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Followup on MS and Brazil in NY Times
putko was one of dozens to submit a story running on the NY Times about Open Source and Brazil. The choice quote is
"We're not going to spend taxpayers' money on a program so that Microsoft can further consolidate its monopoly..."
Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend
By TODD BENSON
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, March 28 - Since taking office two years ago, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has turned Brazil into a tropical outpost of the free software movement.
Looking to save millions of dollars in royalties and licensing fees, Mr. da Silva has instructed government ministries and state-run companies to gradually switch from costly operating systems made by Microsoft and others to free operating systems, like Linux. On Mr. da Silva's watch, Brazil has also become the first country to require any company or research institute that receives government financing to develop software to license it as open-source, meaning the underlying software code must be free to all.
Now Brazil's government looks poised to take its free software campaign to the masses. And once again Microsoft may end up on the sidelines.
By the end of April, the government plans to roll out a much ballyhooed program called PC Conectado, or Connected PC, aimed at helping millions of low-income Brazilians buy their first computers.
And if the president's top technology adviser gets his way, the program may end up offering computers with only free software, including the operating system, handpicked by the government instead of giving consumers the option of paying more for, say, a basic edition of Microsoft Windows.
"For this program to be viable, it has to be with free software," said Sérgio Amadeu, president of Brazil's National Institute of Information Technology, the agency that oversees the government's technology initiatives. "We're not going to spend taxpayers' money on a program so that Microsoft can further consolidate its monopoly. It's the government's responsibility to ensure that there is competition, and that means giving alternative software platforms a chance to prosper."
Microsoft has offered to provide a simplified, discounted version of Windows for the program. Though a final decision on which software to install has been delayed several times, as has the program's rollout, Mr. Amadeu and some other government officials have publicly criticized Microsoft's proposal, calling the version's abilities too limited.
Still, Microsoft has not given up just yet. The company, which declined to make an executive available for an interview, said in a statement that it was still "working with the PC Conectado project to see if there's a way Microsoft can help."
Under the program, which is expected to offer tax incentives for computer makers to cut prices and a generous payment plan for consumers, the government hopes to offer desktops for around 1,400 reais ($509) or less. The machines will be comparable to those costing almost twice that outside the program.
Buyers will be able to pay in 24 installments of 50 to 60 reais, or about $18 to $21.80 a month, an amount affordable for many working poor. The country's top three fixed-line telephone companies - Telefónica of Spain; Tele Norte Leste Participações, or Telemar; and Brasil Telecom - have agreed to provide a dial-up Internet connection to participants for 7.50 reais, or less than $3, a month, allowing 15 hours of Web surfing.
The program aims at households and small-business owners earning three to seven times the minimum monthly wage, or about $284 to $662. The government says seven million qualify, and it hopes to reach a million of them by year-end.
That may seem ambitious in a developing country of 183 million people where only 10 percent of all households have Internet access and just 900,000 computers are sold legally each year. (Including black-market sales, the number is closer to four million, still a small fraction of the number sold in the United States last year, according to the International Data Corporation, a technology research firm.)
"We're well aware that we're talking about doubling the domestic market for personal compu
One word: Ouch.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I agree with one of the sentiments in the article:-
Others say the government should focus its technology initiatives elsewhere, especially in schools. Only 19 percent of Brazil's public schools have computers.
This is where technology can be most wisely spent, where it will have the greatest benefit, and where kids will actually learn about computers.
Of course it'll also be most effective at creating a mindset that isn't geared towards using MS products.
If only other politicians had enough backbone to use tax money in ways that benefit all the people who paid for it, instead of ingraining a monopoly ...
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Brazil has also become the first country to require any company or research institute that receives government financing to develop software to license it as open-source, meaning the underlying software code must be free to all.
This is really a wonderful, wonderful idea. It's a shame more governments haven't adopted this philosophy. Lots of governments just find it so easy to spend money that they didn't "earn". I have to congratulate Brazil on this!
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
HEH, why do they assume it wil be use for power....MS could use it for other things too
- killing small animals
- searching for the lost city of gold
- etc
Not only do they have the hottest women in the world, but they have a government with a working brain too!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
News.com
International Herald Tribune
Google News
Btw, does anyone know why does the link from slashdot asks me for registration, but not the one from Google News?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It's really amazing how we(Americans) take broadband for granted now. I don't see how I could go back to using dialup; it would seem like cruel and unusual punishment. Yet, to these people, many of whom are poor, just having a computer or internet access would be a boon.
