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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."
Yes, because to an average politician's mind, free Brazilian language software is a great way to foster a homegrown software industry based on earning money...
;)
The point is that Free Software will make Brazil (hopefully) more productive on computers, quicker and cheaper. The way it should be
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
Wow, a spelling error that still makes sense on a completely different level.
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
I suppose that I'd also gush over the lemony OpenSource goodness of my hosts, particularly if they flew me to Rio for a week.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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
is this.
Democratizing knowledge so that anyone/everyone can benefit.
I expect this trend wil continue to emerge.
"Poorer" countries will be the main adopter of Open Source. It will be cheaper; and it will encourage creativity and growth of IT.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
This should give Brazil's economy a big boost, too. Let's just hope that the usual suspects don't manage to undo all the progress in a few years. This should be popular with the populists, so maybe they won't screw it up. That still leaves the fascists and the socialists and the international corps to work to screw it up, unfortunately.
I predict that the most effective opposition will come from the U.S. and the E.U. governments. I hope Brazil stands up to them; I'd really like to be able to move South for economic opportunity!
See what I've been reading.
This is about freedom of information, freedom of ideas. Linux is a part of that in that embodies freedom in software, but to only look at Linux is to miss the broader context.
There is no marginal cost to the sharing of digital or intellectual content, beyond the cost of transmission and storage. This fight is about taking ideas out of the hands of a few powerful entities with a vested interest in maintaining their power, and shifting it to everyone.
The world will benefit. The fucked nature of the existing system is no better demonstrated than in the US - where you'd think that having all the power would make life better. But medicine is more expensive there than in almost any other Western country.
-- james
PS please don't start feeding me bullshit about how you have to be paying more for drugs to support the companies. I cannot believe people actually tow this line. It's human health, for chrissakes
I'm all for free software and cheap drugs, but we still need to respect the copyrights and patients of the developers.
Like the hell we do. It's one thing to acknowledge their contribution to the world - it's another to assume that there should be some kind of a god given right for personal monopolies - even when millions of people in Africa are dying of AIDS. Like cows to the slaughter, people just assume that because a bunch of people declare something a glorious free market property right - that it must be so. But really, do you own slaves?
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.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
There's also a Brazillian company that sells a Linux distribution that's reasonably popular in the area. So Linux is also providing income to locals, which tends to earn political support.
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.
Many of these comments are weak. It's not just about getting free stuff, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Brazil exports very little IP. It's about big, important, multinational patent holders playing fair. Notice that Roche sat on their patent throne until Brazil threatened to make their own drugs. Notice that they were able to sell the stuff at *less than half the original price* when Brazil actually held good on the threat. Is this unlike Microsoft's behaviour? I think not. They crank up the prices of their OS and Office constantly, even though they are raking in the dough - that is until emerging markets are unwilling to put up with it. All of a sudden code starts to be released, discount editions are offered, and cooperation with foreign governments begins. And guess what? They are still raking in the dough. Who would have thunk? Just because Americans are willing to put up monopolies, inflated prices, and unfair patents doesn't make it right. Maybe it's time to learn something from the third world.
Some of us contribute to the cause, be it with code, with documentation, with support... Do you know who brought the wonders of Debian's APT to the RPM world? Conectiva, the leading Brazilian Linux distributor. WindowMaker? A brazilian wrote it. How about the kernel itself? The 2.4 branch is currently maintained by a brazilian, too. OpenOffice.org has received many contributions from the Brazilian team, as well as GNOME, Debian, and so far so on. Therefore, while not everyone has the skills to contribute to free software, those who have them more often than not do contribute to free software.
And yes, some of us brazilians also actually pay for our distros; the biggest problem with that is that it is more difficult to pay for a foreign (read American) distribution, due to rate changes and bureaucracy. However, when there is an easy way to pay, we do; Conectiva is there to prove it.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
I find myself caught between two desires. I love the OSC, what it stands for, and the desire to see Microsofts monopoly crumble. On the other hand, I love that I live in a country where I don't get paid $240 a month for the work I do, and I realize that Microsoft and the other companies that hold patents on drugs, and other exportable goods, bring in the money to keep the US employees... well... employed. Inherently I loath the restrictions of big companies on what I want to do with goods I've purchased... for example -- on my ability to create an MP3 from a CD that I purchased. Or rip a DVD to have on my computer in digital format instead of hard copy... if for no other reason, than because I choose to. When it comes to health care, and what hurts people, I believe in, and support, Brazils move to 'bite their thumbs' at big companies in defense of the Brazilian population. I just worry that things have gotten so far out of wack within the US in terms of patent, that people can be sued for coming up with the same idea in two different locations, and in two different ways, independently, and the person who gets to the patent office first wins... what mess. Sometimes I guess you just have to take a couple steps back from the nonsense, and use common sense instead.
