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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..."
But of course, choice is slavery, war is peace, love is hate.
Just ask Mr Gates at the Ministry of Network Security!
As a Brazilian I congratulate the Lula government! Parabens Barbudao :)
hehehehe
Abracos!
It's a movement away from the freedom and choice of choosing one of Microsoft's fine, fine products!
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
I can't wait for the next news on the subject : "Darl Mac Bride trip to Brazil"
We have heard a lot of stories about people, states, and countries moving away from Microsoft. Is this a trend? If you are a manager of a fund heavily invested in MS, or an individual investor, when does this news begin to worry you. In the long run does MS really have a chance when competing against free, well written, well understood software?
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.
Citing economic as well as social reasons
We should probably add security reasons, employment reasons, resource reasons, government infrastructure reasons, political reasons, etc....etc...etc...
Although, that said. There is a place for proprietary software and many Microsoft products would meet this need. The problem is that Microsoft spent years being just good enough and out-competing the better alternative in many cases (MacOS) and now it is turning around to bite them in the butt, because Linux based solutions are now in many cases.....good enough.
Of course OS X is still the best solution for most users that I have yet seen, but in the short term, Brazil could likely use their existing CPU hardware infrastructure for Linux as opposed to purchasing new hardware from Apple. Long term costs could most likely be lower with a gradual phasing in of OS X in combination with OSS solutions running on Linux and the use of existing infrastructure on Windows however as a healthy computing ecosystem is diverse.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
"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!
If Brazil remains a locus of "grayhat" activity, could this mean more resources will be put toward finding Linux exploits? Certainly on the whole Linux is more secure than Microsoft's offerings, but I imagine most would agree that its small userbase has played a part in limiting the number of exploits uncovered.
getSexySig();
This is such wonderful news I can barely stand it. I've spent the whole weekend in a slump because it recently hit me that Microsoft has flat out killed all progress in browser technologies for the mainstream consumer. Their admission to make no more changes to IE until the next revision of the OS is terribly sad. 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.
Individial centric social structures (such as capitalism) work well in many ways, but they are very vulnerable through brainwashing of individuals (advertising) and the abuse of the commons(spam). Governments are the forces of socialism which keep things in check. I'm giddy at seeing this actually happening.(Even though I am deeply sad that my own dear Home of the Brave dropped the ball on this in a fearfully troubling manner.) I pray to any higher power that will answer me that this sort of thing will continue until it is safe and productive to have a good idea again.
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.
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
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.
"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.
"Deseja batata com isso?"
(you want fries with that?)
--Luiz Moncau, Director of Marketing, Microsoft Brazil, 4 months from now.
We keep reading about the yet-another-government that said "oh, dear, Microsoft is sooooo expensive, we should use Linux instead."
And then there's an item in the Wall Street Journal about someone from Microsoft striking a deal with the country's government. They get big discounts, free software, maybe some gifts for the schools, maybe even some investments or jobs.
So if you were running a poor country, why WOULDN'T you threaten to give Microsoft products the boot? It's a negotiation!
Cem Kaner, Professor of Software Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology
I am sure that if you went to one of the local 'Thermas' you would find both...
I went to Brazillia and watched the open source debate. I think folk in the US are completely missing the plot. First off the Brazillian govt is dependent on Microsoft in the way the US govt is dependent on Cobol, Windows is their legacy infrastructure.
Secondly the big issue for the country at the moment is the balance of payments. The government is calculating that they can get better prices out of Redmond if they apply pressure.
Finally there is a protectionist angle, keeping out big US software companies helps local companies - perhaps.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
It's odd how software has become akin to daytime television. Every time Microsoft loses a market lately, it's the result of some failure of democracy and Natural Law. If a gas station were to lose it's business to a competitor down the street, would he chalk it up to the oppression of OPEC and chime about how such competition is akin to the spread of fascism in Europe in the 1930's?
I think it goes more to show how Microsoft feels entitled to each and every market they enter, and that they're not trained to respond to the market around them as they're so used to controlling it. If they lose business in some market, it's not because their prices are high and their products are inferior, it's because some other market force "has it in for them."
Microsoft's representative in Brazil decries this as a movement away from freedom and choice...
Since when did dubya work for Microsoft?
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
However, that's money they could be sending into the U.S. in terms of software licenses, which would then trickle down to the rest of us.
So you're saying that money from Brazil that would go to Microsoft would eventually trickle down to everyone in the U.S.??? Maybe if you're a lawyer who is suing or defending MS, but otherwise, no-- Microsoft is sitting on over 50 billion dollars right now as a hedge fund against lawsuits-- their shareholders are actually complaining about the cash hoard.
~Philly
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.
Microsoft has proven that it can not play nice with the other children, and as such has been given a few years timeout
The Best SW for the job is a fallacy.
I recently saw a movie where the head surgeon made all the operation on little children with brain tumors. He was almost let go as this clearly disallowed anyone else to aquire the needed skill set.
Nobody disputed that fact that he was the best.
Help fight continental drift.
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]
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
Oh please, anyone can understand what Sii3112A is!
Let me explain how to read it.