Let alone only having 15 hours a month online! Note, the article says "allowing 15 hours"; I'm assumin that means per month. I download GIGS of stuff every day, and my computers are online 24/7/36[56]. Half an hour a day wouldn't even make me wake up in the morning.
It's all about perspective.
... if the equipment will come with Linux pre-installed. They will end up being replaced by the user by an easily bought U$2 pirated version of Windows XP anyway, sold in every corner of São Paulo. Or do you expect everyone will care to install Wine to play starcraft of use MSN? :D
P.S. - I'm Brazilian and despite the fear of fraud, like it is happing with the Zero Hunger program, I strongly support this initiative.
It makes me happy that Brazil setting a good example by putting Open Source as a requirement. This means that other governments now will more seriously put this as a requirement. What makes me most happy is not that it gives Microsoft more power, but that it gives Open Source development a good push in the right direction. I do not think governments who turn to open source will save any money, though, Linux is equally expensive in the terms of support and those kind of things. But this does mean that the money that would go to closed vendors will now, at least in Brazil, be used to develop Open Source. And that development will in turn be put back into the community to the benefit of all. This is truly a nice day for all who use Open Source!
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Robert DeNiro will rappel into your living room and install a Linux machine, then set up your internet connection, while discussing the problems with Microsoft. That would so rock.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Under the program, which is expected to offer tax incentives for computer makers to cut prices and a generous payment plan for consumers, the government hopes to offer desktops for around 1,400 reais ($509) or less. The machines will be comparable to those costing almost twice that outside the program.
You can already get a dell for R$1499 which is very price competative with what your selling people.
We're not going to spend taxpayers' money on a program so that Microsoft can further consolidate its monopoly..."
Yet they use Word grammar check.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
We do... http://www02.clf.navy.mil/enterprise/
"...instead of giving consumers the option of paying..."
While I applaud their efforts, I also question their motives. Less options != good thing.
Just thought it up, though others may have done the same...sort of a take on Apple's "1984" commercial:
In 2005 the country of Brazil will start using Linux as it's prefered operating system and you'll see why Brazil won't be like Brazil
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
If, as everyone expects, Ballmer's off to South Korea to get them back in line, then who's off to Brasil to sort them out??? at this rate, the Microsoft Anti-OSS Emergency Response team will be maxed out rushing all over the place... no one will be left minding the shop back in the good ole US of A... time for you lot to get your congress critters off their backsides and supporting the OSS camp...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Eventually, just to preserve their monopoly, Microsoft makes an offer they can't refuse -- computers with Windows for less than the price of the computers alone.
You see that more and more where MS has to compete with it's competitors it looks that all the free software available for Linux makes the difference.
There is a large difference between a low cost crippled windows version without any significant software package and a free fully complete OS with all the packages available for free...
Guess what most people are going to pick when they are informed correctly?
The head line says that it is about free software, not open source. The difference is remarkable.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"That the masses cannot be allowed to make their own choices, because their choices might include Microsoft?"
The *government* are not the masses. They choose to opt for a cheaper solution, whats the problem?
Its pure capitalism, Microsoft are free to offer Windows free and open source to Brazil, if Microsoft can't compete why should Brazil make a special exception for them?
If Microsoft was a Brazillian company I think that quote would have been from the US Government, but they can't make quotes like that or they will lose their MS deals.
Brazil should go with Linux and used the save money on depth charges to get rid of the Great White Sharks that are hunting in packs and actin a fool.
Or better yet, they can use the money to restore the rainforest, or to buy back land from McDonalds farms so they can stop the slash and burn technique.
[cx]
That would be bad - how the hell are england supposed to win the european cup with brazil in the UEFA group?
seriously though: YEAH!!!
If the IBM Government invests $70 million in Microsoft licences for imediate problems then they have nothings but a renewable license to show for it.
If the IBM Government invests $100 million in OSS than the next time they need something doing, OSS with be $100 million better. Infact when Brazil next want something why should they pay for Microsoft cut down Windows when the IBM have just put $100 million into free software.
Investment in OSS is investment in your own country, not in Ireland or the US. Investment in OSS is incremental so that anyone can take out regardless of how much they put in, the money doesn't go on the next XBox advertising campain.
Getting the job done is one thing, but Governments are about making sure the job gets done in the feture and around the world just as much as they are about Today and in you back yard.
Consider what Brazil has done in the recent past:
- Photo-ed and fingerprinted incoming American citizens in
response to America's change in visa policies.
- Charged fairly hefty import tariffs for PCs to promote
local industry.
