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We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin

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."

6 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good for them, not so good for us by micromoog · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm all for free software and cheap drugs, but we still need to respect the copyrights and patients of the developers.

    Wow, a spelling error that still makes sense on a completely different level.

  2. Not in america by Jeffery · · Score: 4, Interesting

    american corporations/government will never let something free like linux to take such a market-share that it would shut microsoft down. same thing with telco companies. there are such great alternatives out there. VOIP, way better internet alternatives to shitty 3MB cable (japan has 100MB fiber to house) american corporations hold us back, i think it's time we FIGHT! P.S. i live in america, and actually work for fed govt.

    --
    President Bush Supporter
  3. The rest of the story submission: by tres3 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The original story submission is below:

    Wired magazine has an excellent four page article discussing Brazil's new approach to Intellectual Property rigths. Discussing everything from battling with the international pharmacutical 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. Later that week Stallman donned a robe and a halo made out of a compact disc and declared himself "Saint IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs" but was surprised to be upstaged when Gilberto Gil, Brazil's newly appointed minister of culture, said: "this whole process that led to the computer, to the personal computer, to Silicon Valley, this extraordinary degree of cognition that arose from the intersection of math and design and the crystallographic structures of quartz was made possible by acid trips." It even has its fair share of MS bashing for those whose goal in life it is.

    The story was pending for over five hours. I think they were waiting for someone to submit one that didn't equate drug use to computers! I was merely quoting the Brazilian Culture Minister (p. 4). Just a quick FYI.

  4. America did same thing by tehanu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Which was exactly what America did when most of the IP was coming from the "Old World". Back in those days, English authors were up in arms about the blatent and widespread piracy of English books in America because of lax IP laws and enforcement. It was only after America started producing stuff on its own that it became an IP Nazi. India et al. are only doing to America what America did to the Old World when it was still young and developing.

  5. Re:Pinguin = Fatter wallet by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forget not that labor is very cheap in Brazil. So, the TCO is mostly the cost of what you have to pay to the owners of the software.

    There aren't "many, many more" windows admins than Linux admins in Brazil; there aren't that many of either. Brazil is a developing nation. I have good hopes for it, and it could be a major power in pushing Linux (its economy is already approaching Britain's in size).

    There seems to be a strong "cooperative" sense in Latin America, as opposed to in the US. A friend of mine from Argentina started an organization called Cooperarte (Cooperar + Arte). I asked about the name, and he mentioned that every other organization in Argentina these days, it seems, has a reference to cooperation in it.

    Now Brazil has, by a significant margin, elected a Socialist leader (Lula), who if anything is criticized for not being socialistic enough. Brazil often hosts counter-WTO events; there's a strong sense of "fighting for the common man", instead of for corporate interests (especially foreign corporate interests, which have been seen as trying to use Latin America for cheap labor and resources)

    Congrats to Brazil for taking a stand on so many issues; I wish Brazil the best on its attempts to make Open Source their standard, and offer them my congratulations on their recent successful rocket launch (it's about time there was a Latin American space program!)

    --
    POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
  6. New word: BIOPIRACY by wtrmute · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Biopiracy, n. The smuggling of species of plants, animals and fungi, typically from tropical, 3rd-world countries to temperate, 1st-world ones, for the purpose of isolating substances which are then patented as inventions and levied as taxes on the same countries where the substances came from.

    Yes, kids, it exists. You'll find it nowhere in US and European media because it's not convenient to anyone, but people are arrested regularly for it in international airports of developing nations for it (including the selfsame Brazil). The pharmaceutical industry isn't quite the paragon of correctness and hard effort you make them out to be.