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We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin

Posted by michael on from the loyalty-oath dept.

tres3 writes "Wired magazine has an excellent four page article discussing Brazil's new approach to Intellectual Property rights. It discusses everything from battling with the international pharmaceutical industries, to song sampling, to the national adoption of Linux. Richard Stallman stated that India's political commitment to free software is second only to Brazil's after attending a weeklong free software teach-in for members of the Brazilian national congress, where 161 out of 594 members of congress, from a broad range of parties, had signed up with the free software caucus - making it one of the largest caucuses in the Brazilian government."

1 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. FUST, the project that started it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The project that started it all is called FUST, a nationwide initiative to connect schools to the Internet. The project, in its first release, required Microsoft Windows in all servers and clients (such preferences are irregular in Brazil, by the way; one should only specify features and technical specs, not brand names).

    Microsoft, of course, was OK with being named the sole participant in the project and saw nothing wrong with it.

    But the project was changed under the new government and now it requires open source (any open source software, not just Linux).

    And now you see Microsoft going around saying how wrong it is for the government to leave them out of the party. It's rich!

    However, they misrepresent the situation. They were not left out of the party. All they have to do is open (really open, not "share") the source of their OS (yes, they can continue to charge for it; free as in freedom, not price). FUST is not a Linux-only project.

    Microsoft IS invited to join in. They won't, of course, because they can't meet the technical requirements, but that's their choice.