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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!
It's a movement away from the freedom and choice of choosing one of Microsoft's fine, fine products!
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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.
"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.
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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
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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".
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"
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.
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!
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!
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. :)
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