- Promotes Brazilian music, and indirectly, interest in
Brazilian culture and tourism, via the encouragement of
free music downloads [I read this in a magazine, but
can't anything online confirming it. Can anyone help?]
I'm not saying that these are necessarily all good things. I just want to say that Brazil tends to do it their way, in spite external pressure.It's nice to see a country actually withstand to pressure from the multi-nationals and try to implement a policy for the benefit of all its citizens, rather than the usual vested interests. Let's just hope it doesn't become corrupted.
Also, recognize that Brazil is interested making their population computer literate. This includes the longer term goal of developing a viable computer software industry. Open Source is an inexpensive and suitable platform for giving everyone a software development environment. Why only a few may actually use it, I'm sure it will create a lot of talented programmers.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Just to mention, there are a lot of us, brazilians, who could not see a life with less than 30 -- or more -- hours online dayly ;-)
Brazil has a huge "cliff" between social classes so as I take it for granted to have broadband at home, at my office and wifi connections at coffee shops, there are people who never touched a computer -- other than atm's or voring machines...
The government should also be focused on developing their infrastructure and that includes getting their citizens into the software industry as coders rather than point-and-click morons.
It will be far better for them, as a country, if their people start learning how to fix bugs / add functionality in Linux (kernel/desktops/apps) than if they just build database apps in Access.
Ideally, it will only take a few years for them to bring a bunch of people up to speed and then those people can start expanding/enhancing Linux to meet whatever needs the government/people have.
Rather than waiting until the next release of Windows which will require even faster processors / more RAM / better video.
all i can say is it's about time the brazilian poor were given a break. i used to live there and every day i'd see them being harrassed, shot at, caught in drug war crossfire, ignored, dying of treatable diseases and generally treated like dirt. being made to use microsoft's absolute bucket of shite excuse for an operating system would have been the final insult.
FTA: But the preference for open-source software has been controversial, with critics inside and outside the government saying Mr. da Silva's administration is letting leftist ideology trump the laws of supply and demand.
I really fucking hate this. This is the typical newspeak propaganda used by companies terrified of losing their stranglehold on consumers by loudly bleating "Communist" into the air in order to get support from the more paranoid fringes of society, such as politicians who get kick backs from such companies.
What Supply and Demand is this guy talking about? Does he mean to infer that all those people should remain uneducated because they can't afford to buy some bullshit company's overpriced product? Tell that to the people yourself, you cunt. Also tell them that buying Microsoft's Windows will make them even poorer than they currently are, since the only way Microsoft is ever going to sell Windows at a low price is to sell some ultra crippled piece of shit such as the Starter Edition which no one wants.
With FOSS, if they *become* educated, they can read the source code - or they can ask someone who *is* educated to read the source code for them.
Hear hear!
While I was an undergraduate, even though I was taking classes, I got an in-depth education in software mainly by reading code:
- partly from listings,
- partly from disassembling a whole operating system with a little help from a listing of its predecessor when it was much smaller,
- greatly aided by a scheduling system that left me with time on my hands waiting for my turn at the machine, or the machine on my hands waiting for output to be printed and input to be punched,
and then making upgrades to it.
(One of the first upgrades was to build, first an editor, then a full-blown emulation of the Dartmouth Basic run-what-you're-edtiing environment (but using Fortran on a tape-based machine). Then I didn't have to wait for listing-to-card, card-to-tape, and tape-to-print services and could do a debugging turn in minutes rather than one or two per day. That drastically accellerated the learning process.)
This was in the days when OSes were so small that you COULD disassemble them single-handedly in a few months of part-time effort. But having a home machine, complete source code to a very advanced system, and powerful software development tools in your hands 24/7 (maybe divided by number of family members) should make a similar learning experience easier, faster, and deeper for those people of Brazil who wish to try it.
I expect an ongoing avalanche of new stuff from them, starting within a couple years after this program gets off the ground.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The government initiative should also be an incentive to private sectors to move out from non-free foreign software.
I read somewhere (don't remember where, don't have a link now, sorry) that it was expected that by 2008, Brazil (including public and private sectors) would be expending more money importing software than importing oil.
So, economically, it's a sane, smart move, if it's going to keep the money in Brazil.
GOSLING aka Getting Open Source Logic INto Government.
Their website is a bit out of date, but there is people working on it. Last I heard, the groups leader is helping set up a working group to investigate cost savings from using Open Source products, and he spoke of the savings that could be acrued from using a version of an Open Source product like Open Office vs. the continuing licenceing costs of using MS products. Yes, the price saving were evident even if they customised the suit to do the things they need, and doing their own maintenance.
