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

Microsoft's reaction will be ?

[cfl]

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

Re:Start of a change

[Daengbo]

Thailand formed the Ministry of ICT about a year ago, and one of the first decisions it made was to commit to 50% open source use in gov't within 3 years. They are promoting OS/FS with the sole intention of building their local IT talent.
Companies have begun to offer large prizes (4 years average programmer salary) for 3D games which run on Linux, and have fast tracked the certification of an "official" OS and office suite for the country, which have been developed by an arm of the gov't, NECTEC. My school will get free promotion from them when we open our OS/FS training courses next term.
The Thai goverment hopes to free itself from outside control. The national anthem says "None are allowed to oppress and destroy our independence." Thais are very proud of their colony-free heritage, and look at foreign software as part of that.