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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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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
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.
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!
I dont know about places like Brazil, but for me, personally, OSS is all about the cost. Sure, I can get a copy of Windows for $0, illegally, but I dont want to pirate (its their product, they can do with it what they like), so I look to Linux/*BSD/etc, where the creators of the code *want* me to use their programs freely, and I wont get junk as in other free-as-in-beer software (for example, it wouldn't be tolerated to put spyware in an OSS application, and if someone did put it in, another person could easily take it out, unlike company-owned freeware such as Kazaa)
:)
To me, being able to hack at the code is nice and all, but the thing that is making me switch from Mac is really the cost. Although someday I'll probably want to hack at that code.