John Barlow Pushes Open Source in Brazil

greysky writes "This story on Foxnews.com reports that as part of the larger World Social Forum, Barlow spoke on how open source software can help alleviate financial problems of developing countries: "Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger"." NPR talks about how Brazil plans to switch 300,000 machines over.

Comments

As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't he want the government to spend the same on software as on poverty? $0?

Re:As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a hint; the first sign you are an idiot is when _you_ start to tell people what _they_ think, according to the little mental boxes _you_ have fitted them into, and that _you_ have defined characteristics for.

Re:As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

Do _you_ always _use_ these _underscore symbols_ to _highlight_ words? How do _they_ translate _into_ your _speech_?

Re:As a Libertarian

[AndroidCat]

It probably involves a gesture something like Dr. Evil's air-quotes from the hip, combined with a .. Shatner-like .. delivery.

Re:As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

As an antisocial, raving bullmoose looney, I would just like to annonymously say that I am an objectivist!

Re:As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

I *prefer* to highlight words in a *different* way. Listeners complain about the spitting a bit, but it gets the *point* across.

Re:As a Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

HA HA U WEAR THE POOPY DIAPER

Re:As a Libertarian

[alan_dershowitz]

Your principle is called reductio ad absurdum in the real world, it works, and it works PRECISELY because people are inconsistent.

When people talk about "ending hunger" they are really talking about welfare programs to bring food to the needy, not vague crap like freeing people's time to feed themselves or whatever. So then the question becomes, what's the libertarian position on welfare? END IT! Proof is on their web site:

Libertarian party advocates ending welfare

Re:As a Libertarian

[alan_dershowitz]

Correction, it is a COMPONENT of reduction ad absurdum.

Maintenance

[LEgregius]

In developing countries, licensing cost are astronomical compared to labor charges, so even if all the MS FUD were true for the US and Europe regarding TCO, it wouldn't be the case in developing countries since the cost of training and paying labor to do upkeep on the systems would be relatively low. I'm not saying I believe TCO is higher for linux, just that it would still be cheaper in developing countries.

Re:Maintenance

[adam_j_bradley]

I thought that in some developing countries that the financial burden of software licensing wasn't an issue at all...

Re:Maintenance

[ceeam]

In developing countries the cheap labor just installs whatever they are comfortable with and pisses on all of your "licensing costs". Do you seriously think that someone without Unix background will dive into it for $3/hr? Come on. Also - do you think that some local "big cahunna" will trust the cheap worker more than a US company that sells its software for a huge amount of money (represented by seriously looking "suits")?

Re:Maintenance

[acariquara]

It usually isn't if you are at home, but businesses do have to pay for their licenses, or they may be charged with tax evasion, and that is a serious offence even here in Brazil.

That being said, I have some expericence in setting up networks for my former college (federal institution, here the best colleges are the public ones, usually) and they *really* don't give a flying shit about using warezed copies of Windows in their labs, and no one ever has complained/charged/arrested/whatever.

Re:Maintenance

[1u3hr]

I thought that in some developing countries that the financial burden of software licensing wasn't an issue at all...

It isn't, till the US govt starts leaning on the local government to enforce software licensing, under pain of losing trade benefits. Then there is a crackdown, often purely symbolic, but it means no high profile users, like government departments or large corporations, can get away with it. Then they start putting pressure on "naked PCs", sold without (licenced) OSs.

Re:Maintenance

[Spy der Mann]

and they *really* don't give a flying shit about using warezed copies of Windows in their labs, and no one ever has complained/charged/arrested/whatever.

It's exactly the same in Mexico. But frankly, with $100, $200 or even higher costs of licensing Windows PER COMPUTER, I can't blame them. Microsoft should stop this "Windows starter edition" bu115h!7 and give much lower license fees to developing countries. Like for example, $25 for Home, and $30 for pro. Per household in homes, per computer in enterprises.

Do you guys really think that people who are starving, without jobs, AND paying with their taxes the external country debts, STILL have the resources to give some Redmond millionaire a great part of their income, just not to get arrested for piracy?

This is the TRUE risk of a monopoly like Microsoft: It widens the breach between the rich and the poor.

Re:Maintenance

[the_mad_poster]

First of all, if you're referring to Bill Gates, he's a billionaire, not a millionaire (technically I suppose the one encompasses the other, but we're not going to get all pedantic here, are we?).

Secondly, if Microsoft started selling Windows in Mexico at $30 a pop, they'd be admitting that the value of their software is $30 a pop, not $300, and there'd be no reason for anyone to think they could continue selling it in the U.S. and Europe at $300 a copy. They're not going to do it unless they get really hard up for sales, which isn't happening anytime soon.

The entire concept of selling an inferior program at an inferior price is sensible, no matter what the stupid slashbots say. Just because the resulting program is a steaming mound of crap that nobody in their right mind is going to buy doesn't mean the concept isn't correct.

Re:Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

In developing countries, licensing cost are astronomical compared to labor charges

Got any proof for that? Or it just what you feel, as you know people work for cheap there and like software is expensive and stuff.

Re:Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? The labor is relatively less costly than licensing of US made software. This is not the same as saying these admins are cheap labor if you compare it with other jobs in that country.

If $3 is better that average, why wouldn't they dive into it in order to keep that job?

As for the "big cahunna" thing. Being poor is not the same as being stupid...

Re:Maintenance

[obender]

Do you seriously think that someone without Unix background will dive into it for $3/hr?

Salaries this low are still paid in Eastern Europe, let alone the rest of the world.

do you think that some local "big cahunna" will trust the cheap worker more than a US company

Here you are right, they won't. One of the strong selling points will always be: we've been doing this for decades, your guys are just beginners. Ironically I know a case when local programmers were employed to do the job after the american programmers used all the budget and failed to produce anything.

Re:Maintenance

[jmacleod9975]

Doesn't the music and movie industry sell their stuff at lower prices in different places? I have been told that regions codes were invented for this reason. No buying cheap stuff in China and playing it your american DVD player.

Re:Maintenance

[marcosdumay]

I gess some /. readers may understand a little better exactly what a developping country IS before they create such king of hypotesis. Every discussion about anything on develloping coutries have a whole trend of uninformed arrogant people whit no comom sense capable of create a whole diferent world and call it 3rd world.

Re:Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

But frankly, with $100, $200 or even higher costs of licensing Windows PER COMPUTER

I heard from a MS reseller, that they have a licensing for universities who costs only near US$1000 per year and the university can install an unlimited number of MS softwares except Office.

Re:Maintenance

[Tenebrious1]

Microsoft should stop this "Windows starter edition" bu115h!7 and give much lower license fees to developing countries. Like for example, $25 for Home, and $30 for pro.

That's the main reason why DVDs have regional encoding, so studios can sell DVDs cheaper overseas and those DVDs can't be shipped back to the states in bulk and sold at the lower price undercutting all the retailers.

If you sold XP Pro in Mexico for $30, you wouldn't find a legitimate copy in any store, because all the stores would be selling them online to people in the US.

Re:Maintenance

[SadButTrue]

shouldn't the sig be
chown -R us ~/base?

Re:Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

not in this sense... Hint - it's a Valentine poem

Re:Maintenance

[curri]

Actually it is $799/year, google for msdnaa academic alliance.

It is only for departments teaching CS like classes though, not the whole university.

Re:Maintenance

[henleg]

"Serious" companies like Novell offers their open source software services worldwide through Suse and they can give you both suits, software and education...

OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox news and open source, not sure what a Slashbot should do... malfunctioning.. ERROR... untrustworthy evil neocon news site speaks of open source holy grail greatness... err DOES NOT COMPUTE...

NO CARRIER

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

I noticed that too and thought it was very funny. The network that is against freedom of thought talking about freedom of expression in software.

Re:OMG

[operagost]

How many conservative analysts on CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC? And MSNBC just killed their only show that had one because of Jon Stewart. Yet Fox has Hannity and Colmes (like Crossfire, but structured, intelligent and totally lacking in ad homs), Greta Susteren, and Geraldo Rivera as a correspondent. How's that for diversity? What's your problem? Oh yeah, free speech is great only if it's yours.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, right off the bat it did call them a bunch of leftists, which as far as their viewers is concerned, means "dirty red commies."

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

"How many conservative analysts on CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC?"

All, more or less. Look at how all of those channels let the White House get away with things that had Clinton done it the Republicans would have howled about endlessly. All those channels follow White House talking points. The White House calls Iraqis fighting American troops "insurgents"? Then so do CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC. All of those channels are owned by conservative corporate entities.

What makes Fox news so unique is the nakedness with which it uses its propaganda techniques. Those other channels use them too, but they are more subtle. With Fox it's as plain as can be.

Re:OMG

[ninewands]

Relax, take a deep breath ... Fox was merely reporting what was said at the conference not extolling the virtue of FOSS ... and DEFINITELY not endorsing the things said at the conference. If you will note, they did say "Activists at a leftist gathering ... " in their opening blurb.

Breathe deeply, calm down ... all is normal.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Breathe deeply, calm down ... all is normal.

Thank goodness, SNAFU.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Not any different from any article on CNN, NBC, or ABC where everything is a "Republican scheme", "Right-wing faction", or "conservative fundamentalists". In fact those are probably worse than 'leftist' because that only describes their views and doesn't try and add a derogatory label with it.

Re:OMG

[freemacmini]

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

"MSNBC just killed their only show that had one because of Jon Stewart. "

I hope Jon Stewart p0wns all dem punk-ass beeotches!

"One time in Reno, I shot a pundit just to watch him die..." -- Jon Cash

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

You are hereby sentenced to watch Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism 666 times, and to read Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right 666,666 times.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

while(corporation.profit==true) {
corporation.leanings=conservative;
}

die('Bankrupt');

Re:OMG

[MC68000]

We all know how conservative Ted Turner of CNN is, right?

Why does being owned by a corporation mean that it has to be right wing? Corporations are there to make money. Imagine that you're the head of CNN and you're just handed an exclusive scoop backed by solid evidence that will make Bush look really bad. Imagine the ratings! Even if you like Bush, imagine explaining to other executives (who would sell their mothers for the right price) that you deliberately ignored a source of income because you liked Bush. If your hypothesis was true, why would 60 minutes break the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal? Heck, why would CBS use obviously forged documents against Bush in the National Gaurd service kerfluffle?

I agree, Fox News is in general right-wing, more or less so depending on the host. I prefer the Wall Street Journal to any of these networks, though.

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

Is Ted Turner in control of Time Warner? Nope. He's out of power.

Your point about ratings is a valid one, however. Nevertheless, at the moment the American populace seems to be in sleep mode overall, and every scandal of the Bush White House seems to slip right off them. If I am interested in ratings, I can see the writing on the wall. I would be pushing a pro-Bush slant on the news too. It's what is selling in America today, at least on television where the object of the game is to lull people into a trance while not upseting them.

Now the book market is different. There you can have lots of niches that do well, and anti-Bush books are a definite niche that is profitable. But the subject of this thread, set by someone else, was Fox News, and we both agree that it is right-wing.

Re:OMG

[Adams4President]

The White House calls Iraqis fighting American troops "insurgents"? Then so do CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC. All of those channels are owned by conservative corporate entities.

Why is the word 'insurgent' considered propaganda? It's called vocabulary; you use a word when it describes something you want to say.

insurgent: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government

When the US is an occupying force, opposition forces are called 'insurgents'.

If you recall during the Clinton administration, CNN was constantly referred to as the Clinton News Network because of their leniency. Clinton was also called Slick-Willy quite frequently because accusations against him just slid right off.

When news is ocurring, I'm not sure what you expect the news outlets to do...not report it? It's not like they're saying "here's the new White House press release and this is why you should agree". They're just reporting the news.

Re:OMG

[Hatta]

The implication is that the media always uses the terms the president uses. Look at how "private accounts" became "personal accounts" and all the media changed in lockstep.

We have to come to terms with the fact that the media is not biased towards the left, or biased towards the right. It is biased towards power.

Re:OMG

[gentoo_moo]

Ahh... I was wondering when someone would nail foxnews on this. As is the case with most news sites, Foxnews uses The Associated Press for 99% of their website stories. Only the op-ed pieces really lean one way or the other. Its funny I did a search and couldn't find the article on MSNBC. Buried ?

Re:OMG

[phyruxus]

>>Why is the word 'insurgent' considered propaganda? [...] insurgent: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government

In the context of Iraq, using 'insurgent' is propaganda because an occupying power is neither a civil authority nor an established government; the motivation for using 'insurgent' is lending credibility to the Bush administration (on the grounds that the people we are fighting are in some way committing treason, which is untrue because in addition to having no committment of loyalty to the US Army, there is no existing structure against which they could be committing insurgency.)

Although this instance of propaganda (hereby duly explained) is sufficient to uphold FunWithHeadlines' identification of propaganda, it is by far not the only instance of news media being lead by the nose on behalf of or directly on the part of, the Bush administration.

>>When news is ocurring, I'm not sure what you expect the news outlets to do...not report it?

I don't see where in FunWithHeadlines' post you infered that the news outlets should "not report it"... other than that you and he (and now I) are participating in a discussion in which we aren't hiding our politics. But, in order to be credible, reporters should either a) report all substantiated, relevent information or b) report as much of that information as possible without underreporting or overreporting based on political bias.

The issue with FOX (and to a lesser degree, the networks) is that they have shown a pattern of underreporting relevant, substatiated information which is inconvenient (or outright damning) to Bush and his ilk. FOX actually goes out of their way to report false stories (aka lies) which consistently help Bush or hurt his opposition. One case of this actually went to court, where FOX posited that they had the right to report statements they knew outright to be untrue, as fact.

