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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..."
"If this was a rich country, it wouldn't matter and we could buy Microsoft products, but we're a developing country and Linux is just a lot more accessible, so we're heading toward a Linux generation."
It is this attitude that probably got them in to the problems they are in now and it is the attitude that got California in the problems it has now. When the State is flush with cash, you still have to find ways to save money. Just because the State has money, it does not mean it should spend it. It should return it to the people who gave it really belongs to, the Tax Payers.
Run Linux, save money, lower taxes. Sounds like a good combination to me.
Linux O Muerte!
when the stock holder thinks about when to start worrying
did you forget to take your meds?
Interestingly, Microsoft's representative in Brazil decries this as a movement away from freedom and choice..."
The context in the actual story is:
Although Amadeu insists the government has no plans to mandate open-source software use, Microsoft is worried and is lobbying to prevent the policy from becoming law.
"We still think free choice is best for companies, the individuals and the government," said Luiz Moncau, Microsoft's marketing director in Brazil. "There is the risk of creating a technology island in Brazil supported by law."
Understanding the full context, I believe it's a bad thing to exclude one party and not the other, whether it's Microsoft of Linux being excluded. Yes, it sounds like good reasoning that the government would go with Linux and Open-Source because of the cheper prices. However at the same time they should not exclude other types of non-open-source software. Other than for reasons of anti-competitiveness I don't see a good reason to not allow other types of software to be used.
Give me a break. Visual Basic programmer for 8 years is trying to set up a Linux system and it doesn't work? Surprise surprise. I would have thought this post was submitted by Bill Gates, except he's probably smart enough to know that Universities do more with Unix style systems than compile "Hello World" programs. Almost all the serious research going on in the world is done on Unix style systems. C'mon. Get a grip. VB, please.
OS X is "more free" than Windows (there are degrees of freedom), but not by much. If the number of coders working on Windows-based solutions were all working on GNU/Linux instead, there is no way a team of Apple coders could keep up with the entire world. The only reason Apple jumped forward is by leveraging their UNIX compatibility.
those are social reasons. The employment reasons, resourcre reasons, political reasons etc. are based primarily on replacing foreign software providers with local support and software firms, to keep Brazilian money in Brazil. Piping their funds to Cupertino does not put money back into the Brazilian economy.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
At least now we'll have viable competition, and IMHO this is almost always a Good Thing(TM).
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Well, there are circa 300 million US residents, and circa 6 billion people on earth. You can bet your bottom dollar than a bunch of the 5.7 billion who don't live in your nation wouldn't be willing to legitimise a monopoly in order to keep US programmers employed.
That might sound harsh, but it's true.
So MS bad if screwing over local companies/organisations but MS good if screwing over foriegn companies/organisations? Sorry buddy but you can't have it both ways.
Its called a global economy, something the US has been pushing hard over the last couple of decades. Mind you the US version of the global economy seems to think that everyone else should play by the rules except the US.
Yes, it will mean that brazilians will be more able to find holes on Open Source and Linux solutions.
Also, it means that they will be able not only to find them, but also to fix them.
Do brazilians 'hack' a lot? Sure, they do. Bu not because the tech is there, the same reason why people don't commit murder because there's a kitchen knife there.
There are good and bad sides of these observations. Why did you pick up the bad? Brazilians would know how to crack, and also how to fix it.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
"I'd rather see money flowing into the U.S., even if it winds up with MS."
After running that through the bullshit-o-tron, we get:
"I'd rather see money flowing out of Brazil."
You bigotted idiot.
I love Linux and free software as much as the next slashdot reader....and I'm not trying to troll...but there's a lot of free software which is neither well written nor well understood, particularly the latter...even by people like me who have been using linux for years personally and professionally. Case and point would be the linux kernel, which has dozens of options which for years have had no help, no corresponding HOWTO, and names that remind you of PlotHoleFillTech from Star Trek.
Please help metamoderate.
Most fund managers don't look that far ahead. They look at their numbers on a quarterly basis and make their decisions based on those. They care about things like cashflow, profits, earnings, assets not whether some customer or another has switched to a competing product.
Right now the impact of these countries switching or thinking about switching has not effected the undelying financial position of MS. OTOH MS is expected to grow a certain amount every quarter which is becoming pretty much impossible because they have saturated their markets and are so big that further growth becomes very hard. The expection by shareholders will switch to MS being something like GE or IBM that being a pretty much steady company with minor fluctuations in price from time to time.
