Brazil Moves Away From Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "Citing economic as well as social reasons, Brazil's government is opting to move away from Windows, opting instead for Open Source (read: Linux) solutions. Interestingly, Microsoft's representative in Brazil decries this as a movement away from freedom and choice..."

Comments

Brasil's own Conectivia Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Right there in the same league with Red Hat and Suse is Brasil's own home grown Linux, Conectiva. Not as well known in North America, yet it is perhaps the most popular Linux in the Southern Hemisphere of the Americas.

Re:My Experience with Linux

[seb249]

Hi there,

Just had a read through your post and thought wow you seem to have been burnt by a bad experience.

Where i work we use a combination of win2k, WinNT, Linux and Unix boxes. In my experience by far the least troublesome are the linux boxes, our databae server has only just recently had to be rebooted (depressing it was up for 460 days) and that was one really abused box ( developers testing on it as well)

Could you give us an indiction of the load and purpose of the box ? Perhaps we can assist you in sorting out what the issue was.

Tis a shame you had a bad experience, but i think you will find that if you would like to track down what happened or why people would be happy to help.

Regards

Seb

now freedom, but will they value it?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I wonder if there was any input from Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft, justifying the Free Software in Public Administration bill.

Also, coincidentally, Richard Stallman gave a video-talk in Brazil just 12 days ago.

Free Software and OpenSource are roughly the same thing, but there's no mention of freedom in that article. I just hope they understand the long term benefits of Software Libre.

Re:now freedom, but will they value it?

[Tuqui]

I wonder if there was any input from Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft, justifying the Free Software in Public Administration bill.

This was news a year ago, just after Dr. Villanueva wrote his letters:

Peru's President Alejandro Toledo will travel to Seattle this weekend for talks with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates during which he will sign accords to support his Huascaran Internet-for-schools project.
Toledo, who announced a cabinet overhaul Friday to try to revive his flagging government, will travel to Seattle on Sunday and meet Gates on Monday, a government representative said. Toledo will return home Tuesday.
Peru's Plan Huascaran--named for the Andean nation's highest peak--was a key campaign plank for Toledo when he took office last July pledging to fight poverty.
Officials say Plan Huascaran has provided about 100 schools in Peru with Internet service and teaching tools. The government aims to increase that number to 5,000 schools by the end of Toledo's term in 2006.
The drive is part of a campaign to improve education--illiteracy rates are high, especially in isolated highland or jungle areas. More than a quarter of women in rural mountain areas, for example, cannot read.
Toledo marks a year in office July 28. His public opinion rating has sunk to less than 16 percent amid frustration at unfulfilled promises of more jobs and prosperity.

Any hope of free choice?

argentina

[sdibb]

But try telling that to the tens of thousands of Brazilians who regularly visit the 86 free "Telecentro" free computer centers in Sao Paulo, a sprawling city of 18 million. All the centers' computers use open-source software, and the Telecentros cater to working class Brazilians without the means to buy computers. They learn how to send e-mail, write resumes and cruise the Web.

Argentina has these things there, too (I lived there a few years). They're basically little stores where people go in and pay to get on the Internet. I can't remember the prices now, but the people there are so poor, that they only charged in increments of either 10 minutes or an hour.

Plus, a lot of the shops are run by the monopolistic telephone company there - Telefonica Argentina. I think they are in other countries as well, but I'm not sure. Their rates are reasonable to get online, but usually it's dialup -- not highspeed, and for theirs you have to pay the phone charges too. It's not free to make local calls, which is a shame.

For people who open up their own shops, who actually have enough money, I can see absolutely no reason why they would want to use Microsoft Windows, when at the very *least* Linux can do everything it can for free, and at the very best ... well, we all know the advantages. :)

plagiarism

[brauwerman]

Go directly to Jail, do not pass go, plagiarizer.

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