Now that's what I call propaganda. But as Levar Burton says, you don't have to take my word for it. :)

Re:OMG

[vettemph]

Don't worry, "THEY" will not notice the story because you can't find it on the front page. It's buried where no one can find it. I looked. It's all part of the grand scheme. There is news about linux if you specifically look for it but for the general masses the news stays out of site. It's a trick that makes you think linux is in the news when on the grander scale it's not.

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

"We have to come to terms with the fact that the media is not biased towards the left, or biased towards the right. It is biased towards power."

That is very well said, and it cuts to the truth. If liberals were in power, the media would appear more liberal. Now that conservatives are in power, the media appears more conservative. It's all about money to the media, and whatever it takes to curry favor with those in power so that they can get favorable deals and increase their bottom line.

That's why you cannot get the whole story out of the mainstream media. You see it more clearly in countries that are not used to the American level of freedom. Old-style Soviet reporting, for instance, which was overtly propagandistic. Or in Ukraine which, during the original presidential election period, saw the state-run TV stations all but ignore Yuschenko's candidacy. When we see that, we call it propaganda easily, for we can so easily see the ties between state and corporations.

Those same ties exist in America, but instead of being held in place militarily, it is done economically, and in much more subtle ways. Ask awkward questions of President Bush? You'll find yourself being cut out of the loop in the future. Report something negative about the White House? You find your advertisers under siege from protest groups, and the economic push to conform to the White House view. It's a constant push against dissent of any kind, and it has an effect.

Re:OMG

[Darby]

If you recall during the Clinton administration, CNN was constantly referred to as the Clinton News Network because of their leniency. Clinton was also called Slick-Willy quite frequently because accusations against him just slid right off.

CNN was called that only by the most extremist right wingers. Nobody with any sense called it that.

Accusations did slide off him, but that's because, for the most part, they were completely bullshit accusations.

They never even would have been reported had the press done any sort of sanity check on the whole thing.
Add in the fact that they were like vultures on the whole Monica thing when, had they even a scrap of objectivity, they would have rousted the slimebags who wasted millions of dollars trying to nail a president for a blowjob because * they couldn't find anything else*

However when it comes to their treatment of Bush, the one network with the integrity to air an unflattering story is still being attacked over one piece of evidence which was inaccurately refered to as the actual document even though *all the words on their document were on the actual document, it was just a different piece of paper.*

Now, please quit the moronic bullshit about a liberal press.
It doesn't exist and hasn't for decades.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do slashdoters assume corporations are run by conservatives?

Ted Tunner is not conservative by any measure. If you say well Ted is no longer in charge, then look at their political donations

Now let's also look at Disney/ABC political donations

Then CBS, risked there reputation with bogus documents against the white house.

NBC is owned by GE. They seem to be on the fence thier political donations

So can you show me real proof that the media are shilling for conservative corporations?

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

The idea comes from this: Forget about conservative in terms of picking sides politically. Instead think of the word in general. Sticking with the status quo, preserving what is, keeping things going. That is more what is meant, not causing waves. Keeping people happy.

A mega-corp has to appeal to a wide spectrum of consumers. That, by its very nature, makes them conservative in the sense of trying not to offend people. Keeping advertisers happy. Keeping shareholders happy. Keeping the bottom line healthy. Not rocking the boat.

Making donations to either Republicans or Democrats is merely a reflection of personal donations. When the corporation is steered, however, it is steered in an economically conservative manner. And thus the mainstream news organizations get slowly neutered in an effort to avoid offending anyone. No sense in making the advertisers uncomfortable. In such a fiscal environment, how much can they rock the boat? Not very much. Thus conservative.

Re:OMG

[philipgar]

How dense are you to believe that the media is conservative in their views. Granted it partially depends on your definition of conservative. If you're in the green party anything less then socialism is conservative in your eyes. Same goes for the other side. But assuming the traditional US-centric view that democrat=liberal and republican=conservative then no the media is not conservative. I don't even think Fox news is really that conservative by this ranking. Where do I get these ideas in my head? Well countless studies have been performed asking political leanings of people in the media. http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/welcome.as p lists some of them. Granted I can't vouche for this site (i just found it now), but there are plenty of studies I've read showing these same trends. As an example from the above site: > Yeah, let me tell you these are really conservative institutions. The scary part is the numbers are even worse at institutions of higher learning. I think it was something like 9 out of 10 professors at Berkley are liberal/Democratic. Thats just sad. You can't deny theres a bias there, and if you ask me it equates to a focused sort of brain washing thats being attempted. While claims could be made about liberal/democrats are on average more inteligent. Sure it may be true, Im not going to argue it because I don't know, but what I do know is that of the majority of students 9 out of 10 of them are not liberal/democratic and of the general population its definately not this ratio. Granted most schools are better than this with only 75/25 or something like that (especially in the humanities, engineers tend not to care thank god). But the bias is so pronounced that any deviation from the bias in our society is considered highly conservative. Phil

Re:OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

The mistake you are making is assuming that the personal views of the reporters survive the final stories that make it on the air. Yes, most reporters are liberal in their viewpoint, but most stories that get past corporate editorial control involve the propping up of the status quo, not the calling for major change. Thus conservative. That's what all those studies carefully overlook to make their point.

Re:OMG

[philipgar]

yes this is partially true, but isn't it ironic that the swiftboat veterans had to spend months trying to get stories on kerry mentioned in the news. Although they had the facts and videos of Kerry denouncing Vietnam veterans (of which many of the stereotypes he made out of them are still haunting veterans). All this while Dan Rather gets some documents about Bush supposedly skipping out on his national guard duty etc etc. Of course no one had a shred of credible evidence on this, and no one questioned the authenticity of it until those pesky bloggers etc started making a deal of it.

Even then Rather claimed that even though the documents are false that Bush probably would have skipped out or whatever.

That seems unbiased to me. yep, an unbiased media is what we have. No questions there. you can believe theres no bias in the media if you want. thats your opinion. But if you want the full truth i'd suggest checking what any media says. Everyone has biases on what they choose to cover what details they share and which ones they don't. Republicans and Democrats will both do it. Everyone will do it, its natural. Bias is to be expected, and isn't inherently bad. What is bad however is when half the country is conservative but 2/3rds or 3/4's or whatever of reporters are liberal. Just doesn't quite make sense to me.

Phil

Licensing Fees

[teiresias]

"Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger"."

A point most modern countries should take note of. When licensing fees make up such a large part of your operating budget, it seems foolish to simply accept it and continue with business and not look for other options.

I'd prefer my country spending a little bit less on licensing fees and a little more on it's people.

Of course, without the newest version of Office, I suppose they couldn't make neato graphs to justify the latest software licenses expenditures.

Re:Licensing Fees

[chris09876]

When I read that, my jaw dropped open. That's just sick. I don't understand how a country can think it's acting for the good of its people when it spends so much money on licensing proprietary software. I suppose there are worse things - for example spending that much money on weapons to kill people when your own people are starving..., but things like that probably point to bigger issues in the administration.

Re:Licensing Fees

[AviLazar]

Yea but some things are distorted. Maybe the average cost of a meal in brazil is 33 cents (remember Sally Struthers and how she said that 33 cents will feed some kid for a day). So when you compare that to the fee's of a product that might cost $100, that comes to 333 meals. Hell I spend more about 30-50/day (center city life is expensive)!!! The numbers could potentially be skewed.

Re:Licensing Fees

[shaitand]

"I suppose there are worse things - for example spending that much money on weapons to kill people when your own people are starving..."

The US does this.

Re:Licensing Fees

[AndroidCat]

In the 80s, Brazil went the route of not respecting any outside IP rights for software or hardware. I imagine that digging themselves out of that hole is part of the reason that they're paying so much now. It would be ironic if punitive licencing fees "until the pips squeek" now drive them to OSS alternatives.

Re:Licensing Fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the US government also spends more on licence fees than it does on feeding its citizens?

So what does it mean about Brazil?

In GDP terms where does this measure up (are we talking about 2 very small % or is food the second biggest budget expendature behind software?)

How much does Brazil spend on weapons verses software licences?

Re:Licensing Fees

[AceCaseOR]

Need I remind you that 85% of statistics can be easily distorted...

Re:Licensing Fees

[illustir]

Moreover you might spend a lot of money on switching but that money will not be shovelled shovelled wholesale into a closed source company. Instead the money will be spent in open technologies and on the education of the people to use these technologies.

People which in these countries are in free supply, cheap, usually motivated and often intelligent (think Bulgaria and other post-Communism countries).
If you give them open source and open knowledge there is no telling into what kind of Open Source giant Brasil may develop. The country has already shown to be quite clueful on a range of IT areas (electronic voting comes to mind) and is advancing rapidly.

Re:Licensing Fees

[plague3106]

I imagine most countries do also. Your point?

Surely you meant...

[Doktor Memory]

..."John Barlow Pushes Open Source, Drugs, In Brazil"

wow... the speed of slashdotters

[soggysoftware]

It's impressive, within the 40 or so seconds it took me to login between my mate here pointing out there were no new posts and me getting to comment, like 10 or so comments were posted. And they say geeks are slow and lazy...

Re:wow... the speed of slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, we are currently sitting at college avoiding work by watching slashdot as well.

Re:wow... the speed of slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas I'm at work at college.

Work study RULES!

Hunger?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all for governments saving money -- here, Brazil or anywhere else. But it's worth pointing out that what Brazil spends on "hunger" is constrained by the fact that there isn't widespread starvation there. (There are plenty of desperately poor people, obviously.) Brazil isn't Sudan.

By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?

Re:Hunger?

[spif]

By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?

Yeah, you're right, it's not as if he co-founded the EFF or has a fellowship at Harvard Law or anything like that.

hmm.

Re:Hunger?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that Sudan spends that much on hunger... or... how exactly do you define 'spending money on hunger'?

Re:Hunger?

[Odin's Raven]

By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?

Statute of limitations? Well, only if you consider writing Grateful Dead lyrics to be a criminal act. (Surely "Mexicali Blues" wasn't that bad, was it? :-)

Copyright duration, on the other hand...

Re:Hunger?

[scottfk]

There isn't starvation in Brazil? Maybe they're not on the scale of Sudan, but there is definitely widespread hunger in the Northeast.

The closest I can find to a stastic is at the bottom of this article:

http://www.globalaging.org/ruralaging/world/lula 2. htm

It says that depending on who you ask, between 16 and 46 million (read the article for an explanation of the variation) out of a population of 171 million go hungry.

If you read Brazilian Portuguese, peruse http://www.fomezero.gov.br/ for more information about what Lula's government are trying to do about it.

Re:Hunger?

[Sri Lumpa]

"By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?"

There is, it's death+70 years.

Re:Hunger?

[superflippy]

I blame the AP reporter who wrote this article for not doing his homework. It begins, "John Barlow, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, told a gathering inside a packed warehouse that poor nations can't solve their problems unless they stop paying expensive software licensing fees."

People reading this in the Business section of Foxnews.com are going to go, "What? Why is this old hippie talking about technology in Brazil?" If he had been identified as the co-founder of the EFF, Barlow would have sounded more knowledgeable and legitimate. Frankly, the tone of the entire article makes me think the person who wrote it has a great deal of contempt for the FOSS community.

Embarassing!

[bogaboga]

from the article: "[...] but the loosely organized event ran into an embarrassing glitch Saturday when two big screens betrayed the fact that the computer was running on Windows, with the operating system's toolbar visible at the bottom of the screens.[...]

This is unacceptable. Why did they even have Windows systems anywhere arround? Let me hope these systems were not brought in by one inclined to subotage the whole event. M$ must be laughing...!

Re:Embarassing!

[obender]

From TFA:

Lessig noticed and the computer was quickly disconnected and replaced with a laptop running on open-source software.

They replaced the windows computer as soon as they discovered it. I wonder how long before that becomes common practice all over the world.

Re:Embarassing!

[AviLazar]

MS special-ops team are sitting in their cozy office after being pinned the Bill Gates MS Medal of Honor on them. "Good job on the sabotage."

While they did replace the systems, I personally believe a blend of products works. As long as the products can communicate with each other, i think each person should use what they feel most comfortable/productive with.

Re:Embarassing!

[Spy der Mann]

M$ must be laughing...!

MS should thank these guys for turning off Windows before a possible public blue screen scenario.

Re:Embarassing!

[temojen]

WSF is a BIG event, with presenters from many countries, on many topics. It's not surprising if some presenter there (who may know nothing about open source) would have Windows on their laptop, especially if they're there to talk about seed diversity or labour rights in Nicaragua or some such.

Numbers Please

[Ironsides]

"Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger".

Can anyone provide the numbers to back this up? Also, I would like to see about what the ratio is between the two.

Re:Numbers Please

[Ashtray Heart]

I rather suspect that *every* industrialized country - the United State included - spends more on proprietary software than it does on hunger. So the fuck what? Do you honestly believe that if Microsoft gave away Windows and Office that those governments would take the money they saved and use it to open soup kitchens?

Re:Numbers Please

[Ironsides]

Do you honestly believe that if Microsoft gave away Windows and Office that those governments would take the money they saved and use it to open soup kitchens?

Nope, I just don't like it when people give out "statistics" like that without backing it up with cold hard numbers. With the numbers I can verify that what they are saying is correct. Without the numbers, I have only their say-so that the information is correct.

Re:Numbers Please

[felipin-sioux]

Can anyone provide the numbers to back this up? Also, I would like to see about what the ratio is between the two.

I don't think this is information is true. Brazil has the largest program to adopt open source in world. Wired run an interesting story about this last November.