If it turns out that these switches effect the MS bottom line one of two things will happen.
1) MS will increase their investments in non software fields like media (in which they have substantial holdings) and make a bigger push into their hardware business.
2) The stock will nosedive like a rocket.
I don't see #2 happening though. They have 40 billion in the bank and if push comes to shove they can manipulate their own stock price if they want to.
War is necrophilia.
You don't have to recompile the kernel to use Linux effectively. Of course you can if you want to, the choice is yours. Well FUDed my man.
It sounds to me like the argument you're trying to make is not that the Linux kernel is poorly written, but that it's poorly documented. The two are not the same, and in the case of the latter, I would agree. There are people trying to fill that hole, but there's no telling how long that will take, or if they can even keep pace with the development of the kernel.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
"If Brazil remains a locus of "grayhat" activity, could this mean more resources will be put toward finding Linux exploits?"
Let's hope so. How else would they get fixed.
War is necrophilia.
The glass beads we trade to the natives are getting ever more shiny.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The bus is the transportation of choice for poor people.
Or for people who don't want to blow thousands of dollars on gas and repairs every year, or for people who can never drive due to disability reasons (raises hand), or for people who don't want to contribute to overpowering car culture, or for people who don't want to contribute to smog. Your post is so narrow-minded, I have to assume you're trolling. The alternative does not reflect well on your intelligence or range of life experiences. Or, to use a Slashdot cliche, "I can't drive a car, you insensitive clod!"
Linux and the BSDs might better be described as the operating systems of choice for people who really know how much Windows is worth, and act accordingly.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Actually, I don't blame Microsoft for their lobbying efforts to try to stop governments from adopting open software. Microsoft, unlike RIAA, is not so dumb as to see where people can channel around them, to get their needs met without involving Microsoft in any way. The RIAA waited until the cat was completely out of the bag and running down the street before they noticed and began to give chase. I doubt they will ever get the cat back in the bag.
Microsoft is holding a fragile bag based mostly on faith. As soon as foreign governments stray from doing things in a method that is controlled from Richmond, more software starts getting developed, and it gets proven more and more by example that open source works in the real world, Microsoft will have increasingly hard times trying to convince businessmen to pay for something they get for free, much like RIAA is having increasingly hard times trying to convince people to pay for DRM-ridden products once people know what alternatives exist.
But worse yet is the "embrace and extend" paradigm, where often Microsoft products are made deliberately incompatible with what was agreed upon as a "standard" by use of proprietary extensions. For instance, I can not access my school grades on my linux box, as the College uses a Microsoft server - and their IIS talks to IE through proprietary extensions. If Linux begins increasing market share on the client side, Microsoft may have some very intense explaining to do to businessmen who wonder why people can not use their websites after the businessmen have paid good money for a Microsoft system. They may highly resent paying top dollar for for a system that only some people can see, whereas the free system their competitor is using can be seen by all.
I get the idea this whole empire can snowball quite rapidly, and the company has to do all they can do to hold onto control as long as possible. I get the idea once this cat gets out of the bag, good luck getting him back in. I think they will have as much luck trying to maintain their revenue stream as the RIAA would have getting people to pay for a song sans DMCA and the pressures of copyright law.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
"...so we're heading toward a Linux generation."
This is what really scares Microsoft: a whole generation of children who have experience with Linux. The only reason most people use Windows is that's all they've every learned. But if people, and I mean real people, not us geeks, start having access to other software and the ability to choose against Microsoft, many will exercise that choice. The last thing that Microsoft wants is customers with an ability to choose a product that isn't Microsoft. This is exactly why they fight so hard against these efforts in Brazil, India, Germany, and elsewhere. They know that every time someone has a choice, there is a real possiblity he won't choose Microsoft.
but there's a lot of free software which is neither well written nor well understood, particularly the latter
But at least you have access to the Linux source code to know this. What does the Windows source code look like?
You imply that commercial software _is_ well documented and well understood. That is not always the case. Maybe if you're talking about Oracle, yes, well documented, but even windows is not always well documented and well understood. Especially with the more obscure features of windows.
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
For a brief shining moment one could dream of a world of human beings working together and exchanging ideas. But for the most part, the internet has been reduced to an alternate way to watch CNN.