Still, Microsoft has not given up just yet. The company, which declined to make an executive available for an interview, said in a statement that it was still "working with the PC Conectado project to see if there's a way Microsoft can help... "...to further consolidate our Monopoly. Oops? DId I say that out loud? You can edit that, right. Thanks."
Jesus, just read the article for once. You already posted this exact same sentence further up as if you found something you could complain about and ran with it without actually thinking.
Again, I repeat FTA: "Buyers will be able to pay in 24 installments of 50 to 60 reais, or about $18 to $21.80 a month,"
Does Dell allow you to pay over 24 months? No, I didn't think so. Is the Brazillian government forcing people to buy these cheap computers? No, you can buy HPs, Dells and even Macs in Brazil, and the government certainly doesn't care about those who can afford it, but is offering a cheap solution for poor people, of which there are a lot in Brazil. It's not the USA and American principles don't reign supreme everywhere, much to the chagrin of people like you.
Why do you think that people would use Micro$oft products? They don't know ANYTHING about computers (yet), so they won't be bothering themselvs to install something they don't know how to use. They will use what came with the Connected PC.
Micro$oft doesn't want to people start using Linux because it's the begining of the revolution. Think this way: Which one is most likely to get a job on a small store that already uses Linux? The guy with a Connected PC with Linux or the one using Windows?
Here is a 3rd world govt that implemented IT in every facet of its operations. Corruption was part of the deal but committment was paramount. The end result is a happy citizen. Netcraft links this as an Apache on Linux site. It would be prudent for Brazilian planners to learn from the experiences of the AP implementers.
Something more to think about: Microsoft Office XP Standard costs $479.95.
$479.95 isn't that much in USA. I bet most of the people here make *at least* this over a week - probably much more. However, right here, getting that much money *a month* is considered more than average. The minimum wage is like 1/10th of that.
This is not to say 'the country is a poor country, boo-hoo sell us cheap software' (although it *is* a poor country). The thing is, values here are different; a software like that is *too expensive*. You can buy food here for a tiny fraction of how you'd pay for in on USA. Wages here are also a lot cheaper than they are in the States - even for the same job with the same qualifications. It's just that not only the country is poor, but living cost is also low; the values and the scales are different. You can get to a really good grill restaurant and get totally wasted with so much good food - and spending less than us$ 10. The same thing would cost around us$ 150 on USA - with the same restaurant chain! (Fogo de Chão - there's one around Detroit I think).
When selling software, people don't think "ho well, I'll use one third/half/quarter of my salary to pay for this software..".. they usually think "ho well, I'll use 1/2/3 months worth of salary to pay for this software.. well nevermind, I'll just buy a copy next corner for $3".
There are lots of wrong stuff going on the government of this country. And one of them is the coice for Microsoft Software. My dad used to work for the state a while ago.. Basically the entire office ran on pirated win95 with microsoft office, and of course, they had no 'central' support or IT management so I used to go there fix their computers. Switching to some linux based solution with open office (or whatever) would pose an obstacle at first but would be just as it was before on the long run. With less virus and trojans, that is (I remember I spent an entire weekend getting the entire office rid of macro template virii - man that was fucked up).
I, for one, commend them on this choice. On the long run, this will prove to be the best choice, contrary to the FUD the local Microsoft is spreading.
Of course, money saved from going to Microsoft's pockets will end up going to some politician's bank account, so who am I fooling. Nothing of this matters.
KURUMIN is the goverment
reccomended distro here in brasil.
it is a brazilian portuguese distro
based on kanotix/knoppix
that runs faster and has a smaller
footprint than both the distros it
is based on. it also has a whole
bunch of gui scripts to configure
your settings like suse or mandrake
http://www.guiadohardware.net/kurumin/
People here in Brazil have 2 choices today.
Buy a expensive computer(cash or monthly) with legal Windows copy or buy a cheaper(cash, or 3 installments) in the gray market with pirate Windows.
Now, besides those, people can buy a cheaper computer paying monthly(24!) with Linux. Dont want Linux? Dont like?
Buy a windows copy, cash, for about 50% of the hardware price you have.. or by a 5 CDs for U$10 with Windows, Office, and whatever you want...
Where is the problem? They're giving the 'right' to people to feel good not having to pirate anything...
Id prefer people to have the choice for one, or even both systems. BUT, no one is disallowing MS to offer for those that buy this PC a special offer on Windows, very cheap and installed for free. Its just not OEM installed, but also not charged from those who dont want windows at all