Re:Numbers Please

[Haxwell]

You're probably right, they probably wouldn't open soup kitchens.

But they could if they wanted to.

Its another option, its something to do with that money, and thats the point. Not to mention all the other societal benefits that come with using Open Source.

Hax.

Re:Numbers Please

[qray]

Yes, numbers would have been nice, and the absence points to deception.

That's like saying I spend more on milk than gasoline. What does that mean? Is milk too expensive, or do I spend very little on gasoline. It's impossible to determine anything from such a statement.

--
fidos ubre toba ubar

Re:Numbers Please

[Cyberhawk]

Links in portuguese:

Some numbers:

- Budget on Federal IT spending: R$1,9bi (~US$ 720 mi)

- Budget to spend on hunger and income rdistribuition iniciatives : R$1,1bi(~US$415mi)

- Brazil's GNP in 2003: R$1,5trillion(~US$565bi)

- National Debt/GNP ratio: 58%.

- Money saved from not acquiring licenses: R$28mi(~US$10.5mi)

Some ranting:

- There is way too much hype about this technological policy in Brazil. The largest part of public spending in IT has never been on acquiring office licenses or MS-Windows stations. The largest piece of the pie has always gone to enterprise-wide systems. Unysis and Oracle are everywhere in government servers, and they get the big bucks. 28 million compared to a billionaire budget is pocket change. If they wanted to actually reduce costs, they would have to go after these guys.

- This stupid leftist (real left, not the Democrat Party kinda thing) government decided they should go after Microsoft because they are part of the Evil Empire. As an example, Lula refused to meet Bill Gates at Davos, just to show that they don't need MS anymore. He might get huge support from the open source crowd, but still think it was moronic attitude, politically speaking.

- Famine or hunger has hardly been a real problem in Brazil. Poverty and terrible distribution of wealth certainly are a bigger cause of concern. And the budget shows that: 0,1% of the budget spending hardly makes a "War on Hunger", as our beloved president wanted.

- As someone said above: Brazil is not Sudan. It has a huge, diverse economy, and is not by dictating one particular policy that they are going to solve our bigger issues.

Re:Numbers Please

[OnanTheBarbarian]

The numbers quoted in other responses to this post seem to vastly understate spending on hunger, by reducing the definition down to a single program. This excludes any kinds of agricultural subsidies (which of course are far from a anti-hunger program, but usually do have the effect of reducing prices of food for poor people in addition to the usual propping up of farmers that's the real point of them). This also ignores any kind of social welfare support to poor people that will almost certainly have a large proportion spent on food. Presumably there are also state and regional programs, although I don't know about that.

On the other side, the total IT budget is treated around as if it's all licensing fees for proprietary software, which it almost certainly isn't.

So as usual, Barlow is overstating his case. What a shock.

Re:Numbers Please

[rseuhs]

There is way too much hype about this technological policy in Brazil. The largest part of public spending in IT has never been on acquiring office licenses or MS-Windows stations. The largest piece of the pie has always gone to enterprise-wide systems. Unysis and Oracle are everywhere in government servers, and they get the big bucks. 28 million compared to a billionaire budget is pocket change. If they wanted to actually reduce costs, they would have to go after these guys.

Microsoft has much more revenue than Unisys and Oracle combined, so it's pretty likely that the Brazil revenue is also much more than Unisys' and Oracle's Brazil revenue combined.

AFAIK, about 25% of all software license payments go to Microsoft (I've read that figure somewhere, if anybody can confirm or disprove that figure, I'd appreciate it)

Re:Numbers Please

[curisco]

It is not overstated. The numbers presented show the Federal Government's IT budget. The right number that should be compared to hunger expenses is the US$ 1 billion Brazil sends overseas every year exclusively on software licenses. This is a 2002 number, but it includes both private and public expenses. Sources: The Central Bank of Brazil and Softex, Brazilian Society for Software Exelence: http://www.softex.br/media/SetordeSW_Geralrevisado .zip

FTA

[nitio]

All the social forum's 800 computers are running on open-source software, but the loosely organized event ran into an embarrassing glitch Saturday when two big screens betrayed the fact that the computer was running on Windows, with the operating system's toolbar visible at the bottom of the screens. Lessig noticed and the computer was quickly disconnected and replaced with a laptop running on open-source software.
If only all proprietary software "problems" could be solved just by disconnecting...

less on licenses...

[Evanrude]

means more funding for the soccer clubs too.
GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!

Adopting Linux...

[demon_2k]

There must be a reason why more and more government agencies are adopting Open Source solutions. And i don't think it's all due to promotions. If must be worth the trouble for any organisation for any company to change something that's worked before for something else.
Im interested in TOC, but it's hard to establish where the truth lies. I trust Microsofts comments about the cost of Windows vs Linux about as much as i trust the Open Source community.

Re:Adopting Linux...

[anti-pop-frustration]

Developing countries government adopting linux seems to be a win-win situation:

- Government can save licence money (provinding there's no TCO increase) and use it for more important things (a what is not more important than giving away money to some first world corporation ?)
- People (government IT staff, users etc.) get linux training. Which will eventually transform into more linux user and more contributions.

In short, that kind of moves would greatly help linux reach the "critical mass" holy grail.
Anyway, I hope this is not just wishful thinking...

Re:Adopting Linux...

[delire]

one of the ongoing unequated factors in TCO analysis is that of time. this always surprises me. certainly the switch itself is expensive, consider moving house, or training for a new job. however after this period TCO analyses rarely factor that of ongoing maintenance where (and from experience) Windows is prohibitively expensive for a small business, let alone those of any size in developing countries.

once training is complete for staff (or recycling those from a UNIX sysadmin background) ongoing costs will inevitably be be cheaper with a switch to linux on the basis of reduced maintenance.. this is influenced by the fact that M$ products are rarely (and strategically so) independent. each M$ product requiring another proprietary product to make up for it's short-falls; even a well configured wintel box is dependent on antiviralware or firewalls, each with their own licensing paradigms and upgrade agendas. in other words Windows is an OS that encourages the "you get what you pay for" mentality; this inevitably drives the shopping list

with this in mind we ought to ask just how total is this 'cost of ownership'?

Cut Down Windows is simply not an option. how can developing countries expect to compete with stunted software? or maybe that's the idea...

Re:Adopting Linux...

[starfishsystems]

Exactly!

A realistic total cost of ownership takes into account the capital and operating costs over the total lifetime of the computing environment.

Over that lifetime you're going to see several cycles of hardware and software. One clear principle which emerges through this experience is that you absolutely must keep your options open, meaning that the real TCO focus has to be on interoperability. The alternative leaves you locked into a solution which depends on a single vendor.

Design your systems so that they can be ported easily from one platform to another, because if you're lucky they will be. If you're not lucky, your fortunes will be tied to the one vendor, and that's not a pretty place to be.

Re:Bill Gates is scared

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure he's quaking in his $10,000 boots, even as he accelerates madly up his half-mile long heated driveway to his 40,000 square foot home, nestled comfortably in his Porsche 959.

Yeah, he's gotta be absolutely terrified.

Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger.

Well I would hope so. Who would want to buy hunger?

Now if they were to compare it to how much they spend on pleasure, that would make more sense.

Re:Well Duh

[joss]

> Who would want to buy hunger?

Someone with a eating disorder. Cannabis works for this [or so I have heard].

benefits / costs etc

[Exter-C]

One of the biggest benefits to open source is that it gives them a choice to use against microsoft and others on licensing fees. At the end of the day companies making billions in profit do it at the end users expense. I agree that they have R&D budgets to improve business and in general software costs are dropping but you cant beat the ability to develop your own operating system specifically for the department that you want and the root use of that departments need. eg water comapny only monitoring water etc.. no over heads reduced security risks etc. Its much more difficult to do on a windows based operating system simply because the underlying operating system still has the same fundamental flaws as seen previously with the rpc etc etc worms/vulnerabilities.

Jeez, what a biased intro

[Anonymous Coward]

"Activists at a leftist gathering where Microsoft is viewed as a corporate bogeyman urged developing nations Saturday to leap into the information age with free open source software"

So they're all commies who believe in bogeymen. Fox News for ya, I guess.

It makes sense.

[cabazorro]

You run a government agency in Brasil.
You use your budget to:

A. Pay a team of OSS programmers for IT support and in the meantime create jobs and promote domestic-grown-owned-designed and controlled IT resources.

B. Pay for comercial software licenses and thus cut jobs and have the Brasilian tax-payer money go to some trans-national company and meanwhile turn your back on domestic-grown-own-designed IT resources.

MS will shove enough free or discounted mackerel down your throat so you don't learn how to fish and remain somewhat hungry.

Re:It makes sense.

[acariquara]

Finally, someone that gets it.

It is, indeed, better to try and avoid the software monoculture and currency evasion (SOME of the money has got to go to Microsoft/Oracle/Adobe/whatever), use and promote free software alternatives as Linux/MySQL/Ghostscript/whatever and keep the money flowing INSIDE the country and boosting the economy as a result.

Funny Fox News-peak

[br00tus]

"The activists in Brazil are generally united in their oppositon to what many call unbridled capitalism and the policies of the Bush administration." - Something said so often that it's practically a mantra of WSF activists is that they oppose unbridled capitalism (or capitalism, period), and imperialism. It's funny how the US corporate media chokes on printing that word, even when describing what someone else says, and changes it something vague like "the policies of the Bush administration". They won't even print the word when they're reporting on what activists say, it's like the BBC using an actor for Gerry Adams voice. I mean, go to Google News and search for the word imperialism - the first hit is a paleo-conservative web site, the second hit is a communist web site, then a South Korean site talking about Japanese WWII imperialism, then Al-Jazeera. It is one of those words commissars, I mean, editors, excise, even when they're just reporting about what someone said. The thing that gets me is not only do the mainstream corporate media not use the word, they won't even report when others use the word. Fox takes it to the point of ridiculousness, but it's not much different with NBC and so forth (owned by GE, which makes billions as a military contractor by the way).

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever considered that using inflammatory terms like "imperialism" to describe the US basically trivializes true imperialism, such as the Japanese during WWII? You aren't convincing anyone when you resort to such extreme hyperbole all the time. At best, you're just getting other activists to pat you on the back. That's what I love about activists... their methods of argument and persuasion are so over the top and pathetic that no non-activist ever takes them seriously. They are their own worst enemy. Want to change the world? Try being civilized and stop thinking that everyone that disagrees with you is evil incarnate.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[GWTPict]

The BBC used actors for the voices of Gerry Adams et al because

'On October 19 1988 Douglas Hurd introduced a notice under clause 13(4) of the BBC Licence and Agreement and section 29(3) of the Broadcasting Act 1981 prohibiting the broadcast of direct statements by representatives or supporters of eleven Irish political and military organisations.

The BBC's solution to this piece of state censorship was to dub the video footage with voiceover actors. It made Thatcher's government look very silly so after a while they quietly let it drop.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[br00tus]

We will call a spade a spade. That the US corporate media reports on what we say and refuses to even say we are calling the US imperialist tends to make me think we're on the right track (especially when the same corporations profiting from imperialism, like military contractor GE, also owns the media, like NBC). It might be hyperbole if the US didn't invade Iraq, wasn't sending billions every year to Israel and Colombia to oppress respectively Palestinians and indigenous non-whites, didn't have military bases in Japan, Thailand, Germany, Panama, Turkey, and Cuba, a country which has asked the US to leave for the past four and a half decades, to deaf ears of course. Of course, Cuba is then a good place to torture Afghani POWs, since the US doesn't have to worry about being asked to leave - the US has already been asked.

Your example of Japan as being a "true" imperialist is a laugh - Japan imperially invaded countries such as Vietnam, the Phillippines and so forth - in other words, countries which were already within the imperial dominions of Western countries. It's funny how Japan's invasion of the Phillipines is "true imperialism" while the US invasion of the Phillippines, which was fought for years (and is still being fought...by what the State Department calls "terrorists") was I guess not, for to call it that would be "extreme hyperbole" and "over the top".

I suppose when the commissars of US television news decree that the word imperialism is verboten, even when ascribed by others, then anyone using such language would seem extremely hyperbolic and over the top. The real skew however is how things are reported in the US corporate media versus how it is reported in the rest of the world. The concept that Vietnam, Nicaragua or Iraq are or were major threats to the existence of the US is about as hyperbolic as one can get, yet that was the common view one got reading and watching corporate news for the past decades.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[Anonymous Coward]

Your example of Japan as being a "true" imperialist is a laugh - Japan imperially invaded countries such as Vietnam, the Phillippines and so forth - in other words, countries which were already within the imperial dominions of Western countries. It's funny how Japan's invasion of the Phillipines is "true imperialism" while the US invasion of the Phillippines, which was fought for years (and is still being fought...by what the State Department calls "terrorists") was I guess not, for to call it that would be "extreme hyperbole" and "over the top". Of course, the US ended up with the Phillipines because of the Spanish-American war (Spain ruled the Phillipines). Let's not forget Japan's invasion of China, either. Face it: the US' example of "imperialism" ended up with the US NOT expanding it's control to other nearby countries and ultimately resulted in the Phillipines getting their independence. The Japanese version of imperialism was to invade everyone around them.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it: the US' example of "imperialism" ended up with the US NOT expanding it's control to other nearby countries and ultimately resulted in the Phillipines getting their independence.

No; the US fought Phillipean independence tooth & nail. That they successfully against us does not mean that we helped them to be independent.

Much more recently, we supported dictator Ferdinand Marcos. (Because we love Freedom and Democracy so much, I imagine.) They hated him, and had a revolution to get rid of him.