Uh, you are posting on slashdot. A reasonably intelligent web forum that serves for some kind of intellectual discussion. (sometimes/rarely)
Look, the Internet is NOT TV-2.. tho it can be.
If people dont want to use their Internet connection for the free exchange of ideas, they dont have too. Its not like it affects the rest of us.
Discuss. Work together. Exchange ideas. The Internet still allows all of these.
no
I love the Orwellian Work Product known as MSFT. Every time somebody say they won't exclusively use Windows, MSFT says, "You Have To! If you don't you're Anti-Choice!"
I think you got that a bit wrong, yes they don't want the EU to have depend on the US for their wellbeing anymore (and heck, why would they want that), but it is by far not the idea to become a Superpower, at least not in the sense people see the US.
Seems like you haven't really learned a lot while you were living in Germany.
Most likely. I guess the main reason for this is that a lot of people in Europe see the advantage already, the press is in favour of it and more and more people (because of this) are converting. Joe Smoe doesn't care about the "It's not Microsoft", but rather the fact that he can do what he wants with it. For most European companies (Ironically enough) It'll be because of the money they can save. The US will lag behind because of things like the SCO crap (where were all the LUGs in the US when SCO started spewing their FUD? You heard some small reistance, but it seems the real big bang happened in Europe).
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
I doubt the premiums would return to hardware.. all it will do is make the total package cheaper by removing a componant IBM makes no money whatsoever on.
i don't know that i would use timewarner/AOL (yes, i know they changed the name!) as a good example here! aol played games, merged with/bought timewarner and has been dragging it down the drain ever since. i beleive that they may have stopped the bleeding, but they already blead billions (and billions) of dollars. not a shining example in my book.
eric
Isn't it terrible that all that money will go to paying local programmers rather than the Redmond Marketing Machine? How sad it is that Brazilians will now be encouraged to join their own growing national software development and consulting industry.
t'nera semordnilap
...until the US gov't gets pressured to treat these "move towards open source" campaigns by various countries as a tariff against US software. That could be interesting.
All's true that is mistrusted
Simply because one person out there understands something, does not mean that that knowledge is accessable to everyone else. Someone understanding a piece of software, and that software being well documented are two entirely seperate things.
They get big discounts, free software, maybe some gifts for the schools, maybe even some investments or jobs.
It's tempting to think this way.
Speaking for Peru and Germany, at least they have openly stated that proprietary, closed source software is no longer acceptable for government use because it does not guarantee their citizens and taxpayers any assurance that
- the software systems are free of third party control, e.g. there are no back doors, spyware, etc.
- government operations are not beholden to a commercial interest for pricing, support, and extensibility
among other things. This is enlightened thinking, which will slowly be adopted globally.
The movement in MA recently voiced these concerns, though IIRC pricing was the main concern.
I can only imagine that some clear thinking Latin Americans wish to bring an end to years and years of American corporate domination, and try to empower their own populace.
They might not have anything to replace CocaCola with right now, but for now Linux/BSD can replace Microsoft products. And without hardware upgrades in most cases -- which is another cost concern.
If Linux is better and less expensive, why is it necessary to force people to use it? Are they too ignorant to figure it out for themselves?
Here is one way this could be true. Say I am a little tiny department and I need five computers. It might well be easier and cheaper to simply use microsoft stuff....everyone knows how to use it, other departments we have to share docs with use it so everyone is compatible, and the cost of 5 copies of windows and office is no big deal compared to those other issues.
However, if ALL departments go OSS, it becomes cheaper for everyone, since the compatility issue goes away, since people moving between departments will not have to be retrained, etc.
Except in this case, the government is only mandating software for the government. They aren't telling the private citizens what software they can or cannot use. The government of Brazil is in the role of customer.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Guys, the level of blind bias today is really quite sad. I've been reading the comments her looking for some intelligent discussion of what is happening and all I'm seeing is post after post of pro-open source banter being given mods for no apparent reason. At least try to be original or insightful in some way. Posting an anti-Microsoft message into a forum like this accomplishes little to nothing.
Having said that:
I've worked with the Brazilian government's software agency on an implementation of a system to track official documents and I wouldn't base any technical decision on anything they say. I honestly doubt they'll be able to run Linux without a serious investment in outside help from people like us. I can only speculate but the investment might end up being a lot more that they expected, as it was on the project I worked on. Furthmore, it would be just like their government (as with many) to implement an illiterate, shortsighted policy banning certain kinds of product for no intrinsic reason.