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.
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.
"Take India, for example. While they may have pop singers and the like who are enormously popular domestically, the global market for such music doesn't even begin to approach that of America's."
... And thats just one artist. Obviously Rahman is more motivated than Britney and Madonna to protect his IP. And taken solely in terms of music sales, Rahman's "IP" is as valuable as Madonna's and Britney's put together. The reason that India lags behind in generating Tech IP is that it is nowhere near the US in terms of industrialization. But please, lets not talk about Movie or Music IP.
This reeks of blissful ignorance. Lets get some facts straight. Repeat after me: India's population is slightly higher than North America and Europe put together.
Consequence ? Even if they sell one CD outside india, the "global" sales can far outstrip any artist in US. You think Britney is popular ? How about Madonna ? Ever heard of Rahman ? Quoted from the article: "In terms of sales, Rahman is already bigger than the biggest. His music has already sold over 200 million cassettes. That's more than Madonna and Britney Spears put together."
In order to use M$, Brazil has to pay $$ (as in "USD"). And because Brazil does not (you inconsiderate clods...) have a convertable currency, it has to convert something tangible -- soybeans will do -- into $$. Since the marginal cost of reproducing open-source software is more or less zero, whereas the marginal cost of producing soybeans (or whatever) is decidedly greater than zero, it's an easy decision.
The US, in contrast, simply prints more dollars (figuratively -- actually we sell treasury bills) and, as long as other countries (read: China, Japan) accept those freshly printed dollars, we get stuff without necessarily having to generate a comparable amount of items (a.k.a. "trade deficit").
Nice deal, as long as it works. And it will work forever, won't it? Won't it???
Start practicing your Portuguese...
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
On the flip side, if through hard work and determination, I create something useful to others and attempt to make money from it in order to feed my family should you, who did nothing to bring about its creation, be allowed to simply take it from me without compensating me for my time and effort to do with as you please?
Yes I should, because I have a family to feed to, and your invention likely builds on zillions of things, experiences, and knowledge, that society gave you freely - now to turn arround and say they owe you a monopoly is bullshit. Not to mention that 90% of patents especially cover incremental improvements that were going to be invented anyhow with or without a monopoly. So basically, you're not benefiting society - you're just getting in the way of future innovation, why should you be rewarded for that?
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.
Unfortunately this article, while interesting does not show the context of the series of articles in which this one appeared. The series was talking about Gilberto Gil and how he (and Brazil) have embraced the Creative Commons copyright licenses.
Creative Commons is based on a few simple principles, one of which being that new things are built from the past. Copying/stealing ideas and modifying or improving them is how we get new and better technology, art, and other things. Very little of what you see today is truely innovative and not based on anything prior.
The Linux pricetag isn't a marketing scheme (or at least wasn't Linus' intent originally). It's free because Linus (and others) wanted to share what a collective of people worked together to build, and invited others to help improve it. As mentioned by others, Apple does some innovation, but mostly they innovate by taking what exists and modifying it to look cool and be hip.
Apple didn't create the GUI interface, Xerox did - Apple stole it and MS stole it from Apple. Apple didn't create it's OS X core, they took the BSD kernel, tweaked it, and then slapped on a shiny UI. Don't get me wrong, I really like OS X and what Apple's done with a BSD kernel (especially after my own attempts at running FreeBSD) and a nicer UI than X. But I would not say I ever thought twice about owning a Mac prior to OS X - I didn't. They were ugly and underpowered without the ability to do true multitasking (much like Windows 3.1).
Finally, your analogy is weak in that WalMart is a large (multi?)national chain owned by a single, small group of people/stakeholders. Linux is an open, community-owned system that cannot easily be contributed to one person anymore. Yes, Linus is still in charge of what gets into the kernel, but he's not developing it all. He's not writing all the kernel modules for new devices and hardware.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.