Face it: We're imperialists. We'll do everything we can to keep everyone ultimately in our control. People gain independence in spite of us, not because of us.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[starfishsystems]

I heard an insightful program on CBC Radio a few months ago which drew a comparison between the present American Empire and past British and Roman empires.

One factor in common to all these empires is that their citizens at the time generally didn't perceive themselves as being part of an empire! The effect doesn't necessarily require a campaign of disinformation, in other words. Though it helps further the effect.

Being a Canadian, I get to watch the workings of the American Empire from a ringside seat. It's both heartbreaking and encouraging. The very fact that we can have this discussion is fantastic. There is room in American culture for both diversity and an extremely generous spirit of inquiry. But at the same time, there seem to be some very strange limits to that inquiry, one in particular being any reference to empire and its damaging effects on nationhood and culture, another being genuine confusion at any news that the world doesn't welcome the imposition of empire.

Of course it's easy to see the US Administration as the bad guys, not truly representative of the American people. But there is a sociological dimension underneath this as well, which is what makes it possible. In that sense this Administration is representative of American values, and that, from an outside perspective at least, is the truly scary dimension of this particular global empire.

Re:Funny Fox News-peak

[Anonymous Coward]

No; the US fought Phillipean independence tooth & nail.

I never denied that.

But, you can't compare the US possession of the Philippines to the Japanese invasion there (though try as you will). The US ended-up with the Philippines as a result of the war with Spain. Japan intended to conquer it (just like all its other neighbors).

Following Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, the United States occupied the Philippines. Spain ceded the islands to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898), which ended the war.

A war of resistance against U.S. rule, led by Revolutionary President Aguinaldo, broke out in 1899. Although Americans have traditionally used the term "the Philippine Insurrection," Filipinos refer to these hostilities as the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). In 1901, Aguinaldo was captured and swore allegiance to the United States, which ultimately crushed the resistance.

U.S. administration of the Philippines was always declared to be temporary and aimed to develop institutions that would permit and encourage the eventual establishment of a free and democratic government. Therefore, U.S. officials concentrated on the creation of such practical supports for democratic government as public education and a sound legal system.

The first legislative assembly was elected in 1907. A bicameral legislature, largely under Philippine control, was established. A civil service was formed and was gradually taken over by the Filipinos, who had effectively gained control by the end of World War I. The Catholic Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed.

In 1935, under the terms of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, the Philippines became a self-governing commonwealth. Manuel Quezon was elected president of the new government, which was designed to prepare the country for independence after a 10-year transition period. World War II intervened, however, and in May 1942, Corregidor, the last American stronghold, fell. U.S. forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese, placing the islands under Japanese control.

The war to regain the Philippines began when General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944. Filipinos and Americans fought together until the Japanese surrender in September 1945. Much of Manila was destroyed during the final months of the fighting, and an estimated 1 million Filipinos lost their lives in the war.

As a result of the Japanese occupation, the guerrilla warfare that followed, and the battles leading to liberation, the country suffered great damage and a complete organizational breakdown. Despite the shaken state of the country, the United States and the Philippines decided to move forward with plans for independence. On July 4, 1946, the Philippine Islands became the independent Republic of the Philippines, in accordance with the terms of the Tydings-McDuffie Act. In 1962, the official Independence Day was changed from July 4 to June 12, commemorating the date independence from Spain was declared by General Aguinaldo in 1898.

Nope, I wasn't trolling

[FunWithHeadlines]

Some right-wing type who can't think for his or herself modded my comment as Troll, but I wasn't trolling, I am serious about what I said, and the evidence is plain to see on any Fox News report. Just look for the propaganda techniques, the slanted, emotionally-laden leading words, and the way they march in lockstep with whatever the White House talking points of the day are. Then look at how they treat anyone who thinks differently than they do. That is the definition of being against freedom of thought.

Now if you happen to agree with their viewpoint, and you magically happen to change your mind to whatever the White House is pushing that day even if it contradicts past talking points, well then you are an amazing coincidence housed in an independent-thinking brain. Or possibly the alternative is true: You too have been influenced by the Fox propaganda techniques.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

So by your logic anyone who agrees with something the White House says is just a sheeple without independent thought, but anyone who disagrees is a bastion of intellectual radiance? One could just as easily label you a regurgitator of liberal conspiracy theorist tripe and the apologist of idiotic bloggers with anarchist leanings.

You are exactly the target of the OP.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[FunWithHeadlines]

"So by your logic anyone who agrees with something the White House says is just a sheeple without independent thought, but anyone who disagrees is a bastion of intellectual radiance?"

Not at all, in fact just the opposite of what I was saying. That's the way to misread something.

I agree with the White House at times. I disagree at other times. What I was talking about is how some people fall into lockstep with whatever the White House says, even when what they say contradicts what they used to say. That is lack of independent thought.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[Adams4President]

Some right-wing type who can't think for his or herself modded my comment as Troll
Interesting that you use the same technique that you pretend to despise.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[FunWithHeadlines]

Not really. If I consistently sided with left-wing folks, even when they contradicted themselves, then I would be using the same thinking techniques that I despise. But there's nothing wrong with calling partisan actions when they occur. Do you really think a left-wing thinking person modded my comment about Fox a troll? Nope, me either. Thus no hypocrisy on my part for what you pointed out was different from what I was saying.

I see lack of independent thought on all sides of the political spectrum. I particularly dislike even the concept of political parties, with taking sides instead of thinking for yourself. However, I didn't pick the topic of this thread, I merely commented on what someone else said about Fox, and I got attacked for it.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you fall into step with the latest publication by whatever liberal blog you frequent.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[FunWithHeadlines]

Actually, no I don't. I am talking about people who take sides instead of thinking for themselves. If all you do is read liberal blogs, you are in the same boat as someone who just watches Fox news. Both sides are corrupt, however the topic of this thread was set by someone else and happened to be Fox. So I made my comment and got attacked for it. Typical of taking-sides behavior, and that is what I am condemning.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[Adams4President]

You didn't get attacked. You attacked the person who modded you by saying they couldn't think for themself(ves), when it might just be possible that they read your post and thought it was cantankerous...though I have to admit: I can't remember what the original post was about :)

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[FunWithHeadlines]

:) Since my original post wasn't a troll, anyone thinking it was a troll must have taken offense at what I said. From that I gathered they must not have liked criticism of Fox News, and thus I said what I said and unleashed far more controversy than I feel like this morning.

I admit what I said was done in an inflammatory manner, yet I think I can back up my words. But if the moderator modded me a troll not because of what I said, but how I said it, then I apologize to him or her. If they were focusing on my wording, I can see how they might have thought I was trolling. I wasn't, but I won't condemn someone without talking to them first.

Re:Nope, I wasn't trolling

[phyruxus]

I just wanted to say (mostly to FunWithHeadlines) that I came into this thread intending to moderate, but got sidetracked writing an AC comment in response to something Adams4President said (above).

But FunWithHeadlines has done such a good job that I decided to keep my points. Kudos, FunWithHeadlines!

Adam4President gets an honorable mention, on the grounds that (remember this is all my personal opinion folks) although his position in this thread seems (from reading it) based mostly on his political loyaties, he did not use raw venom and spite as heavily as most people I've seen do in this type of situation. You're emotionally stable (moreso that some people). That's good! (yes, I make a point of giving props to people who behave rationally, esp. in situations involving political allegiance).

Embarrasing glitch?

[Ziviyr]

For Microsoft.

An MS OS was found hiding out in a free software zone. The first hint was when it crashed in an obvious and spectacular fashion. The offending machine was then escorted out of the buliding, replaced with a more capable machine, no further software errors reported.

I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[leereyno]

I do think he put it best when he said that the best social program is a booming economy.

The idea that the government can accomplish any good by spending money on a nebulous problem like "hunger" is foolish at best. Work on improving the economy and hunger will take care of itself. As for Brazil, they really, really need to work on establishing a viable middle class. The situation right now looks like a validation of marxist idiot-ology.

Lee

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Work on improving the economy and hunger will take care of itself.

When people have nothing to eat.... Yes, we need to take care about hunger.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[ninewands]

Quoth the poster:
"Work on improving the economy and hunger will take care of itself."

Thank you President Reagan.

"As for Brazil, they really, really need to work on establishing a viable middle class."

Like the one that the current US administration is industriously seeking to destroy?

"The situation right now looks like a validation of marxist idiot-ology."

Ooooo -- we've been listening to Rush and watching O'Reilly recently, have we?

Fact ... the US spends $400 billion a year on the Department of Defense ... more than 10 times what our largest-spending potential adversary spends ... $20 billion (just 5% of the Defense budget) would eliminate hunger in the world. $10 billion (that's 2.5%) would rebuild all the substandard schools in the US. Watch this for the details.

Of course solving social problems doesn't QUITE give the same testosterone rush as wearing flight suits on carrier flight decks, so it isn't going to fly with this empero^H^H^H^H^H^Hpresident.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[leereyno]

How about you crawl back into your hole at the Democratic Underground and leave Slashdot to those of us who don't ride the political equivalent of the short bus.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[adjwilli]

Making fun of the the mentally handicapped while trying to make a political point probably isn't such a good idea. Rarely are people swayed by insults, and even less so by insults that offend other they may potentially agree with you - not that I came close to agreeing with you in the first place though.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you crawl back into your hole at the Democratic Underground and leave Slashdot to those of us who don't ride the political equivalent of the short bus.
NRA [nra.org]

I suppose this idoit calls himself a Christian.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[Craig Davison]

People can't go to work when there's no roads or electricity, so the government invests in infrastructure. Similarly, people need to be fed and educated or they won't produce anything. I'm not talking about removing the incentive to work, just providing subsistence-level aid. They want to give people a head start instead of letting them die.

Once the country has enough momentum to create a middle class, the people might vote in your libertarian fantasy, or they might not. Besides, the US spends more feeding its own people than any other western nation. Why not direct your criticism at your own country.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[leereyno]

So in other words you've laid out some of the steps that Brazil needs to take in order to create the booming economy and stable middle class I spoke of.

So how exactly is that a refutation of anything I've said?

It's kind of hard to tell someone they're wrong when the points you make are all in agreement with theirs.

Lee

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[leereyno]

Agnostic Libertarian actually, but thanks for the compliment.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[leereyno]

Anyone who is going to use my initial post as a jumping off point for a non sequitur political diatribe isn't rational, and therefore cannot be reasoned with. I leave the job of swaying the insane and demented to qualifed mental health professionals.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[jadavis]

Well, the first rule of goal-setting is to set an achievable goal with a realistic plan for success.

Brazil cannot feed everyone in its country. Period. They aren't as bad as some countries, but they don't have the resources to sustain non-productive people. Sad but true. Now that we've come to this realization, we can talk sense about the best of two unfortunate choices.

Brazil could divert all the money in taxes to feeding people. But then there would be no police and the country would quickly descend into chaos. Then you have more hungry people.

A more achievable goal would be using tax money to improve infrastructure and encourage business growth. Some will go hungry today, but there is hope for future generations.

Re:I'm not a fan of Clinton but....

[Craig Davison]

I'm refuting the part where you said 'The idea that the government can accomplish any good by spending money on a nebulous problem like "hunger" is foolish at best.'. I pointed out that spending money on hunger in a developing nation like Brazil isn't foolish, it's necessary step to get the poor to participate in the economy.

So much for Microsoft's TCO studies

[Weaselmancer]

Nice to see someone else can read between the lines of Microsoft's bogus TCO studies.

If anyone ever uses the TCO argument on why they lean on MS products, point to Brazil. With the economic problems they have, they have to make smart decisions. And they went with Open Source.

It's an excellent proof of Open Source having the lower TCO.

Missed this point

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Yet Fox has Hannity and Colmes (like Crossfire, but structured, intelligent and totally lacking in ad homs), "

Sorry, missed this sentence the first time. I think you need to re-read the definition of ad hominem. I'm stunned that you would think that.

The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Stormwatch]

This country has many problems. Windows is the least important of them. Our problem is one of ideas.

All of the media (with Veja magazine as the sole exception) and the academia is terribly biased to the left, even more than in the USA, and we have no big right-wing celebrity like Rush Limbaugh to keep some balance. Most journalists are soviet era nostalgics. About every politician here is for the "social", and it's really hard to find one who defends capitalism and free trade. Our taxes are insanely high, but no one has the balls to suggest a radical tax cut like what GWB did in the USA.

World Social Forum? A disgusting bunch of hemp-smoking teenage commie fucktards. They can't bring any solution, because the shit they have in their heads is the cause of these problems.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[ventonegro]

Yes, we haven't a piece of shit like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly around here and I very much prefer this way. If you don't like the "commie fucktards" so please move the fuck off outta my country.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Stormwatch]

Ladies and gentlemen, behold, the most a trait of the average Brazilian: the complete inability to take any criticism of his own country as something other than a personal insult. This is not patriotism, but a terrible sense of emotional insecurity; for any criticism is a threat to the illusion that this country is a wonderful place.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Stormwatch]

Erf, I mean the most BLATANT trait... >_<

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[ventonegro]

I can take criticism yes, I just don't like stupid ideas.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Brazil doesn't have chances to grow, like USA or other developed country had, in part because the kind of capitalism here is not the same of them in the beginnings of 1800: there are no fair concurrency, considering so many multinational enterprises that are installed here; and the capitalism is not so libertarian because the government helps big enterprises with tax wars, not because they interfere helping the poverty. Moreover, the tax are so high because Brazil has big debits to pay to rich people, like, but not exclusively, foreign people and institutions that invest in Brazil bonds, which have astronomical interest rates.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[fsmunoz]

He didn't said the country was a wonderful place, he simple reacted strongly to your own mud slinging and unacceptable terminology. I can understand him, it must be a shock to come to /. and find a countrymen that actually *misses* having in his own country people modeled after the very worst that the USA has to offer in what regards the mediocre ultra-right... I'm sure your must miss the military dictatorship sponsored by the same scum you seem to admire so much.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Yartrebo]

Ladies and gentlemen, behold, the most a trait of the average American: the complete inability to take any criticism of his own country as something other than a personal insult. This is not patriotism, but a terrible sense of emotional insecurity; for any criticism is a threat to the illusion that this country is a wonderful place.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[Stormwatch]

The Americans I know are far more able to deal with such criticism than anyone I know here in Brazil.

Re:The problem in Brazil is not Windows...

[vertinox]

A disgusting bunch of hemp-smoking teenage commie fucktards.

Please keep from describing communists as hippies and vice versa!

Us communists like to keep our hair short and wear uniforms. We also shoot people who do drugs! If feeding people was our main concern we spend more money on food than our great people's army. (Which we are going to smite you with if you dare make fun of our Dear Leader again!)

Please get your facts straight!

-signed

The People's Moderator

Where's the cost savings?

[rudy_wayne]

Governments and businesses want service and support. They are unlikely to purchase any software without it. So take a look at Redhat for example. Their price charts are confusing and horribly laid out, but as near as I can figure, for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each. How does that represent a savings over Windows?

I guess they could hire a bunch of high school kids to download a free Linux package and then install it on 300,000 computers. But that seems unlikely.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[oneandoneis2]

Well, just for starters, they could train up some of their own populace to give the neccesary support, thus putting money into circulation in their own country, instead of throwing the cash away into a foreign company's coffers.

Secondly, if you really want to know where the savings are, click a few of the links on M$'s "Get the facts" campaign and read what the reports ACTUALLY say, not just the mis-represented crud M$ publish. You'll soon find out where all the savings are.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[Anonymous Coward]

for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each. How does that represent a savings over Windows?

For Windows, that's the cost of buying the software, support comes at additional cost. For Redhat, you already have the software for free, that $13,500 is for support.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[temojen]

Well, Windows XP Professional costs about $300-500 per seat with no support.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[_Sprocket_]

RedHat is a pain to deal with. They seem to be outstanding contributers to the Linux community, but their Sales leaves much to be desired. Enough on that.

So where's the savings? Good question. One irritant I've run in to recently is CALs. With Linux, there are no CALs. With Windows, I have to play license shennanigans to figure out what CALs apply to what users... and then suck up hidden costs to purchase additional CALs.

I guess they could hire a bunch of high school kids to download a free Linux package and then install it on 300,000 computers. But that seems unlikely.

Or they could hire local IT professionals to do it. Or are you trying to tell me that my license fee for Windows includes on-site Microsoft consultants? Heck - I could probably find more highschoolers to install Windows than Linux anyway.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[latroM]

Governments and businesses want service and support. They are unlikely to purchase any software without it. So take a look at Redhat for example. Their price charts are confusing and horribly laid out, but as near as I can figure, for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each. How does that represent a savings over Windows?

That's a non-issue. I am sure that if the people want support for some piece of free software, some company will provide it. It may not necessarely be Red Hat, a local Free Software business will do.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[Anonymous Coward]

The savings isn't in the cost of aquiring the software.

It's saving money to superiour deployment.

Point: Unix/Linux admins are more expensive.
Counterpoint: A single Unix Guru is worth a dozen Windows admins in productivity, due to professionalism and a software enviroment that doesn't get in the way.

Point: Redhat Licenses are as expensive as Windows
Counterpoint: This includes a year of support. Depending on the pricing level you get a year of updates, year of phone and/or web support. 30 days of installation and setup support.

Point: Windows is simplier to deploy
counterpoint: Unix/linux is not much more difficult then it takes to deploy Windows CORRECTLY. Plus once it's deployed and setup correctly it's dead stable compared to Windows. Very low maintainance.

Think about this, even though MS charges much more for support then Redhat...

Redhat profits from it's support contracts
Microsoft looses money from it.

It's a different world, if you think that all Redhat has going for them is licensing or other up-front costs, then your a fool.

Re:Where's the cost savings?

[rseuhs]

[..] but as near as I can figure, for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each.

Even if they will go for RedHat (unlikely because there are several Brazilian distributions out there) the RedHat personell will work in Brazil, be paid in Brazil, spend most money in Brazil and pay taxes in Brazil. Only a razor-thin margin (not nearly as much as Microsoft has as margin) is going out of the country.

But as I said, they are almost certainly using a Brazilian distro, so 100% of spendings will stay in country. Also because Brazilians don't earn as much, they will be able to do the same for much less than $270.

Story on NPR about this...

[Bravo_Two_Zero]

No, I'm not grousing about my rejected submission of the same story... much ;)

NPR's Morning Edition had a short story on this as well: Brazil Makes Move to Open Source Software. The audio has been posted, too. It's not a deep look at open source economics, but it does make the point about Microsoft's main concern of Brazil's actions lending credence to other governments following suit. BillG has requested a meeting with da Silva to discuss it (again... they met in 2002). And, it's nice to see the topic discussed in mainstream media.

Re:Story on NPR about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

People should also note that Microsoft is a large donor to NPR. They advertise in the non-advertising "brought to by our sponors such as Microsoft" *runs MS ad* "and people like you." type crap.

Many times were they would be discussing a story about non-MS software (usually something like "viruses and such" blahblabhablah "non-MS operating systems and software such as firefox", they would actually fail to mention that they non-MS software would be Apple/OS X or Linux.

Such is normal. At least with Fox news you get to see Linux ads run time to time.

Hear Hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe idealistic hippies like "br00tus" can learn something from your comment. Nah. But it's well spoken anyway.

The Subtle Spin of Fox

[Anonymous Coward]

I read this story the other day and was immediately struck by Fox's [predictable] casting of the FOSS crowd as 'fringe' and 'counter-culture.' True enough, the movement is fringe, but Barlow is described only as a Greatful Dead lyricist, in the opening paragraph no less. John Barlow has many more relevant qualifications.

The title of the article includes the word 'Activists.' I know I'm paranoid, but the right has been slowly demonizing that word. I think it began with Bush's use of 'Activist Judges.'

So in Fox-world, an 'Activist' is someone fringe, out of the mainstream, who challenges the status quo... probably someone for god-fearing Americans to fear.

Re:The Subtle Spin of Fox

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, it's amazing how much the left fears Fox News. I don't like Fox News myself, but good lord, take a step back and read what you've written.

Your arguments are absolutely baseless. Just go look at www.commondreams.org right now. Do you what the headline of this story is? "WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: ACTIVISTS URGE FREE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE". That's right, a far-left website is calling them "activists", just like Fox News. And you yourself admit that the FOSS is a fringe movement. So it sounds like Fox characterized them correctly. Would you rather have them ignore the fact that they are fringe, so that they sound more mainstream and powerful than they really are? I guess that kind of subtle bias is okay to you, but Fox's bias is not? Interesting.

And by the way, an activist generally is someone fringe, out of the mainstream, challenging the status quo. If they weren't they wouldn't be activists, would they?

And why the hell would "god-fearing Americans" FEAR activists? Just because you fear everyone that disagrees with you (Fox News) doesn't mean everyone else does. You really need to get your head out of the sand buddy.

TCO + Malware

[gelfling]

I imagine that the baseline TCO for Windows with automated patching and a modicum of standardization compared to Linux is pretty good. But in the last year or two none of these TCO calcs account for the almost asymptotic influx of malware, spyware and generally invasive shitty gorp from toolbars to helper apps as well. Cleaning up that mess is a huge problem not just for Brazil but for all of the large companies people here on /. work for. In addition OS desktops e.g. Linux allow the admins to lock down the desktop so that the biggest vectors for infection are shut.

So while the startup and transition costs of a move from Windows to Open Source are appreciable, once you're there it's far lower. Assuming of course they don't do something stupid like hand out root or run dual boot machines or have 100% of the apps running in Wine.

Tropics

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil is a tropical country. It Exports Food. Its government expenditures on starving homeless people will be very low compared to other expenses. That being said, wasting mountains of cash on license fees payable to foreign countries is ridiculous and 'import replacement' is a government policy. They are producing and exporting large numbers of heavy equipment including trucks and motor cars and now software is on the agenda for replacement.

Brazil spends on prop software than on hunger

[mrjb]

"Brazil already spends more on proprietary software than on hunger". Is this supposed to be a bad sign? I'd be very surprised if it was any less true in first-world countries.

What took them so long

[Anonymous Coward]

In times past, Brazil has been very aggressive about becoming self-sufficient. I recall that about a couple of decades ago they were trying to develop a local computer industry by ignoring everyone else's ip. The link below has them breaking the patents on aids drugs. (Their free aids drug policy is astounding.) They intend to create a local generic drug industry.

Given Brazil's traditional dislike of paying license fees to foreigners, I am suprised that they are just now going to Linux.

english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7C52DC38-1D71-41 7F -934E-330C59304CED.htm

Re:Brazilian Budget

[lawpoop]

"Further, when the Brazilian government and Brazilian businesses spend money on licensing fees, they are actually spending money on things toward building an economy that provides jobs. Paying licensing fees is an integral part of a capitalistic economy."

How exactly does shipping money to Redmond, WA help Brazil's economy?

Bill wants Da Silva back on the leash

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill's down there chasing Da Silva around the yard trying to get him back on the leash.

Meanwhile in Redmond...

[AndroidCat]

Steve Ballmer was seen boarding Clippy One for a urgent flight. No news as to the destination, but he was seen packing huge discounts, a large tutti-frutti hat, and practicing various Carmen Miranda song and dance numbers. Where will the Ballmer Bombshell land? Stay tuned!

Re:Meanwhile in Redmond...

[nitio]

Well, wherever he's going I'm sure a lot of people will be "amused" by this character you made us imagine... I just pray you're wrong about his destination.

Re:Meanwhile in Redmond...

[AndroidCat]

"I'm Chiquita Ballmer and I've come to say,
Software have to ripen in a certain way.
Software like the route of the proprietary course,
So you should never put software in the open source."

I think some kind of response by Microsoft, including discounts, to head this off is predictable. (Probably not as colourful as Steve doing a banana samba. Pity!)

Tuttle, Tuttle, Buttle, Tuttle ...

[Bobtree]

The following are movie quotes from the movie Brazil, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the country. The movie is named after the theme song.

Sam: I only know you got the wrong man.
Jack: Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the *right* man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?

Sam Lowry: Excuse me, Dawson, can you put me through to Mr. Helpmann's office?
Dawson: I'm afraid I can't sir. You have to go through the proper channels.
Sam Lowry: And you can't tell me what the proper channels are, because that's classified information?
Dawson: I'm glad to see the Ministry's continuing its tradition of recruiting the brightest and best, sir.
Sam Lowry: Thank you, Dawson.

Sam Lowry: My name's Lowry. Sam Lowry. I've been told to report to Mr. Warrenn.
Porter (Information Retrieval): Thirtieth floor, sir. You're expected.
Sam Lowry: Um...don't you want to search me?
Porter: No sir.
Sam Lowry: Do you want to see my ID?
Porter: No need, sir.
Sam Lowry: But I could be anybody.
Porter: No you couldn't sir. This is Information Retrieval.

Jack Lint: This is information retrieval not information dispersal.

Lime (clueless idiot): Computers are my forte!

Mr. Helpmann (regarding unstoppable terrorism): Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seem to have forgotten good old-fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game...

Sam Lowry: Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork. Where would we be if we didn't follow the correct procedures?

Some photos

[gallir]

JP Barlow:
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/36.html
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/30.html
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/29.html
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/26.html

JP Barlow + Lessig:
http://lvalverde.net/index.php/arxiu/2005/01/28/29 /
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/37.html
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/fotos/2005-01-PortoAlegre 4/31.html

Re:Brazilian Budget

[temojen]

It doesn't, but that's beyond the point of this troll. He's a constant link-spamming troll, and his link points to some anti-chinese (racist, not just policy) propaganda. He posts the same link on almost every international politics-related story, usually talking about weaponization of space, torture, falun-gong, or tibet.

No one ever switches

[vidnet]

The government of Brazil says it will switch 300,000 government computers from Microsoft's Windows operating system to open source software like Linux. Microsoft founder Bill Gates wants to meet with Brazil's president to discuss the change. Brazil is dropping all proprietary software.

Brasil: "Ok, then I'll get it from the shop down the street. I'm walking now, waaalking...!"
Microsoft: "Allright allright, but you're robbing me blind here!"

This hasn't been newsworthy in years.

PHR is racist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually clinked on the "infamous" link, and it takes me to a web page maintained by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which won (among other honors) the Nobel Peace Price. The Web page explains how the Chinese torture (e.g. using electric cattle prods in a woman's vagina to debilitate her) their Tibetan victims.

How is this web page "racist"? I don't get "it".

Perhaps, you are the troll and should be modded down.

Transcript of NPR story

[Thagg]

Brazil is changing all 300,000 of its federal government computers from Windows to open source software like Linux. Brazil's interest in different forms of software could be the beginning of a long term shift in the software market. That has Microsoft's founder Bill Gates wanting to talk to Brazil's president, Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva. Alex Goldmark reports.

Choosing which software to buy may not seem like a scintillating topic. But, in Brazil, excitement is high about switching to Open Source software like Linux, the free operating system which users are free to copy, modify, and distribute as they wish. Brazil isn't just dropping Windows, but all proprietary software. They want access to the code of the software they buy, and to the information that it provides access to. This could spell trouble for Microsoft's business model, according to Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, which promotes and coordinates open source software projects.

"Brazil certainly poses one of the largest threats to Microsoft there is right now." Greve took time away from a software reception to talk about the importance of Brazil's decision. "If people take that as an example as they are doing all over the world, people look to Brazil for this. Then, the whole monopoly could actually be in danger. So, for Microsoft, it is a pretty seminal thing to stop this now." Up to now, only 10 percent of the government computers are Windows-free, but proponents of Brazil's plan realize, that if Brazil follows through, and becomes the trendsetter it wants to be this could be the beginning of a critical shift in the software world for developing countries. At the World Social Forum hosted here in Brazil this week, John Perry Barlow, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a cyberspace civil liberties group, commented on Bill Gates's moves at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"Where Bill Gates, who may be the most powerful man in the world, sought an audience with Lula. Why did he do that? Because he is afraid of Brazil. Why is he afraid of Brazil? Because the government has taken the initiative to move this country to open source code."

Across town, at a government sponsored event to promote open source software, Brazil's intentions were clear. [translated] "For Brazil, we don't have any interest in supporting proprietary solutions because we are decided on supporting companies that believe in open source models. Sergio Amadeu is the head of the Brazil Open Source Technology Institute. Next to President Lula, he is the final word on Brazil's software choices. [translated] "We are not against any specific companies. But, there are companies like Microsoft that want to fit the world into their business model. We defend open source because it is better for innovation, better for competition, better for security, and better for stability."

Microsoft representatives in Brazil were not available for an interview. In an e-mail, they said Gates and Lula met in Davos two years ago, and the two have many things to talk about, including bringing technology into impoverished communities, and promoting Brazilian industry. Open Source was not mentioned. Sergio Amadeu, however, was eager to talk about Brazil's open source ambitions. He has been in contact with Venezuela, Korea, India, and several African nations promoting his cause. And that is just what Microsoft is worried about.

For NPR, I'm Alex Goldmark, Porto Allegre, Brazil

--
transcribed by Thad Beier without permission
thad@hammerhead.com if you wish to complain

More on the trip from Lawrence Lessig's blog

[Dammital]

Lessig accompanied Barlow on that trip to Brazil, and wrote a pair of inspirational blog entries.

Capitalism and Socialism, $30 and $300

[dpilot]

In Burlington, Vt, there used to be a restaurant called Carbur's, which used to have funny menus. Vt also has a Representative to Congress named Bernie Sanders (I, Vt) who used to be the Mayor of Burlington, and used to call himself a Socialist.

Carbur's used to have a sandwitch in honor of Bernie, called "The Red Herring," and it was "priced according to your ability to pay." That harkens back to a prime tenet of Communism, "from each according to his abilities."

The irony here is that Microsoft claims to be Capitalist, denounces Linux as Communist, and then with their so-called "starter editions" is itself engaging in what could be called, "Communist pricing."

Re:Capitalism and Socialism, $30 and $300

[the_mad_poster]

No, they're not. The starter edition is a lesser product at a lesser price. Unlike the sandwich, you don't get the same amount even if you can't pay as much.

I fail to see the issue here other than the fact that it's a lousy product.

In addition, socialists are not communists even though it's chic to compare the two in an insulting manner. I can see where the sandwhich got its name....

Re:Capitalism and Socialism, $30 and $300

[4of12]

The starter edition is a lesser product at a lesser price.

It's hard to believe that this "lesser" product is a genuine deficiency. It's a deliberately hobbled horse.

What I mean is that Windows Thai edition doesn't seem like it should have cost proportionately less to create than the Windows XP Industrialized Country Corporate Edition.

Likewise, a few years back people noticed that the difference between NT Server (expensive) and Workstation (less expensive) amounted to, well, not much more than a few registry key settings. Tweaking a few bits meant a much higher priced OS.

And, from what we know now based on the experience of the Linux OS (desktop and server where, BTW, it seems Red Hat is trying to pursue a a similar strategy of differential pricing) it seems quite plausible that the actual "differences" in the Windows OS are not at all commensurate with the differences in pricing: they are artificially created differences and have little relation to actual production costs of the different products.

It is a good business practice for Microsoft to maintain a single codebase of Windows NT 6 or whatever they want to call it and to tweak and release and price customized versions based on what the market will bear.

But it is because the distorted market allows Microsoft to do this that it is good business practice - it is not because inherent differences in production costs of their product demand the differential pricing that the market sees.

Re:Capitalism and Socialism, $30 and $300

[Anonymous Coward]

I thoughts the difference in pricing with RedHat was for their support that comes with the box and the ability to negotiate extended contracts.

Da numberz...

[jorlando]

The budget for the fome-zero (zero-hunger) program of hunger erradication among porr families is R$1.68 billion (around US$630 million)

Source: Orçamento do programa Fome-zero (budget for the zero-hunger program)
http://www.camara.gov.br/internet/direto ria/Conleg /notas/2004_4758.pdf

its a official document from Camara dos Deputados (brazilian federal legislative house, deputy chamber)

The stimated value spent by the brazilian government (cites, states and federal government) is R$2 billions (around US$ 740 millions). that info is from the consulting firm 4Linux http://www.linuxplace.com.br/sqush_place/105898724 2/index_html

There is a specialized secretary for IT strategies (Secretaria de Logística e Tecnologia de Infraestrutura) that is collecting data to present "official" values expent with licences.

Re:MSFT Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now, with flashbacks to the
good old, bad old days of USA gunboat
diplomacy (like the Chiquita Bananna Wars).

Bush & Co. sending in the US Marine Corp.
to Brasil to root out those "commie" F/OSS
fifth columnists, and restore MSFT to rule.

It "could" happen...

Re:Spending on hunger is a *bad* thing.

[eno2001]

When the hungries hit, the hungries hit!!! Quick! Everyone go to Hungary and hit someone!!!

Re:Bill Gates is scared

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, he's a control freak more than a money freak. leave him with his money but without ms and he'll try to rebuild it. money is a means to an end, not the end in itself.

Pinky: So, what are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every night - try to take over the world!

The Debate in Peru - A must read

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, you should take a look at the response that a Peruvian congressman gave to Microsoft Peru, when they tried to defeat the open source iniative for the peruvian government. All the debate is there, at the end Bill Gates went to Peru, bought the president and the country kept screwed... Here it is: Click here to read the response

Brazil has it's fair share of parasites too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethical questions are always raised, mainly when technology is related to life itself. However, one cannot forget that some of the acts normally practiced by modern physicians would be deemed as divine if carried out 2000, or even 200, years ago.

Also, one should keep in mind the fact that, although some have a strong resistance to patenting inventions related to creating new kinds of life, the same resistance is not imposed on inventions aimed at destroying life, such as, for instance, more efficient riflesweapons.

For these reasons, it should not belong to the patent practitioner the burden of judging the ethical character of a new invention. Patents should be granted to any useful creation regardless of its technological field, as long as it is new and may be useful in the industry. The use of patented inventions could and should be regulated by regular legislation, as already happens, for instance, with the use of firearms in many countries.

Therefore, an effort should be made by WIPO to banish from patent laws all restrictions to patentability based on the technological field of the invention. Under this line of reasoning, protection should be given to business-related methods and biotechnological inventions, much in the same way as happened very recently to pharmaceutical and to food-related inventions in a great number of countries.

This objective has already been considered in the TRIPS agreement. However, some restrictions are still allowed in that treaty. These restrictions should be, as much as possible, eliminated.

(From the Brazilian Intellectual Property Association, ABPI's submission to the 2002 WIPO request for comments).

This is so borning.. Cut that crap please!

[Donny Smith]

> "Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger,"

Wait - does the Brazil government spends that much?
Or it's Brazil as a country (their enterprises, organizations, citizens, the government, etc.)?
In case it's the latter - well yeah why would enterprises spend anything on hunger (they already get taxed enough and it's not their job anyway).
And private spending (citizens and enterprises) shouldn't be that bozo's concern anyway.
If it's the former - let's not forget that:
a) Spending on hunger has nothing to do with spending on software.
Imagine this: "Already, Brazil spends more on OSS than on hunger". Or, "Brazil spends more on biotechnology than on hunger".
So what?
b) A handsome 30% to 50% of whatever they spend ends up in hands of Brazillian VARs and others in the value chain.
If they spent all the money on OSS (which is impossible), they would have saved just a fraction of it.

And, as others observed, it's not like they pay for all the software anyway - probably just a fraction of commercial software is paid for and the rest is actually helping them increase productivity for free.
All in all, that article full of shit.

It is unfortunate that even shittiest and most superficial articles rarely get the trashing they deserve.

So when is Ballmer going to visit Brazil?

[GbrDead]

Brazil plans to switch 300,000 machines over.
Should Stevie B. consider this as an invitation? :-)

Do the Brazilians want freedom or good software?

[latroM]

IMHO in the case of governments which don't want to be tied into foreign powers in their software we should tell the people about the freedom which they have with the software. In the short run promoting the goals of OSS (faster, bug free etc.) software may provide better (in terms of functionality) software but if we forget the idea of freedom we are back in square one with proprietary software everywhere in our lives.

Smithers, release the hounds!

[shrubya]

A pack of hungry auditors might convince them that linux is a good idea.

Brazil
HOTLINE: 0800.11.00.39 Inside
Phone: 5511.3897.8686
Fax: 5511.3897.8687

I'm confused...

[advocate_one]

"Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger"

I'm not sure if that should be taken as a good thing, as in there is so little hunger in Brasil that software licensing exceeds spending on hunger, or if it is a bad thing in that there is so much hunger in Brasil and that the software license fees still outweigh the spending on hunger... perhaps the submitter should have taken a course in logic before positing that daft statement...

Ted Turner

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're two full years behind on the news.

Guess you've been watching too much Fox.

You pulled the figures out of...

[hummassa]

Yeah. You can prepare a meal here for US$ .33; and it will be as bad as a similarly priced meal is outside the metro areas in the US. Don't be silly.

In the bottom line, meal prices are the same all over... the difference is in the top line. To me, US$ 15 (R$ 40) buys a luxury lunch, sans wine. Now, the *average* meal in BR, even home-prepared, costs US$ 3... as I suppose it can cost in the US.

Re:You pulled the figures out of...

[AviLazar]

You have numbers to prove that the average home made meal in Brazil costs $3.00 just like here in the US? See when I travel abroad, especially to poorer countries - i tend to eat a lot more for a lot less (and that is considering I eat out all the time). For example - when I went to Israel. I bought a breakfast that cost me (after currency conversion) $10.00 - there was enough food on that plate to feed me, my mom and my mom's fiancee and then still have left over plus orange juice, coffee and crossiants. Israel - is by far not a third world country. I had a friend who traveled to Vietnam and for $300 he was able to eat three meals a day, and sleep every night on a bed for a MONTH!...find that here in the US.

I am not being silly. $3 US dollars in another country is worth a lot more then that - so when they say 33 cents can feed someone in a third world nation, I can honestly believe it.

A full home meal - chicken, rice, potatoes, seasoning, drink can easily cost more then $3.00

Re:You pulled the figures out of...

[gnu-user]

See when I travel abroad, especially to poorer countries - i tend to eat a lot more for a lot less

The exchange rate accounts for most of this. Your example is fundamentally flawed.

Ironically, this would increase the price/local_wage ratio for XP etc.

Re:You pulled the figures out of...

[AviLazar]

Exactly! And that is why the original message is flawed. A person using 1 US dollar in Brazil can do a lot more then a person using a 1 US dollar in the US. So when the country spends X amount of dollars to buy software they are probably paying an american company and hence american dollars and american exchange rate. Essentially - paying full price. When they take the money (lets keep it in US exchange) they are getting more value for their dollar because they are buying the product from their own country - and the US dollar is worth more in their own country.

Thusly $1 million in Brazil can buy a lot MORE food for a lot MORE people then in the US; BUT when they go to buy software from an American company (say Microsoft) they are not enjoying such discounts.

Re:Brazilian Budget

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly does shipping money to Redmond, WA help Brazil's economy?

Um, because they get Redmond's software?

The concept is really simple actually: the cost of the software is less than the increase in productivity that you get by using the software. Don't believe me? Then throw away your software and tell me how much money you "saved" by doing everything by hand.

Man, a lot of ACs are pulling things out of their

[hummassa]

Yeah.

FYI, there is a considerable number of people (more than 10 million) under the line of "absolute poverty" in Brasil. They live in the Northern and Northeastern regions, and they starve to death (in the case of Northeastern people, normally in drought seasons, which occur in a 14 year cycle and lasts for 3 years).

Care to elaborate that?

[hummassa]

In the 80s, Brazil went the route of not respecting any outside IP rights for software or hardware.

As I recall (I was in college in the late 80s), what we had was a law prohibiting the importing of cars and computing goods, not a law obliterating copyrights and patents...

I can't see what do we have with Marxism...

[hummassa]

Even if our President was at some point a professed Marxist, Brasil does have a strong Congress, the current economic policy is absolutely neo-liberalist with a very unregulated marked, combined with emergency social plans like FomeZero.

typical...

[gibbsjoh]

I see a lot of people like our mate Stormwatch in daily life... generally upper-middle to upper class, nice-n-rich, and generally lacking any concern for the less well to do in their society as long as they stay comfortable. Don't worry, it's not just a Brazilian thing; Americans, Nigerians, Indians, South Africans and most other people have a percentage that are right wing nut jobs.

I'm grossly overgeneralising, but since Stormwatch here seems like a first-class twat, I'll bundle him/her in with all the others I despise. Have a nice day!

Re:typical...

[Stormwatch]

You are mistaken. I'm in the lower-middle class. And it is usually the upper-middle and above that fall for the left-wing ideology (I've seen that quite a few times). The poor are usually too busy trying to make a living!

Carrot and Stick

[Greyfox]

Pardon my cynicism, but I still think Brazil is shopping for a better deal. Whenever you hear one of these "$Government Plans to use Linux" stories, it seems inevitable that Microsoft ends up offering them huge discounts, and the next story you hear is "$Government decided to stick with Microsoft after all." They always take the carrot.

But if they're serious about it, do you suppose that Microsoft has a commando force waiting in the wings to stage a coup? They certainly have the resources to pull something like that off. As far as we know, they've never had to use the stick, but it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Yay! Anti-left, anti-right!

[bradasch]

This country has many problems. Windows is the least important of them. Our problem is one of ideas.

You mean, you have problems with people who don't think like you?

All of the media (with Veja magazine as the sole exception) ...

Veja is a nice example of anti-government press at its best. You want Rush Limbaugh like opinions? Read Diogo Mainardi (for those not in Brazil, he's a opinion columnist who capitalizes in anti-left articles for this weekly magazine).

Our taxes are insanely high, but no one has the balls to suggest a radical tax cut

A radical tax cut for whom? People who don't care how much they spend on taxes? Or for the low-middle class? Are you aware that cutting taxes on the poor is always met with criticism, simply because it's labeled as populism, demagoguery? How is the government supposed to pay for the basic services it has to provide (and that you request vehemently and rightly) and also the payment of the country's interest debts, if the "correct" agenda is to cut taxes?

Also, are you aware that, according to IBGE, the tax load the country payed last year has decreased, mainly due to economic growth? I bet you didn't read it in Veja. That was on some "soviet nostalgic" piece, right?

World Social Forum? A disgusting bunch of hemp-smoking teenage commie fucktards.They can't bring any solution, because the shit they have in their heads is the cause of these problems.

It's interesting: we have a leftist president for two years now, and the left is already the "cause of these problems". Gee, it's like Brazil was rich as Switzerland two years ago, and some "commie fucktard" came and ruined everything you had. Not only you "forget" everything good happening right now, just for the sake of your argument, but also you need to shut up opinions different from yours, because "our problems is one of ideas". It's so nice to see prejudice exposed like this.

I don't know why I answered this, because you are obviously a teenage troll, but... well, today I have some spare time so there you have it.

Re:Yay! Anti-left, anti-right!

[Stormwatch]

> Veja is a nice example of anti-government
> press at its best. You want Rush Limbaugh
> like opinions? Read Diogo Mainardi

I already do. Every week. And I love the guy. Even though he rejects this notion, there is no one better to be Paulo Francis' heir - with a little touch of Roberto Campos there too.

>A radical tax cut for whom?

For EVERYONE.

> People who don't care how much they
> spend on taxes? Or for the low-middle
> class?

Do you really think rich people don't care about the taxes they pay? Yea right.

> Are you aware that cutting taxes on the
> poor is always met with criticism, simply
> because it's labeled as populism,
> demagoguery?

Wrong. Populism is to make the government work where it should not. Housing projects, for example.

> How is the government supposed to pay
> for the basic services it has to provide
> (and that you request vehemently and
> rightly) and also the payment of the
> country's interest debts, if the "correct"
> agenda is to cut taxes?

What do you call "basic service"? I say: police, military forces, and legal systems. The government should not provide anything else. Alright, emergency services - such as firemen and rescue - can be listed as a part of the military. But the government has to be kept small.

> Also, are you aware that, according to
> IBGE, the tax load the country payed
> last year has decreased, mainly due to
> economic growth? I bet you didn't
> read it in Veja. That was on some
> "soviet nostalgic" piece, right?

Oh, really?

- http://diegocasagrande.com.br/pages/colunas/more.p hp?uid=5009

> It's interesting: we have a leftist
> president for two years now, and
> the left is already the "cause of
> these problems". Gee, it's like
> Brazil was rich as Switzerland two
> years ago, and some "commie fucktard"
> came and ruined everything you had.

Oh wait, you imply that Fernando Henrique Cardoso was a right-winger? At most, he was a moderate left-winger.

> Not only you "forget" everything good
> happening right now, just for the sake
> of your argument

Good: Palocci is being as fiscally conservative as possible.

> but also you need to shut up opinions
> different from yours, because "our
> problems is one of ideas". It's so nice
> to see prejudice exposed like this.

No, that's a typical left-wing behaviour, actually - for example, the left's threats against right-wing thinker Olavo de Carvalho and the constant defacing of the article about him on Wikipedia. I'm not trying to silence anyone, just exposing my view.

Re:Yay! Anti-left, anti-right!

[bradasch]

I already do. Every week.

It shows. You buy his idiotic ideas and repeat them. I feel sorry for you.

Do you really think rich people don't care about the taxes they pay? Yea right.

Oh they care, but it simply does not make any difference in their lives. Rich with higher or lower taxes are still rich.

About tax rates: I mentioned the numbers the IBGE published last month. I don't have a link for them, but I guess you can find them in IBGE's site. It's not the "opinion of specialists" like the link you provided.

Oh wait, you imply that Fernando Henrique Cardoso was a right-winger?

Oh, he was a moderate leftist? I can agree with that then. So, you are against everybody, not only Lula's administration.

I'm sorry, but you quoted Diego Casagrande and mentioned "thinker" Olavo de Carvalho.

Are you aware that Olavo de Carvalho actually said (I heard him saying, it's a first person account) that Lula will sell the Amazonia to the americans? That's right, he used the word "sell". He lives in the cold-war days, when communist "ate" children at breakfast. He's a clever polemicist, nothing else.

Also, Diego Casagrande is a well-known anti-PT journalist. He does nothing more than blame PT, and sometimes the "general" left too for everything wrong in the world. When something else goes wrong (like the current administration of Rigotto in Rio Grande do Sul, which is a plain disaster), he simply silences (or blames PT for that). Are you going to mention Ford next?

I respect the fact that you are a right-winger, but you contribute to the discussion as much as Olavo de Carvalho, or Diego Casagrande, or the "commie fucktards" in the World Social Forum, that you despise so much, which is nothing.

About basic services: we live in a poor country. If you live in the dream world where the "market" decides everything and everyone gets richer, I suggest you look around yourself: Brazil has lots of poor people, much more than acceptable. If the government doesn't supply basic services like education, health care and others you mentioned, what should we do with these people? How would they pay for their education? Do you expect these people to rise up from poverty with only the strength of their will? That may happen sometimes, but it's the exception. Do not pretend these people do not exist, because the huge chasm that exists between the poor and the rich is *the main problem* in Brazil.

Re:Yay! Anti-left, anti-right!

[Stormwatch]

> Olavo de Carvalho actually said
> that Lula will sell the Amazonia
> to the americans

Everything I have read by him on that topic tells otherwise. Now, should I trust your hearsay, or my own eyes and memory?

By the way, do you remember that e-mail hoax about a book that is being used to teach American kids that the Amazon has become an "international area"? Yet, I once met a girl who claimed to have actually read that book. That was obviously untrue, but she lied to make a political point. Wasn't it Bretch who said that a communist is allowed to tell lies in defense of Communism? That was pretty much what she did.

And I must say you are most probably lying - or, if you heard him say that, it was probably a sarcastic joke that you lacked the capacity to grasp.

Re:Yay! Anti-left, anti-right!

[bradasch]

I won't be offended because you called a liar or just a dumb person, simply because you already elected your hero. Your blindness is showing, and, again I feel sorry for you.

I used to read the foruns on Olavo's site, and 90% of what was there was simply anti-PT stuff, nothing else. His opinions are valid only if you are looking for someone to blame, not if you are looking for solutions to the problems of Brazil.

The right already had its government, it went from 1964 to 1984. Remember that?

people, learn how to cite article sources

[cygnus]

Relax, take a deep breath ... Fox was merely reporting...

The Associated Press reported this story; Fox merely put it on their website. not your fault, as you were led astray by the author of this Slashdot posting.

it's REALLY important to distinguish a story merely printed by a news source from one actually authored by one, especially from a news outlet like Fox...

you've got to be kidding

[hakalugi]

that's just not true. it became most obvious when CBS/Viacom wouldn't act right away with Dan Rather, and then with their depid response here's why

look at the 60% election turn out, it's obvious that the 'insurgents' do not represent the views of the majority.

So to call them "minutemen" (a la Michael Moore) is so obviously wrong it's sad.

so now, they are by definition: insurgents

remember, The Islamists' chief spokesman in Iraq, Musab al-Zarqawi was very straightforward: "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," Zarqawi declared in a statement. "Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion," he said, and that is "against the rule of God."

if he spoke for the "people" they wouldn't've shown up like they did.

now imagine how many more would've shown up if they weren't threatened with execution and hanging and torture of their family(ies).

read bernard goldberg's books, if you dont' think there is (left) bias in those other networks you're just as biased.

remember, corporate != conservative

"..All, more or less. Look at how all of those channels let the White House get away with things that had Clinton done it the Republicans would have howled about endlessly. ..." examples?

Re:you've got to be kidding

[FunWithHeadlines]

I'm not kidding. The White House called them dead-enders and insurgents almost from the moment troops invaded the country. It was clearly a propaganda ploy, and it worked. It made viewers think the situation in Iraq was settled when it wasn't.

Bernard Goldberg provided anecodtal evidence that dovetailed with the predominant view of the majority of reporters. However, how a reporter thinks and what gets on the air is entirely different. The prevailing viewpoint expressed on all network news is one of conservative thinking, differing only in degree. All prop up White House talking points even when doing so is absurd. All pick on the White House occasionally, but predominantly they support whatever Bush is selling. That's conservative.

You oughta get out more...

[hummassa]

Everyone I know ... no exceptions ... thinks we do have a badly-managed country. Everyone I know knows we have serious education, wealth distribution. Everyone I know knows without a single trace of doubt that to reach the highest posts of our governments one must do one compromise too many... And by my experieace, this is so in any country of the world.

Now, you were not criticizing my country in your post, you were babbling. So, I'll take your post apart:

All of the media (with Veja magazine as the sole exception) and the academia is terribly biased to the left, even more than in the USA, and we have no big right-wing celebrity like Rush Limbaugh to keep some balance.

This is hard:

1. All of the media lefitist? All of the media ... that matters in Brasil ... is Rede Globo, that is extremely rightwing. RedeGlobo did not let Lula/PT win the elections when he was/they were the "red" Lula/PT... instead they promoted Collor and things went down south.

2. The academia? The academia has being doing nothing since the 1964 coup, when the real leftists were imprisoned or dead. And since then, we only had "opportunists" that are not real leftists, but try to fill in the void.

3. Rush Limbaugh? Give me a break.

Most journalists are soviet era nostalgics.

Please name one journalist that is a soviet era nostalgic, quoting something he said. There isn't none.

About every politician here is for the "social", and it's really hard to find one who defends capitalism and free trade.

Only in their pre-election speeches. Senator Heloisa Helena is one of the few Socialist die-hards, and they ran her off the PT, so she can't do a lot of damage in the extremely-right-wing government we do have now.

Our taxes are insanely high, but no one has the balls to suggest a radical tax cut like what GWB did in the USA.

Brasil cannot maintain the country with the current income. At least, not while paying the huge interests it pays nowadays for its debt. Have you taken one of our interstate roads? They suck. Only few states (SP for instance) can maintain their infrastructure properly. If you drop the taxes, how will you pay for roads, schools, etc?

You must understand: we are not the US with their endless resources. And even USofA's economy is suffering with the tax cut...

World Social Forum? A disgusting bunch of hemp-smoking teenage commie fucktards. They can't bring any solution, because the shit they have in their heads is the cause of these problems.

Come on, and you say people can't take criticism? This is not criticism, it's (a) libel and (b) bullshit. There is a lot of serious people taking part of the Forum, worried about the problems I mentioned thoughout this post, and trying to propose solutions for them ... medicine that does not kill the patient, if possible.

But you? You are just screaming "tax cuts!", what puts you in the top of the food chain down here in Brasil -- only upper-middle-class-and-above people think about tax cuts: lower-middle-class-and-below people scream "more schools!", "housing!" and "please, food!"

If you want to do something useful: donate your time or your money for any project with social benefits. Even working for Free Software projects is beneficial. And you don't need to stop watching Fox News -- just stop believing in them.

Não se preocupe.

[hummassa]

(Don't worry) Discovering that the Brazilian Bombshell is Portuguese, he is heading for Portugal. Please Steve, bring me some pastéis de nata if you pass by... :-)

He ment to say Openstep - not Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Being aware of his time shilling all things NeXT and hammering off words at NeXTworld magazine, I'm sure I know what he's REALLY up to.

Sending old NeXTstations and NeXTcubes to South America - and then having them returned - LOADED - with blow baby! After all, you can't cut premium cocaine on white hardware.

FYI

[hummassa]

I work for an State Legislature in the 3rd largest (economically) State of Brasil, Minas Gerais. We are switching (OpenOffice.org first, then Firefox...), slowly, but we are.

Yes, you are...

[hummassa]

You have numbers to prove that the average home made meal in Brazil costs $3.00 just like here in the US?

I live here, and I travel a lot to small cities in the countryside, and I have a lot of relatives below middle-class lines (ie, living on minimum wage = US$ 70/month)

I eat my lunch everyday in a cantina with subdisized prices (I pay US$ 7/month for the privilege) and it costs US$ 4/kg of a very good meal (you can choose lots of vegetables, potatoes, rice, beans, beef, chicken, pork). As I eat normally 400g, and I take one soda can, I pay usually US$ 2 - 2.50 and the cantina normally breaks even in the end of the month, so the $2.50 is probably the cost of my lunch.

If I was to lunch in other restaurant, like the luxury ones in the mall 3 blocks away from my work, I would pay approximately $20 (taking soda, not wine) -- what you seem to pay there in the US.

As I said, the difference is not in the lower bounds, it's in the upper bounds... The most expensive dinner I had with my wife in our 6th anniversary costed me US$ 100. In the best restaurant in town -- I live in the third largest town in Brasil. When I was in St. Martin (French Caribbean) a similar meal for two costed me US$ 300. I'm sure I can spend more in some NYC restaurant.

For $.33, OTOH, you can only buy here in Brasil the same dogfood you can buy in the USofA. The difference is a largest part of our population effectively eats it, because they have no choice

So, IOW, yes, you are being silly.

Re:Yes, you are...

[AviLazar]

Well the numbers seem skewed.

If the minimum wage (and i gather many people are at that poverty line) is $70/month and food costs $3/meal/person...that equal $9/day/person. 9 x 30 is $270/month/person. Now lets say people make DOUBLE the min wage so it is $140/month - still a person cannot afford to feed themselves. A person has to make TRIPLE the min. wage to eat, and eat for themselves alone. I highly doubt the population is making triple the min wage AND living alone (unless you don't feed your children, disabeled, elderly, etc). Let's also go to the fact you say your food is subsidized. Here it is very hard to get subsidized food - and that only helps if you go to the supermarket to buy food, not the restaurant.

33 cents here in the US might get you a pack of gum...not even a hot dog at the local vendor. So you might be able to buy crap food in Brasil for that cost - you really can't buy anything here for that (even pretzels cost 50 cents).

And by your second to last paragraph - you show that I am right. Maybe those in the upper class/rich class can afford to eat decently (you seem to be in that class) - but the majority cannot.

Average date, going out in the city, in a bring your own alcohol place, is about 40-60$. Going to the most expensive restaurant (for two) would probably run me about 300-400$ So how am i being silly?

Re:Yes, you are...

[praedictus]

I live in Brasil as well (Parauapebas PA, known for mining and phishing scams) - I'm quite a ways from the major centres. Food expenses here are probably higher in some aspects here than in the capitals, lower in other (farmer's markets etc.)
If I eat at a middle of the road per-kilo place here, food is R$ 17/kilo (independent of type:veggies/meat/fruit all same) As humassa, I usually eat about 400-500g and a soft drink, so it ends up R$ 8.50+1.50= r$10 or about 3.30 US
This is not subsidized
A better restaurant here has dishes at around R$20 to r$40 = U$ 6.50 to u$13 (one dish usually serves two people with some leftovers). There are no really good restaurants here... A take out pizza and a 2l pop runs r$ 20, though I much prefer my wife's pizza (I taught her not to base the sauce on ketchup (ugh!))

On a more realistic note for the working class:

Our field crews have their meals provided by the company: in general we pay the company running the camp R$ 6,00 per day per person for all 3 meals or about U$ 2.00 per day which is considerably cheaper. In terms of quality, so-so by N.Am standards (I eat the same food if I'm on field duty) Even so, this is usually as good or better than the crew would eat at home.

Other things : Cachaça - hard sugar cane liquor- 40% alc/vol is r$2.50 (u$ 0.80) a 750 ml bottle, so even the poorest can get drunk.

clarifying grandparent

[MC68000]

I know that Ted Turner has stepped down. I'm just using him as an example of a very liberal media mogul, to show that network heads don't have to be conservative.

Thank you

[FunWithHeadlines]

phyruxus, Thanks for the kind words. I try, not always successfully, to attack the argument not the person. And to try to stay on the topic even when emotions start flying. Rationality beats emotional appeals in my book.

Re:Brazilian Budget

[FunWithHeadlines]

"The concept is really simple actually: the cost of the software is less than the increase in productivity that you get by using the software. Don't believe me? Then throw away your software and tell me how much money you "saved" by doing everything by hand."

I don't think it's an either-or proposition like that. Instead the choice is to throw away your Microsoft software and use open source software for free. No need to do anything by hand, but you do save on the license costs. Same functionality, less problems with spyware and viruses, save money. Sounds like a plan.

least of our problems

[yajacuk]

The truth about Brazil is that software licenses are the least of our problems. I suggest the reader a movie I recently rented from Blockbuster Video called BUS174. It is a documentary about a robbery that turned into kidnaping and it showed how the society turns their back constantly to social problems such as the street children or the fact that in 2001 none of the police officers in charge of the BUS174 situation had any training for 2 years.

Brazil right now is spear heading the UN peace keeping mission in Haiti. Now that is 100 times more stupid then paying whatever money to Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM. Not stupid because the situation in Haiti doesn't need some help, it does, but stupid because the entire city of Rio de Janeiro is being controlled by drug lords that even when behind bars are able to control their gangs. Stupid because the government created a federal security system, and the budget for that system was cut several times to the point of being just another idea that failed because of lack funds.

The forum that is being referred to in this article is a joke, if anyone wants to check out the craziness of it all, please check some of latest articles from one of the major newspapers in Brazil. You need to speak Portuguese to read it.

http://www.estadao.com.br/agestado

Re:Tuttle, Tuttle, Buttle, Tuttle ...

[Anthony]

Laugh. My friend just lent me the DVD the other day . I had just said to him that I had asked my video store if they had Brazil and I got a negative reply. He then hands over his copy that he happened to have brought along with him! What a movie. Had a lot of confused teenagers in the house that night :-)

As a human being.....

[tdhillman]

The poster suggesting a lack of hunger in Brazil (i.e "There isn't any") haven't taken in account any empirical data whatsover. Take this little piece of info:

"approximately a quarter of Brazil's 170 million people live below the poverty line. To meet the immediate needs of everyone who goes hungry in the country, the government would have to provide emergency help to 11 million families, according to official estimates. At the same time, the effort must include long-term actions to enable the population to manage on its own, so that in the future every family is able to buy its own food."

Now I don't know about you, but that sounds like hunger to me. I suppose hunger isn't a problem here either. Head to Appalachia and look around. Our cash is spread about in a minority of the world's people, and Barlow is must trying to point out one way that some could be redirected. I suppose it's too much to ask that we dedicate some resources to world hunger. People are starving and dying in all sorts of places.

"and the politicians throwing stones, and its all too clear we're on our own, so the kids they dance and shake their bones, singing Ashes to Ashes, all fall down. Ashes to ashes all fall down" JPB

Re:Brazilian Budget

[jesterzog]

Further, when the Brazilian government and Brazilian businesses spend money on licensing fees, they are actually spending money on things toward building an economy that provides jobs. Paying licensing fees is an integral part of a capitalistic economy.

The earlier reply to your comment was absolutely right. I think you're confusing the issue with some economic theory that points out how a government can sometimes stimulate its economy by circulating money through its own citizens, resulting in more local production, more jobs, and consequently more people with money to continue spending locally in a cycle.

Simply shipping money off-shore does nothing to build a local economy. At best, it might end up a small footnote of the US economy, which would be completely irrelevant to Brazil unless people in the USA are somehow encouraged to pour that money back into Brazil... not very likely.

Business bias

[superflippy]

Replying to say that the journalist who wrote the article is named Alan Clendenning, according to this page which shows the byline for the article.

He's primarily a business writer, with an occasional focus on international business in South America, which is probably why he took this story. I don't see any other technology-related stories carrying his byline, which is probably why he had no idea who Barlow was.

On the one hand, probably not the most authoritative source for what happened here. But on the other hand, probably a good perspective on how the average U.S. Business Guy might view the proceedings in Brazil.

Hypothesis: Mixing Power Corrupts

[4of12]

We have to come to terms with the fact that the media is not biased towards the left, or biased towards the right. It is biased towards power.

Quite so.

Four major institutions exercise great power.

1. Money.
2. Government.
3. Religion.
4. Media.

Mix any pair of the above and both ingredient institutions are corrupted.

Not going to get traction at World Social Forum

[BigTimOBrien]

I hate to say it, but FOSS isn't going to get traction in the world by going to the World Social Forum. Instead, we need to send people to the World Economic Forum. Instead of challenging capitalism, we need to convince people lilke George Soros that open source just makes good economic sense and is a net positive for the world economy.

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government spends more money on software than on fighting obesity.

Piracy in Brazil

[wronski]

Here in Brazil Linux lacks some of its competitive advantages. It may be free, but so is Windows...

In most cities you can literaly go to a guy in a street corner and buy a pirated copy of Windows, Office or whatever for a few reais (or a music CD or DVD if you fancy it). Some times police make a big show of aprehending & destroying some CDs, but there has been no serious (i.e., consequential) crackdown AFAIK. Most people would consider the idea of paying $$$ for XP quite bizarre, so hardly anyone owns a legal copy. M$ makes money out of business & government. I dont think they expect to ever make money out of home users; but to have an installed base, legal or otherwise, is great for leveraging Windows to business ("Everyone uses it!").

TCO is not everything

[curisco]

Before anyone complains, I don't believe in any MS's TCO studies and I believe that TCO is the most important issue for a private company.

For governments, it is a whole diferent story. Stallman's free as in freedom gets a much larger perspective.

The Brazilian government is not comparing two products, Windows and Linux, nor it is in a leftish anti-Microsoft cruzade.

It is about the contracts. Why should any sovereign nation sign an EULA that gives it no rights whatsoever. We got so used to this way to rent software that we forgot that it is the government that defines how it purchases any goods. Not the other way around, why should software be diferent?

Imagine a bridge where the blueprints are trade secrets and the constructor has no responsibility if it crashes.

HUNGER, SOFTWARE AND BAD POLICIES

[prdallan]

Ok, here my non-existant karma may go negative, but, whatever, I am a native, have been following these issues lately and think should clear up some things:

(I) Regarding hunger: it has been an election and international theme brought by Mr. Luis Inacio da Silva ("Lula"). Just one little embarassment discovered last week: the main problem in Brazil in this aspect is not hunger, but OVERWEIGHT. The source? IBGE (www.ibge.gov.br), the Brazilian OFFICIAL institution for geography and statistics. This info was published in the local press this past week...

On a side note, Mr. Lula's government now determined after that that all data releases from IBGE must be forward to the government prior to public release (we are talking about weeks in advance, in opposition to the police used for years, of a simple 2 hours advance notice)...

It is worth to mention that there are indeed some *deep* social problems in Brazil, like poverty, health care, education and violence... But hunger does not seem to be a cronical problem of the country (even if it may happen in certain specific areas). In this aspect, regarding the REAL problems, not much has been done (apart from a polemical educational "quota" program without structural reform)... What is really a shame for a so-called social government!

The funny (sad?) part: when asked about the data released, the president said people were ashamed to say they had nothing to eat, not knowing that the research was not subjective, but based on physical data, like height, weight etc...

(II) Mr. Lula has been criticized by his polices regarding open-source. Not that people are against it (there are, I'm not included, I like this particular project), but some people are raising the point that it can be the right solution for some situations, but maybe not for all cases... They defend that going radical is not a good idea... And that sounds reasonable...

(III) Part of the press here said that it was Mr. Lula that was trying to meet Bill Gates, and that the later informed that his agenda would be full at Davos. Then, according to this part of the press, after the refusal, the government started circulating that it was Bill Gates who requested the meeting. The real story? Who knows?

(IV) Disclaimer: OFF-TOPIC part! -> On a side note, it is interesting to mention that a lot of dissent is growing in Brazil because of Mr. Lula's policies. Middle class seems to be suffering more with his policies (and diminishing). Not much change in the higher classes. The social income distribution, one of the worse ones in the planet, don't appear to be changing much - a common place in Brazil.

In this aspect, his political party already lost some key city elections recently, mainly because (i) dissatisfied middle classes (especially regarding increasing taxes over middle class typical activities & government bad management practices); and (ii) social oriented sectors of his own (former) coalition also dissatisfied with his too "right wing" economic policies. On a side note, interest rates are sky high - and increasing: it had a long time that a year was not so profitable for the Banking/Financial industry... Mr. Lula even received kudos from the Citibank top guy at Davos!

Some projects presented by the goverment and that are being battled in congress seem to try to limit the free press, the arts, to curb the freedom of university self-structuring and its research freedom ( some call it "stalinization" of universities, the project mentions labor unions members - all sectors, not only the related to the teaching/researching activity - actively involved in the role of determining what kind of research each university must do and ),etc.

There was, in his goverment, unprecedent number of public positions nominations, with lots of labor union leaders (Mr. Lula come from the labor unions) occupaing top managerial posts in several fields. If it wo

Just to clarify.

[hummassa]

US$ 1 = R$ 2.6
Minimum wage = R$ 240

People who earn minimum wage here do NOT eat decently.

Cheaper prices, worse quality products, in my city (Belo Horizonte):

1kg chicken meat = R$ 2
1kg beef = R$ 7
1kg potatoes = R$ 1.5
1kg rice (our equivalent to potatoes in our daily food) = R$ 1
1l milk = R$ .6

So you can do the math yourself.

Hey, cachaça is too expensive in Pará...

[hummassa]

Down here (Minas Gerais) it's R$ 1.50 a 2l PET bottle -- for a good, non-industrialized cachaça. Our poor guys can get so much hammered than yours in the North :-)