With banks and hospitals also moving away from OS/2 and Windows, IT companies are requiring the understand of implementing and integrating linux in the workspace. Now that linux has gotten this far, concentrating on making less distros better should be the way.
0011 1111 0111 1010
... but it is by far not the idea to become a Superpower, at least not in the sense people see the US.
The US did not start out to become a Superpower, at least not in the sense people see the US today. But power has a way of becoming a means to its own end. Do you really think France and Germany want power to do good works throughout the world? If so, you are naive. They want power in order to persue their own national interests. Interests like selling goods and services to some of the worst dictators around the world. Remember, it was the Europeans who created many of the messes in the Middle East, Africa, and much of Asia in the first place. Why do you think they have changed?
FreeSpeech.org
The freedom that I would value the most the 1 brought about by open standards. Open source is somewhat meaningless to me because I usually don't edit the source code manually. With open standards there would be more competitors for each service, & thus I would have better choices.
Take care...
This is going to get modded -1 offtopic, and be extremely long, but...
Well, from my time in Germany I only spoke before members of the Bundestag as well as Polish, Czech, British, Embassies in Berlin and had one paper published and another that should be published some time next spring at the end of a three year study in Technology Law. (Yeah, my paper is now over 2 years old and probably way out of date...but hey).
From what I gathered, there was a major discord between the man on the street and the ideals expressed by some in government. One of my professors served in the Bundesrat and was the one that organized the presentations by selected students at CDU headquaters in Berlin. Needless to say, the views of the CDU on issues are quite different from that of the current Red/Green coalition...
Now I have to admit that I grew up in the US military industrial complex, my father is a retired jr. executive from McDonnell Douglas. I also worked my first year out of college for another defense contractor for the DOD. So I have a different take than most. Also, I am working on my Masters in International Affairs and Management.
The push for the "United States of Europe" Spans back to either Monnet or Adenaur (I can't remember which at the moment but it sound more like Jean Monnet) in the 1950's with the beginnings of the European Coal and Steal Community between France and Germany and the foundation for the current EU. The principle has always been a commonmarket an economic superpower, not military.
Now there is a deep split in what member states want the EU to be. The Germans and French are pushing more towards a federalist syle government where as, especially from new members or soon to be members like Poland, they want a loose confederation with free access to goods and capital. Again, this is at a governmental level, this is what the power players are stating in Berlin and Paris, not the average man on the street.
The German people never approved of replacing the Deutsch Mark with the Euro, the Surpreme Court of Germany did. I went to Germany about a month after the switch and people were optimistic about the Euro, but by the time I had left, many had mixed feeling about the currency. I was in Germany last year on business about this time and unemployment and a poor German economy had many complaining about the Euro and the ECB because Germany could no longer set interest rates to help kick start the economy. That's was the one draw back people hated about the Euro, the loss of local control. The Economy in Ireland could be steaming along, but Germany stagnate and powerless to do anything about it. Again, a whole other topic.
I was a member of a LUG here in the area while in College. Last year it folded, people lost interest. I will tell you why too: OS X. After 10.2, about 80% of the LUG purchased a mac as their next computer including myself. For me, I had the stablity and usablity of a native Unix enviroment and support from hardware and software vendors for products like Photoshop and Quark. Plus the true user base of Linux in the United States comes from corperate IT staffers in datacenters. To them, its about cost, not community. That's why I view RH's moves ending RH was a real stupid idea. To the average joe smoe, RH IS Linux and annoucing that we'll no longer see Redhat Boxes in Bestbuy will keep it out of s
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Learning to fumble ones way around various operating systems is not "educational" value. The educational value of Linux is its transparency as free software. It can help create a new generation of IT workers and a homegrown software industry by providing the tools to learn by example. So no, dual boot is not the right option because Windows is of zero value in this sense and is, at least in Brazil, rapidly on the way of becoming expensive legacy technology.
As an investor with a well diversified portfolio, bad news about Microsoft doesn't bother me. I get dividends from Microsoft ...
That is a curious statement considering that Microsoft has only paid 2 dividends in its history.
