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IBM, Brazilian Government Launch Linux Effort

Posted by timothy on from the where-is-provo-again dept.

chriscooper1470 writes "Here is an update to the Brazilian Government Continues Push for Free Software. Brazil has become the latest country this week to show its support for Linux. Following moves by the UK and Russia, the government of Brazil announced Friday that it has signed a letter of intent with IBM pledging to develop initiatives that will promote the use of Linux in the Latin American country."

17 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. One day... by 1010011010 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One day the U.S. will be running Microsoft software, and the rest of the world will not.

    Or, Microsoft will stop being such a control freak.

    --
    Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    1. Re:One day... by nels_tomlinson · · Score: 3, Insightful
      However bottom line is that Windows lets me get work done that would be far harder to do on the other platforms.

      If your job description is: ``Run MS Windows programs.'', or the equivalent, then I don't doubt a bit what you're saying.

      If your job is to work with data, to produce structured documents, et cetera, then you'll be shocked to find just how much harder it is to try to do things the Windows way on Unix, or the Unix way on Windows.

      The two OS's are quite different. I think that KDE and Gnome have done the computer-literate a disservice: they make Linux look a lot like Windows. The capable Windows user switches to Linux, and finds that it's harder to do the familiar tasks the familiar, Windows way. He then claims that the Linux guys must be ``Freakin zellots [sic]''. If Linux didn't look so much like the nightmare from Redmond, that competent Windows user would assume that a new platform required new ways of doing things, and would learn the easy ways to do things on the new platform, rather than finding that the easiest way to do things on Windows just doesn't work out well on Linux and saying ``Freaking zealots! Linux sucks!''

      In short, Linux and Windows are different, and what works best on one isn't going to work best on the other. If you use either the way it was intended, you'll be fairly happy with the results (give or take a few viruses and application crashes).

      --
      See what I've been reading.
    2. Re:One day... by Nucleon500 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      True, one would presume that the people using Windows are using it because it's the best choice for them. But consider why that is.

      Windows is the best choice because it's popular. That's the only reason. Because of Windows's popularity, it has more commercial software and more hardware support (counting only x86). When people buy computers, the get Windows by default because everyone else does. It's not technically superior. It's not cheaper. It's not more secure. It's just more popular.

      In some cases, popularity is the result of superiority. But this wasn't the case for Windows - it's popular because Bill was smart enough to sell DOS cheaper than CP/M, which made it easier to push Windows on the desktop market. This has nothing at all to do with it's quality.

      --
      Litigious bastards
    3. Re:One day... by William+Baric · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry but you are the freakin zealot. My productivity has nothing to do with the OS running on my computer. I don't use an OS, I use applications. As long as the computer/OS works, the only thing which matters to me is the cost.

      Personally using MS Office over OpenOffice won't improve my productivity one bit. IE won't make my google search faster and I have been burnt by Outlook so don't talk to me about it. The only problems I have is with some specialized windows only softwares because my clients are small business and they don't have enough purchase power to ask for a linux version... but for a government (who buy softwares with MY money) linux is perfect!

  2. Do you think a we can get a state to switch? by mistert2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe we should ask Rhode Island, or California (Looks like they will try anything once.)

  3. What I want to know .... by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    is, given that we are seeing lots of governments adopting or considering adopting F/OSS, how long before document and data interchange in its current form (read: MS Office) becomes enough of a hassle that consumers and businesses will demand software that conforms to open data interchange standards?

    1. Re:What I want to know .... by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 3, Informative

      given that we are seeing lots of governments adopting or considering adopting F/OSS, how long before document and data interchange in its current form (read: MS Office) becomes enough of a hassle that consumers and businesses will demand software that conforms to open data interchange standards?

      The problem is, there isn't really a suitable format for office documents available just now. The leading candidate there is probably the OASIS Open Office XML Format standardization effort, however I have no idea if that project is progressing in a timely way.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
  4. We are getting closer to Antarctica... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Which is Tux's natural home, after all.

  5. like the metric system by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The US seems to like hanging on while the rest of the world moves on.

    1. Re:like the metric system by cmorriss · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Before you go putting down the U.S. government for not dropping everything to make a very public switch to Open Source, consider that Microsoft is based in the U.S. Do you think Brazil would be doing the same thing if Microsoft were based out of Rio de Janeiro?

      --
      10 minutes working on a sig. What a waste.
  6. Call me Kreskin by bogie · · Score: 2, Funny

    Next week the Brazilian Government will get fat check for $300 Million for its schools and government. Next they will the option to purchase Windows Xp and Office 2003 for the low low price of two coconuts.

    Letters of intent to develop initiatives probably won't mean much once MS is done with them. Let's hope IBM can keep their foot in the door.

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    1. Re:Call me Kreskin by k-s · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, you're partially wrong.

      Yes, maybe we get a check from M$.

