently they have practical rather than philosophical motivations: keeping cash in the country and promoting local software development.
Open Source projects have a shelflife of two years. Then they die.
Why two years? That's how long a filthy lunix geek has to buy their pathetic little domain name for. And of course, two years later, the project is dead and so is the website.
Fucking cunts.
Trolls trolling trolls by parody of troll's troll posts. When will it end?
Venezuela is open. That's the start of your little "revolution"?
Big fucking deal. They installed GNU/Linux on all three of their computers.
If open source wins over some real, non third world rat infested shithole countries, then you can talk about your revolution.
No, Germany doens't count.
Linux and Freedom of Speech are diametrically opposed. You should know that by now.
Every last one of these Linux Zealots secrety desire to be Bill Gates. Or Bin Laden.
Troll!!!!!
The simple fact of the matter is practically no-one in Venezuela has the faintest idea of what the hell open source software is, let alone implement and adopt policies about it. Are you sure we're not talking about warez? It seem there's plenty of that to go around over there.
... what a mess.
Who in the pseudo-democratic not-quite-dictatorship-by-a-hair's-breadth of that Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro buddy Hugo Chávez, who seems to be the "only one" that has the God-given right to do or say anything down there and who by now literally and personally ruined and destroyed private industry, elevated unemployment to the stratosphere and happily ripped through, not only the entire country's 2002 budget but also the oil-price-peaking 100 billion dollar income binge could possibly have an inkling regarding this issue? Not him, by all accounts! If the government has no money left and is now suddenly aware of open source, it's probably not because of any prescience, intelligent policies or natural wisdom regarding future directions of the internet, software development or the cathedral and bazaar, its more likely that somebody whispered into Hugo's ear that you could get something for nothing.
It's a crying shame to see the universities, some of which are high level and well thought of the world over, closing down because of an ignorant and envious plotting colonel's economic strangulation techniques.
Please, don't lose sight of the fact that that Venezuela is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International, so rational arguments, like those put forth by Senator Edgar Villanueva in Peru, would probably not get very far there.
I deeply believe in the open source model and the enormously valuable legacy that is constantly building up for the education of future generations of humanity and would really like to see greater dissemination, use and study not only in Venezuela but in other developing countries.
For now, I'm extremely pessimistic regarding Venezuela. It is a country being slowly coerced into a dictatorship by an extremely corrupt, irresponsible and inept clique into an extremely uncomfortable supine position thanks to the timely adoption of Saddam Hussein's handy punish-reward system, which is exercised at every level within government, military and para-military circles.
Today, you can watch on the news a general personally attacking groups of protesting housewives then boasting about it to his cohorts, corporals challenging colonels after five of his troops were shot by government supporters, the president railing daily against the supreme court, military officers being promoted solely on their sycophantic "merits", national assembly deputys questioning each other's manhood, wiretap tapes aired without a care in the world
So, this optimistic report would cool if it were true. However, it would be even cooler to check it out more thoroughly before posting. I really wish it was true. Really! Really!