Given that Microsoft has been, and still seems to be, very reticent to pay dividends, I would think that anything that affects stock price would be the primary interest of its investors. If Microsoft loses its overseas growth markets, a large cash buffer will only serve to stave off the reaper.
While I agree that Microsoft should not be underestimated, industry dominating companies have blown it before and, as nothing last forever, it is only a matter before Microsoft follows in their footsteps. Traditionally, it has been anti-trust actions that have brought down the mightiest (Standard Oil, AT&T) but, in the current pro-corporate political climate, this time the (beginning of the) end may come from other quarters.
Yeah, like when you want to change the scheduling algorithm to tune for your servers load. How do you do that in Windows again?
Seriously, though, distros these days ship with all the drivers precompiled. Just use those instead of trying to fight your disto.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I would like to have heard more about how using linux would help accelerate education, technology development, and communication. Or about how it is superior to Windows in many ways. Or about what open source really means, or about how governments have certain obligations which can be best met with open source.
But the clanging, steel hard bottom of the pot truth is, Brazil and most of the states considering linux are absolutely correct to FUCK Micro$oft and their double-dealing ways. It just so happens that South Americans seem to have bigger cojones AND clearer heads about this, but most likely every local or national government in this economy would do better to steer away from megacorporations and spend less money on developing maintainable systems of their own which leverage the work of other states as well.
Of course it will cost money, but on the order of the first $20 which after passed through the economy hundreds of times has created an exponential amount of wealth. This will also create jobs! THERE IS NO REASONABLE ARGUMENT FOR BRAZIL OR ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT TO PAY THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD. So praise Brazil and Peru, and do your best to get people who understand what this is about - MONEY, JOBS, EFFICIENCY and FREEDOM FROM CUTTHROAT MONOPOLIES - into office where they can make similar decisions.
Ummm... the same goes for commercial software.
The thing is: you can't fix commercial software if you need to. You can fix open source software if you need to.
That is the point.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Of course, when I make a significant change in Linux, I have to recompile the FSCK'ing kernel.
Whereas to make a significent change in Windows you have to ask Microsoft and cross your fingers. Assuming they'll even bother to listen to you unless you have lots of money...
The US did not start out to become a Superpower, at least not in the sense people see the US today. But power has a way of becoming a means to its own end. Do you really think France and Germany want power to do good works throughout the world? If so, you are naive. They want power in order to persue their own national interests. Interests like selling goods and services to some of the worst dictators around the world. Remember, it was the Europeans who created many of the messes in the Middle East, Africa, and much of Asia in the first place. Why do you think they have changed?
Er, because the likes of France and Germany have been telling the USA not to make the same mistakes in Iraq that the European nations made in colonial times?
This POSIX kernel is different to that POSIX kernel which is different to that POSIX kernel is totally different to that POSIX kernel.
POSIX; it's what's for dinner!
Is it possible to plagiarise anonymously? Isn't there an element of appropriation that is missing, or does lack of attribution alone indicate plagiarism?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
If you trust its reporting, you can see that its main two cash cows are sliding and more and more is spent on marketing. I'd speculate that even some of the non-marketing line items include activities that other companies would consider marketing.
Keep in mind that other hype engines, Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, to name a few, also showed nice profits -- until their books got a proper going over. Given that it's a company found guilty of illegal anti-comptetitive activities and during the trial video testimony was forged and several contradictions in executive testimonies leave a suspicion of perjury and there is a history of cooking the books to hide an $18 billion loss, I'd be suspicious of any self-reported figures. But, hey, it's your money.
Even if the oft-cited-but-still-unseen money in the bank is real, it could disappear in security penalties, false advertising fines or anti-trust action. $1 trillion is a lot larger than $50 billion. Or, even if it is real and does not disappear in fines, then it could be used up trying to get vapourware such as .not and leghorn to market by 2006. Three years is too long for businesses to suffer with tools that are not ready for the Internet when most have enterprise level drop-in GNU/Linux, BSD, or Mac OS X replacements which are Internet ready now.
Once national investments and the larger funds have divested, there won't be any pretense to pretend that the company is viable.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Obviously the policy makers understand as much about OSS as they do about Genetic Engineering or Hydroelectric Power Plants construction and operation. Nevertheless they have to make decisions about all these issues and for this they have technicians around them who do understand the issues involved.