      But NO, we will not use it, as expected. I say that because this time we have the right person in the right place, and the person is there. So, forget. I know the guy, the guy is my friend and I can surely say that this time we move.

      BTW, it was already happening... it's just confirmed right now. It's not something like others "We're evaluating the possibilities... by far 2010 we will move". It's going on!

      http://www.softwarelivre.gov.br/
      http://psl-sp. softwarelivre.org/
      http://www.softwarelivre.org/

      IE: We have one of the big projects to take people to the internet, it's called "Telecentros", which uses LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org), Gnome, Mozilla, and OpenOffice.org to provide FREE internet access to +250,000 users (almost all are poor people that never had a chance to use computers in their lives).

      Also, just to explain to people who didn't understand it yet: That is NOT related to TCO, license fees... it's about freedom. Freedom to let your people live. We give a shit about TCO, "de facto" standards (M$), ... but we give a lot of value to FREEDOM. But if you don't know what is freedom anymore... I'm sorry, you really will not understand what I am saying...

      Yours truly,

      Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri

    2. Re:Call me Kreskin by rcastro0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Next week the Brazilian Government will get fat check for $300 Million for its schools and government. Next they will the option to purchase Windows Xp and Office 2003 for the low low price of two coconuts.

      Very good point!

      Yet I believe the odds for Linux in Brazil today are much better than one would expect from looking the same country a year ago, or from looking at other Latin American countries.

      In the last semester of 2002 a new president, named Lula, was elected in Brazil. He is the first left-wing president to have a chance of finishing a mandate (democratic institutions being now more solid than in the sixties). So, President Lula comes from the left, from the traditional government opposition, and his party, PT- Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker's Party) has always had a discourse and a posture which included:

      1) Anti-Corruption
      2) Antagonism with big corporations and
      3) Nationalism

      If you add the three points above, and give them some credit, you will see why I am optimistic about the chances of Linux threading forth in Brazil. I do not want to advocate that those guys (or anyone) will "do the right thing"(TM).

      But there is certainly room for hope.

      --
      Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
  7. That's pretty good... by gustgr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am brazilian and I am glad to read that but even without the reading we can notice that the Gov. is increasing their support for Linux. I have already installed and configured several servers for brazilian's governament departaments and this is increasing more and more.

    We are an under development country but some deveopled contry should learn a little from us.

  8. Ah yes, by Sevn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know what that sound is. It is the sound of a thousand Microsoft Apologists typing on their keyboards. But they are NOT in fact recreating the complete works of shakespeare. They are preparing to click in the submit button. They'll have enlighting things to say like:

    This means nothing.

    This is a publicity stunt.

    Microsoft will stop them.

    They are just trying to save money.

    Balmer will be on a plane.

    They'll offer huge discounts.

    I hurt my winky.
    And so on. In the end the thing that escapes them is the fact that things like this are happening at all is significant. It is a displayed desire to change things. :) And that my friends is very cool indeed.

    --
    For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
  9. Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths by LnxAddct · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well the fact that your posting as Anonymous Coward automatically takes away any credibility that you had. But lets pretend that you did post like a man...or a woman (i've never met a man so bitchy so i'm forced to wonder). I've successfully installed linux on the crapiest and oldest computers that i've ever had my hands on. Its always runs like a baby if you know what your doing. And dont knock the command line, its more powerul then a gui could ever imagine. Regardless, linux wasn't made for gui's and if u want, there are great patches that increase responsivness in the gui. Also linux is becoming more and more the choice for embeded applications because it isn't bloatware like windows. Linux is faster and made to do real work that requires power and detail, often times gui's hide most of the detail or make it hard to get to. Linux not only is faster, smaller, and more secure, but you can configure it however you want. And the best part is, if its still not small enough for you, you can go edit the source and take out whatever you want. Well i'm gonna stop wasting my time now and try to forget about your ignorant post while I sleep. You go have fun getting infected with your unbloated Internet explorer (ha) and get taken over by some script kiddie with some activex thing he wrote up while on the crapper, or go check your email with outlook and be sure to open up that one that says "I love you", or better yet, just keep your computer on long enough and the next RPC vulnerability will eventually come around and get you. As for me, I'm sticking with linux. Oh yea and one more thing, WinXP boots so fast because of you computer specs, go try and install WinXP on a computer from '97, and when you fail miserably, install linux so you have a good working computer that is compatible and capable of doing modern things. -Steve

  10. The point is... by BrunoC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Guys... the whole point is: Brazil is a *poor* country! (Yes, I was born and raised in Brasil) We're a poor but *huge* country with *lots* of government driven agencies and government funded companies. It's quite simple: Linux is very suitable for government funded companies/agencies/whatever and it is *free*! It saves us money and we really need that money. The whole poit is: Linux (or any other free software {as in beer} for that matter) saves us a *lot* of money. Is not that our president loves Linus or Stallman, we just want to save some penny, and that's what it is.