Brazilian Government Continues Push For Free Software

rmello writes "The 'Legislative Free Software Week' in Brazil ended last week, drawing 2,000 people, including 3 ministers and presidents of congress and senate. Computerworld reports (in Portuguese, translation by submitter), among other things, that 1) House of Representatives will NOT renew MS-Office licenses, but is looking at free software alternatives, 2) The free software parliamentary front was announced in congress, 3) The e-mail system of the house of representatives is being replaced by a free software one, 4) The federal government is looking at concrete measures to stimulate free software as means of saving money and stimulating the national software industry. Looks like free software is here to stay in Brazil. Kudos to the many Brazilian free software groups working to make such victories a reality."

Comments

Special Interest groups

[AftanGustur]

You always have interest groups pushing for one solution or another. In the case of free software, it's tens of thousands of people who will have jobs they wouldn't have otherwise.

Switching systems like this requires more people (more jobs) for training and support. And even though the cost for the governament doesn't dramatically shrink, the money, not only stays in Brazil, but also creates thousands of new jobs.

It's about time the politicians of the world understand that important part of using free software!

Re:Too lazy to click? Read it below:

[rmull]

> The most important is changing the deviant
> desires of rob malda for young boys, not only
> approving pro-free software laws

C'mon, can't you even READ it before moderating?

*sigh*

Start of a change

[SerpentMage]

This is the start of a changing of how third world countries will act.

Seriously, lets see "PAY LICENSES" or "FEED PEOPLE"

Ok the argument is not always about feeding the people. Paying license fees is not what third world countries want to do. I mention this as a start because it will shift to other things other than software, eg Drugs Patents, Copyrights, etc. The West better be paying attention, because people like the RIAA say, "Why do you need bread when you can eat cake!"

Re:Start of a change

[jandersen]

"The US has an abundance of natural resources. It has lots of trees, minerals, fertile soil and water. Granted all those resources are being abused but there is enough left to last for at least another generation if not two. If we cut back even a little on consumption they might last for decades."

Yes, USA has some natural resources, but you are very far away from being able to sustain your living standard on your own. This is not just about having iron ore in the mountains ; have you any idea how much each and every American has to cut back on consumption in order to get down to European levels, not to mention eg. China or others? You guys have a completely grotesque overconsumption of things like energy and clean water.

"Most of the rest of world has already eaten through it's natural resources and will be buying them from us for a long time."

Hmm, yes, right. Try to read something about this subject. Why do you think your rich-boy's-club president and his thugs chose to attack Iraq - a country with huge oil reserves? Because their hearts were bleeding for all those poor Iraqis who had to go without American style demockery?

"Combine that with the enourmous amount of captial that has accumulated in this country and you will realize that we will not be lining up for handouts anytime soon."

Your enormous wealth is based almost entirely on American military power and presence in the world. As long as the US Dollar is the de facto standard currency for most international trade, it is easy for American companies to borrow money whereas other countries are at a disadvantage; in effect America controls the world market that way. However, the Dollar is losing out to eg. the Chinese RMB and the Euro (OPEC have been talking about trading in Euro - another very good reason for Bush to go to war against Iraq, as a warning).

On top of this most American companies and individuals are in deep debt; so I would say that America's incredibly fabulous wealth is just a bit fictitious. You may find yourselves looking for handouts before you think.

Good for companies like Sun and the FSF

[segment]

1) House of Representatives will NOT renew MS-Office licenses, but is looking at free software alternatives, 2) The free software parliamentary front was announced in congress,

So German government stated they were making the switch in 2001, China is making a switch, who's next. Could spell big trouble for MS' revenue considering China, and Brazil are just HUGE. This could be a break for Sun Microsystems though if they would do something with Solaris under x86 ala Linux or BSD. (freely downloadable I meant to say).

3) The e-mail system of the house of representatives is being replaced by a free software one,

Damnit, with the mention of another hole found in Sendmail I hope it wasn't that.

4) The federal government is looking at concrete measures to stimulate free software as means of saving money and stimulating the national software industry.

rants page): Let's say that OS #1 costs a small company $499.99 for about 10 licenses, we'll call this company Foobar Incorporated. Foobar incorporated is now getting pounded with about 20 virii per year, and it takes their administrators about 20 minutes per machine to update the operating system every time something new causes chaos on the network.

Either way you decide to do the math, it is going to be costly. Place 2 administrators in Foobar Inc., and have them patch up the system at a total cost of 100 minutes per person for the update. 20 minutes per machine multiplied by 10 machines divided by two administrators, we'll now give these administrators $10.00 per hour and the cost for this one instance is $33.33 for this one instance. $666.66 per year, for this one company. So how many small companies are there? Should we be generous and say 10 million? $6,666,660,000.00 in lost revenue.

These figures are only on viruses, not program crashes, not system downtime, strictly salary. Sure I know some geek wizard is going to scrutinize this be my guest... There are pros and cons to free software being you won't necessarily receive great tech support for it as opposed to some (note I said some*) companies tech support.

Now before someone unloads the holy grail of follow ups, I said *some* tech support. We all know that certain unnamed companies blow when it comes to tech support, but remember not everyone is going to browse through sites like kernel.org, nor jump on IRC for support. Many endusers still prefer pretty to geek.

</rant>

Re:Good for companies like Sun and the FSF

[davejenkins]

This could be a break for Sun Microsystems though if they would do something with Solaris under x86 ala Linux or BSD. (freely downloadable I meant to say).

Why would Sun want to make Solaris freely available? Why would Brasil want to buy more proprietary hardware from the US? You`ve missed the whole point of what Brasil is trying to do here: native support, native distro, native jobs and IT industry.

Even open source leaders like Red Hat, who do make source code available, stand to benefit little immediately: the native-blood syndrome is too strong.

I would imagine that Brasil is more than willing to go `low-tech` on some of their infrastructure as long as it is free or homegrown: they don`t need Lotus notes, email will do; they don`t need Oracle 9i, PostGreSQL will do, etc.

Re:This plan is brilliant!!!!!

[segment]

Someone explain niave-me

Here is how I think it may stimulate the economy a bit. Brazil's population was 155.82 million in 1995 according to their Embassy's stats, so for argument's sake let's say it still is 155 million. Let's take one percent and say that they buy software. This would be 1,550,000 buying say MS at a very low price of 50.00 (US). That would equal $77,500,000.00

Now what if instead of spending that money on MS bs, they took that money and opened up research labs to develop products of their own. Wouldn't you say somewhere down the line, they would be better off if they could make revenue by saving on software as opposed to throwing it out the window. So how does it stimulate the economy? Well money could be shifted elsewhere that's how, it doesn't necessarily have to be using some notion that free software itself is going to generate revenue now. It sure does however make sense to make the switch. Maybe your sense of perception isn't on a business level who knows.

Why so negative?

[Steeltoe]

They can use the money they planned on licensing from Microsoft to support their own IT-staff, including programmers. They can afford to build and extend on Free Software where necessary. It's all about mindshare, thousands of people surrounding the government will also install Free Software, and contribute when they get educated about FSF/Open Source and have an itch to scratch. This means fewer people locked into the abusive monopoly behemoth that is Microsoft.

You should rather ask yourself: Why am I so negative?

Re:It's a step in the right direction

[kramer2718]

You're quite right. I think that Brazil is actually counting on those private developers. I think that their plan is to contract out the software projects that they need done while using Linux, and other free software as a basis for those projects.

Farming out developement of other software has got to be cheaper than paying M$ obscene liscensing fees. Furthermore, when you hire contractors, you can get a solution which fits better than an out of the package software-suite. At the beginning, they may have to send some of that work overseas, but they will probably find local talent pretty quickly.

A very sensible plan...

[Simon X.]

Not relying on dollar-paid foreign products greatly is of utmost importance to the economy and financial position of Brazil.

Using and promoting free software stimulates local know-how and will generate many jobs.

This is just one more sign that by electing their president Lula, the Brazilian people got the government they deserve (in a positive sense).

Let's see on september 1 (the vote on the Software Patents Directive) if we Europeans can we be equally happy with our Parliament...

Re:Brazil is the oddest place on the planet

[Simon X.]

Is it much different in the USA?

Except that the government is supporting free software.

Free Software Creates Wealth

[jgardn]

You are thinking too narrow -- you only see the wealth created by the sale of the license to use the software, not the wealth created from the users of the software.

I know several companies in the Seattle area (still suffering high unemployment and economic recession) that are successful *because* they use free software. They are able to adopt a piece of software, extend it to incorporate the features they need in their particular situation, and then add enough value to their company that they are turning healthy profits while all their competitors are flailing.

Let's take one piece of software -- the Apache web server. Even though acquiring the software requires little or no capital expenditure, deploying the software is pretty easy, and extending the software is only slightly more difficult, it is the foundation for several companies. Without that particular piece of software, they could not have built their business. Just having the software available to people creates wealth and value.

When Brazil unleashes a couple of million dollars from its IT spending and turns it into the pockets of Brazilian developers, testers, and documentators, it is going to begin the process of adding value to Free Software in Brazil. The companies and businesses will be able to utilize this software in their organizations, and add a bit of their own as well. The increased value of having the whole country united behind free software will bring such wealth that the previous revenue that licensing would've created would be seen as a drop in the bucket.

You have to view software from a holistic economic approach.

Re:Good News!-WB and OSS

[EzInKy]

t is. However I wonder how much of OSS uptake is due to the poor state a lot of world economies are in because of the World Bank?

Possibly, but more likely it is due to the fact that when a government spends money on Microsoft software the money goes to Microsoft which does nothing to stimulate the local economy. Even if it costs them twice as much to switch to free software they still come out ahead in the end because the money spent can be spent paying people who are far more likely than Microsoft to buy other Brazillian products and services.

Independent non-US Software Industries

[Tarakona]

IMHO Brazil takes a step that we Europeans should be taking as well. If Microsoft products are being used in government agencies and the national industries, the know-how and the jobs would reside in the US and Europe will depend on the US as far as Information Technology is concerned. Furthermore, there would be a lot of money in license fees flowing from Europe to the US. IMHO it is clear that the US would have an advantage over Europe they would NOT use for the good of Europe but for their own.

Thus, a healthy European software industrie based on OSS is needed in order to be independent of the US.

I truly hope that our parliaments will realize this before it is too late.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but..

[Eivind]

So what you're saying is that the rest of the world is absolutely 100% correct in changing to OSS ?

I agree. It's a complete waste of money to send license-money to the USA for programs that could be better and cheaper made at home.

Take Germany as an example. There's around 80 million people, and around 50 million computers. The average cost for Windows and Office alone is something like 400.

If you assume the average user buys a new version of software from MS every 3 years on the average, then this works out as 6.6 billion a year.

For this money you could hire about 130.000 full time programmers permanently. Read that again.

It gets worse: Even if you *did* need 130.000 programmers permanently to keep Linux and OpenOffice competitive for the tasks you need, it would *still* be preferable to hire them, rather than buy the software from MS.

You see, those programmers would pay taxes. They would also do most of their shopping in Germany, paying VAT. They'd hire german carpenters and electricians to build them houses etc etc.

In reality, it'd probably be cheaper and better for the local economy of Germany to hire a quarter million coders permanently instead of buying the software from MS.

Something to think about indeed.

Re:Answer me this.

[amcguinn]

As a supporter of capitalism, answer these:

How many profitable, wealth-creating, job-creating companies use software?

How many profitable, wealth-creating, job-creating companies sell software?

If software becomes much cheaper, because more software can work from public free code bases, how many companies do better and how many companies do worse?

As an application programmer for, say, a bank, what is the effect of cheaper infrastructure software on my job security? If the projects being considered for me to work on become cheaper does that make them more likely or less likely to be approved?

If you work for Microsoft, you have my sympathy, but there are more of us than there are of you. Capitalism isn't about producing products, it's about producing products for customers, and when something else comes along that's better for the customer, his benefit outweighs the loss to the producer whose product no longer meets the need.

Microsoft Sure Screwed the Pooch

[FreeUser]

I'm be interested to see how Microsoft react to this. E.g. Counter offers, as per the City of Munich decision to go with Linux desktops: Munich spurns Ballmer's rebates

Microsoft really screwed the pooch on this one.

• A plethora of countries announce various free software and open source initiatives, emphesizing a transition away from foreign proprietary software to home-grown, or at leat home-enhanced, free and open software.
  
• Microsoft panics, sends Balmer et. al. down to buy off politicians and entice officials with obscenely cheap ("dumping" prices) licenses, no activation requirements, and liberal sitewide licenses that expire in a few years.
  
• Microsoft clearly believes it has offered these foolish governments something akin to "sucker lines" of cocain: a free (or very inexpensive) hit followed by the client paying through the nose for additional fixes.
  
• Instead, all of these countries obtained the right to legally use Microsoft, for pennies on the dollar, for the time they needed to transition to a free and open environment. During this transition these countries would have had to run Microsoft products anyway, either dealing with piracy accusations or paying full price for licenses. It isn't like one can switch an entire country over to GNU/Linux overnight! Microsoft foolishly gave these governments extraordinarilly cheap licenses to run their products during this critical (and expensive) transition phase.
  
• Now Microsoft cannot go after them and harass them for "piracy", or even earn a one-off full licensing fee for the duration of the transition (which almost certainly will require a year or two to complete, during which time these countries still have to have Microsoft licenses: licenses Redmond was so good to give away for pennies in their institutional panic).
  

Whether this is an example of third world brilliance outthinking their arrogant American counterparts (getting Microsoft to effectively subsidize their move to free software by selling them such inexpensive, limited time licenses, thereby decreasing their costs of transition dramatically), or just countries getting incredibly lucky as a result of Redmond's panic, I don't know. Probably a combination (not to mention examples of outright corruption, with corrupt politicians being replaced by less corrupt ones who revive these initiatives, examples of short sighted politicans balking when it comes time to pay the piper and renew licenses, instead renewing the free software initiatives they tabled earlier, and who knows how many other variations on this theme).

In any event, the irony is delicious. We as a community lamented the short sightedness of so many third world countries selling out to Microsoft in exchange for cheap licenses that would expire in a few years, when in fact Microsoft was being far too clever for their own good, helping to underwrite all these nations' transition to freeer platforms. They squandered their last chance to get licensing fees from these nations, and effectively did nothing to prevent them from transitioning away from their product anyway.

Or at least some of these nations, like Thailand and Brazil. Who knows how it will play out elsewhere, but for now I'm chortling with delicious glee.