The point here is that a large and influential group of the technology experts with connections in the Worker's party happen to be strong proponents of OSS in all public business. As it is, it took us some time to make the whole case to the decision makers and dismiss all Microsoft FUD surrounding the issue, but now the ball seems to be rolling.
You and a lot of people here are making the same mistake. You imply the only factor here is immediate price, forgetting things that should be at least as important, such as security issues (we are talking about a government here), long-term pricing (comes the next upgrade, no one can garantee Microsoft will not put the prices up again), advances in technology education (meaning the government and the universities will be trainnning more people capable of operating and producing Open Source Software) and even royaties (some important fraction of every dollar expend in closed American software leaves the country). As a Brazilian taxpayer, I feel it is a lot better to see my mone spent in OSS than in Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe etc.
Saying "The bus is the transportation of choice for poor people" doesn't mean it isn't also the transportation of choice for others: exclusivity isn't a logical consequence of that statement.
[ home ]
"Microsoft's Moncau plays down predictions by Brazilian open-source supporters that government efforts to increase Linux use could create jobs and turn the country into a technology exporter. Open-source software could actually be more expensive than Windows programs when service costs are factored in, he said."
First off, I'm a bit suspect of this statement. But more importantly, service costs would mean the expense would go to employing people, rather than using that money for software liscences. So it would employee more people, which I'm sure the government would love. And does this argument hold water around the world, where labor costs differ so greatly? How much does a Unix Sys Admin cost in Brazil?
The problem with your argument is that the Brazilian government does not have the capability to represent much of a demand.
... the more supply one has, the less demand required for that supply to be disseminated. A market with a million qualified free and open source programmers looking for a market will produce far more niche products (products which by definition have a lower level of demand than non-niche products) of far higher quality than a market of only a thousand such programmers (though the latter will produce less-niche oriented software of excellent quality, as we have seen in the early days of many free and open projects ... this quality being a function of the peer review and public criticism inherent in the free software and open source development models).
... enough to spur plenty of innovation and development, even if it is a mere pittance to the revinues of monopolists like Microsoft
... the fact of the matter is that these governnments are already large contractors, their 'thirt world' status notwithstanding, and their adoption of free software will be more than sufficient to generate the demand needed for even more outstanding open source and free software project development.
First, as local and regional expertise rises (an inevitable result of widespread adoption, even by "just" the government), of free software, the level of demand required to create a particular product (e.g. a free and open Autocad system) will go down. This is simple economics
So, at the end of the day, Autodesk may not be required for the creating of an excellent open source AutoCAD.
Second, I believe you underestimate the demand a government of a large country, even a large third world country like Brazil, can create. We are still dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars
Third, even if your assertion of Brazil's limited ability to create demand were true, your argument clearly breaks down when one considers the broader picture, namely the adoption of free software by numerous governments throughout South America and the world, including China, Germany, and others. When taken together, the demand generated by those countries which have already begun their migration away from Microsoft and toward free and open source software is already more than sufficient to create significant demand, and Brazil certainly adds signficantly to that.
Which is probably why Microsoft and its apologists are so concerned
Which, at the end of the day, is what they fear even more than the immediate losses in revinue from these countries. This is the one way the rest of the world can get out from under the technological heel of Microsoft and the United States, and frankly the only way Microsoft and its Washington, D.C. subsidiary (the Bush Administration) can prevent this is through massive deception (which, alas for them, doesn't seem to be working), buying off corrupt politicians (Microsoft has been there, done that, and found they don't stay bought for long), draconian laws (that will harm the local economies of the US and other such countries far more than they will help by propping up monopolies such as Microsoft), or military invasion (which isn't practical for reasons too numerous to mention here).
In other words, the demand is already present, is already having an impact and spurring widespread development of exactly these tools, and is clearly growing geometricly in magnitude, and all Microsoft apologist rhetoric aside, it will only be stopped through the use of the government gun, either via legislation banning the entire free software paradigm outright (good luck keeping any kind of competative marketplace in tact in the context of such legislation), or military force.
Deception isn't working, draconian laws are already sabatoging the very economies they were intended to prop up, and, frankly, the rest of the world is sick and tired of being pushed around by the United States, so more direct coercion is unlikely. Buying off politicians through corruption works occasionally, but as Microsoft has recently learned in Peru, bought of politicians seldom remain bought-off, nor do they tend to remain in power indefinitely.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy