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Software Livre, Anyone?
tbray writes "They just had this
huge OSS conference in Brazil. One good write-up by Simon Phipps is here. And hey, down there, OSS and Java play nice together."
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As much as Phipps says that Brazil "get's it", with their theme of 'software livre' they have missed the greatest benefit of Free software. That would be the free-as-in-beer aspect of FS.
While it is all well and good that the freedoms defined in the GPL exist and allow users the ability to modify and augment systems, those rights can be BOUGHT for a price from any software house. What can't be bought is the software at a cost of zero dollars.
So let's celebrate gratis software, because it is what will allow us to take business away from proprietary companies.
From the article:
... he was included with those recognised as leaders of the open source community ... and has been championing the use of the Java platform for open source projects.
Bruno Souza
IIRC, RMS wrote a piece encouraging developers to not use Java, because Sun still wants to keep people under their thumb. That position is now kinda mitigated by GCJ but I still agree with RMS's position... To be truly free [speech] software, your language cannot be under a corporate thumb like that.
I have never seen a Java advocate counted among the champions of free software and this is a very encouraging step.
One of many? How many times have we seen this on slashdot:
Sun is opening Java!
Wait, not yet
No, for real this itme, Sun is opening Java
Well, "real soon now"
etc.
bash: rtfm: command not found
I agree with the points you are making, but I don't think it is proper to use the term "3rd world countries".
Third world countries? Are those countries with corrupt elections, corrupt judges, and corrupt government leadership?
Is a third world country one of those that is always making war on its neighbors? (The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War. The last Brazilian aggression outside the country was in 1822, I'm told.)
When you say "third world country" you give an impression that the U.S. is superior in every way. That impression is false. In general, Brazilians are much happier than Americans. People in the U.S. use more legal drugs than those of any nation that has ever existed. The U.S. is the most obese country in the history of the world; eating when not hungry is an index of unhappiness.
A higher percentage of U.S. citizens go to prison or jail than any country in the entire history of the world. For example,
President George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
President George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest
Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest
Brazil is probably the moste remarkable countries I have encountered during all my travels.
Apart from the many obvious attractions this country has to offer (the Amazon ecosystem, the unbelievable food, the friendliness of its citizens, the great beaches etc.), Brazil is on its way to become the most modern state in South America and setting the pace for the development of the continent in many respects.
The current government seems to have realized that sovereignity and independence are the two most important goals that cannot be achieved by relying on foreign companies in many areas of everyday life. Software is only one part of it, food, beverages, automobiles, clothing, oil and gas are others and Brazil is on its way to create and maintain economic independence in all these areas.
One of the most overlooked facts of the entire matter is the rather weak currency, which makes one copy of Windows XP extremely expensive. Just to give you an idea about the costs of life in Brazil: A dinner for four persons in a 5-Star restaurant in downtown Rio (www.porcao.com.br) with the most amazing variety and quality of food, incredibly attentive waiters, a posh setting and numerous drinks cost me about 90$. Having wined and dined people in similiar surroundings in New York and Chicago, the bill in these places ran well over 300 USD.
Even at reduced prices, Microsoft products are way too expensive for the regular Joe and a government operating on a tight budget. Economically it doesn't make any sense at all to transfer license fees to the USA, when comparable software can be had for free and can be supported from with the country's own resources.
Another question. If I have Win2K on one HDD and intend to install Linux on another HDD, and if I write LILO to the
At least it seems the plan:y pe=topN ews&storyID=5340922
:-)
:-)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t
And if Lula, the President of Brazil, is reelected for more 4 years, you can expect some serious open source trend in Brazil!
Perhaps it will be the biggest country so far to really support open source. And Brazil was a pioneer on the adoption of Electronic Vote Machines, so you can realize that my country is kind of irresponsible in its attitudes!
Be afraid Microsoft! Be very afraid!
Reports says the Government is spending less than half of the budget dedicated to the poverty fighting.
The Lulas government is corrupt.
wins at what ?
Brazil has a lot of parties, true fact. But in what does this helps the country to envolve ? absolutly nothing! atleast the way it's done in brazil.
We have parties that have barely the same name and ideas, but who are splitted because of personal interests on private power.
The increassing ammout of parties in Brazil only divides the political power it could achieve if it stay with only a few of them.
If we stick with only PT (the workers party), PSDB (the social party), PMDB (the conservative party) and, let's say..., PFL (the liberal party) we could do a lot better than having what ? 20 to 30 'different' parties
Something about the 13 Brazil major parties
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"