First, the S designation means that it was added to the kernel in September 2003. If it was a little "s" it would have been added on June 23rd, 1996, but that's not important.
Next comes two little i's. Alan Cox put them there because he thought they looked cool, but since they're the IP of SCO, they'll have to be removed in a later revision.
Next is a "3112". This means that there are 31^12 transistors on whatever this Sii3112A thing is.
And last, there is a big "A". This means that in the count of 31^12 transistors, purple transistors were NOT counted. This was because Alan Cox was feeling tired of the color purple at the time of this things addition to the kernel.
See how easy it is to tell?
Now to find out what a Sii3112A is, you only have to find out which component of your computer has 31^12 transistors! (Not including those purple transistors, of course!)
I think the word they were searching for was "Ironically".
I think "predictably".
They are going to change from the land of Samba and Carnival to the land of Samba.
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!"
President Bush made a national address today regarding the freedom hating countries who are in alliance against the US and hate us because of our freedoms and democracy.
excerpt:
"Freedom loving citizens of the United States, I would like to thank you for your sacrifices since September 11th. Today I bring you news of an even greater peril to our safety and our freedom. We have become aware that terrorist evil doers have infiltrated the Governments of countries such as China, Germany and now even Brazil. Our intelligence has found deep ties to Al Qaeda, Iraq and the Axis of Evil in these countries who have turned against us.
We have appointed Steve Balmer as "Special Ambassador of Freedom" to meet with and talk to the leaders of the Brazilian Government and their IT infrastructure. However, they have shown little interest in making a return to freedom and may leave us with no choice but to call upon a coalition of the willing to help restore freedom to those noble people of Brazil so that they may once again enjoy Freedom and Democracy. The evil doers must be shown that we will not tolerate those who would stand against us and stand against freedom... Compulsatory Registration with the Department of Homeland Security Required"
Jesus Christ, wtf are you smoking? The SiI3112A is the Silicon Image 3112A Serial ATA chip. That said, I will admit that I got a good chuckle out of your post... ;-)
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
Free Trade is a joke of course, but let's put this in perspective of the americas trade zone negotiations. Brazil wants to protect it's financial service and tech areas from U.S. domination/ownership (multinationals/u.s. investors). It wants profits to go to the local economy...it also wants to export agricultural products and protect its farmers. By focusing on linux and local tech, they can expand their influence in south america, and eventually (since lots of thrid world countries realize the inherent problem in giving money to the world richest country) grab IP rights of their own and export tech to the US...or at least drive ridiculous profits down...it's the natural reaction to the way US subsidies for farmers drive profits down worldwide and keep third world countries to a low growth rate (insuring a very very slow development process and much less threat of challenge to US interests/IP/capital from developing nations). The US wants to protect their farmers because it hurts third world countries profits andhelps big business reap the benefits of tech and financial services (third world countries don't have the capital/resources to compete)...so brazil wants their farmers to benefit and to not allow the invasion of US tech and financial services. So the current talks, detailed at BBC, will probably fall through. And since the US is pursuing deals with individual countries, it's in Brazil's best interest to develop their own tech/keep US tech out, independent of the trade agreement. Of course, given the timing, it's a nice warning shot too.
All your preview button are belong to Hello Kitty.
It's as if Microsoft is the very last of the dot-coms (although it never truly was a dot-com), and, until MSFT falls to a final reasonable level, the market and economy won't truly be able to restructure and recover. Reason being, so many huge mutual funds are so heavily invested in MSFT. A stock that does not react to either bad or good news is not a reasonably-priced stock, but is an exercise in the optimism of mass market behavior.
Hi, i'm the one that submitted the story. :)
English is not my first language.. i chose "interestingly" because i thought it worked best. Predictably would probably have been better!
This is of course great news. Maybe they should talk to Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft about Peru using Free Software regarding Peru's new "Free Software in Public Administration bill".
Free Software is often better than proprietary software. The OpenSource movement bases it's whole argument on this point. The terms "Free Software" and "OpenSource" usually refer to the same thing, but if people don't value freedom, they won't see a reason not to switch back when a better (low-cost initially) proprietary alternative comes along.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Stallmans recent video talk at a brazillian Free Software conference.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
...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.
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.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
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!
"There is the risk of creating a technology island in Brazil supported by law."
Hmmm... Sounds like a reference to the "remote attestation" procedure in Trusted Computing. Basically, if a Windows server doesn't "trust" the operating system, it won't interact with it. Brazil could really find itself out of the loop if that were the case.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
The kernel is *incredibly* clean. It was architected by David Cutler, and it's pretty much a work of art. The libraries that have since been built on top of it are nowhere near as well designed, but the code in them tends to be well-reviewed and commented. Unfortunately, it was reviewed with an eye towards functionality, rather than security, but functionality was the historical goal. Whether it's getting better or not, only time will tell. There's a reason you don't see security holes in the kernel, though.
> What is it with Brazil and transexuals anyways?
It's just one data point of the much larger "deal" with Brazil and sex.
Natives with strong fertility cults merged forcefully with European Catholicism, and that creates a certain mix of sexual obligation and sexual repression. The result is extremely weird, and it has plenty of fringes. You only seem to have noticed one of them...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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
Brazil isn't a newbie in OSS and Linux. A state in the south of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) was the first one to start the migration for Linux and OSS. People related to the IT administration in the government have been saying about switching to Linux since the start of Lula's mandate.
Another point is that a law stating that all government departments use OSS and Linux does nothing to prevent freedom of choice. The government doesn't think that MS Windows suits their needs and wants to change to Linux. This law will only enforce all of the government to stick with a standard that they already chose. How good would it be if every single department used something different? Complete chaos....
In Brazil there are many schools, universities and hospitals that are public. This means that they belong to the goverment. It's not like in the US where thos things belongs to a group of people or investors. Imagine having to buy windows liscenses by the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) for $150 each?
The entire population can still use Windows if they want. Another aspect is that Brazil has a lot of developers and IT professionals. Using OSS will create more job opportunities for those people and will help pick up the economy. You guys have no idea how bad is the unemployment rate there...
And yes, I am brazilian.
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. :)
What does the Windows source code look like?
Hungarian notation. Need anything more be said?
-- Alastair
Google search
One previous publishing
When I tried it, http://efpa.com.br was down, but you can also get it for R$12,00 (approx. US$4.00) from http://www.jinkings.com.br.
I would like to have heard more about how using linux would help accelerate education, technology development, and communication. Or about how it is superior to Windows in many ways. Or about what open source really means, or about how governments have certain obligations which can be best met with open source.
But the clanging, steel hard bottom of the pot truth is, Brazil and most of the states considering linux are absolutely correct to FUCK Micro$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.
You aren't worried yet?
...
At least one analyst that has carefully taken apart the earnings statements and filings of ms sees the end of the earnings boost to licensing 6.0, and sees lower earnings and declining market share ahead. There are too many stories to link or quote them all, but here are a few you should look at (you'll need to google for them, I save the stories but I rarely go back and edit the source to include the original link, and the stories themselves don't usually do it):
Linux to Overtake Unix, Leapfrog Windows, Analyst Says, look at bzmedia's site, Claybrook wrote it, July 15, 03, bzmedia.com, or SD Times, the title is SD Times.
Small Businesses Like Linux Prices, Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service (PCWorld) Thursday, July 17, 2003
Nothing can stop Linux now, says IDC By Peter Williams [13-06-2003] VNUNet Not a direct link, need to find the article.
Microsoft Feels the Linux Heat:
June 9, 2003 By Peter Galli
Microsoft Corp. is starting to react more aggressively to the Linux and open-source threat, last week slashing the price of its SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition by $450, to $49.
The second major price cut in as many weeks followed the Redmond, Wash., company's decision to reduce the retail price of Office XP by 15 percent.
For the first time, Microsoft officials are admitting that Linux is affecting the way the company prices products. Paul Flessner, senior vice president of the Server Platform Division, told eWEEK at the Tech Ed conference here last week that Linux factored into Microsoft's decision to cut the price of its SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition, effective Aug. 1.
The Penguin heats up the enterprise applications space:
Apparently, Linux is the fastest growing of all operating systems, with a cumulative annual growth rate of 34%. In so doing, it is taking away market share from both Windows and Unix. According to IBM, Microsoft will never again achieve the annual growth rate of 40% for Windows that it previously enjoyed. But what about software and applications? Here, Linux is playing catch-up, with Linux software growing at an annual rate of 65%.
SAP has been supporting Linux for four years now and has more than 1,000 customers, both large and small, using Linux. PeopleSoft announced recently that it is porting all of its 170 enterprise applications over to Linux in its next upgrade. Oracle currently has a large marketing campaign underway in support of Linux products and is certifying and supporting its 9i database product on the China-based Red Flag Linux operating system. It has announced that it will soon make its 9i application server and both collaboration and e-business suites available on Linux. And a host of other vendors have also started to support Linux, including mid-tier vendors such as Sage.
Figures given by IBM show that Linux is resonating with customers as well. Handy states that Wall Street firms have taken to Linux in droves, with such companies as Morgan Stanley, Citibank, eTrade, Merrill Lynch and the New York Stock Exchange using it. In Europe, financial services firms such as HSBC and Deutsche Bank are deploying Linux, and it is also making inroads into government and retail verticals.
In terms of geographies, Europe is still ahead of the US in terms of take-up, although there has been a noticeable increase in implementations in the US in the past couple of years, from the Wall Street companies mentioned above on the East Coast to Hollywood on the West. In Europe, Linux has the largest penetration in Germany in terms of overall IT spending - but Handy points ou
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. --
Ahh.. but there's no Samba in a Windows-free environment!
Then they go on with very positive reviews of different free software packages, before concluding with a link to a very positive review of SuSE Personal 9.0.
Not bad at all. A lot of people will see this...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
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.
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"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?
I know you were joking, but in ancient times, there indeed were
slaves which were happy in their slavery and did not want to be
released, even when they could have been by law (Yovel).
The bible specificly mentions a degrading ceremony done to such
a reluctant slave, within which he was branded (at his ear).
This was done by the ancient hebrews to detter people from opting
into slavery.
And I don't think fear of freedom is so different today.
Working for necessity's mother.
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