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Windows in Brazil Costs 20% of Per Capita Business Income
mjasay writes "Ever wonder why open source is so popular in Brazil and other BRIC nations? As one study suggests, one big reason may well be Microsoft's punitive pricing, which exceeds 20 percent of Gross National Income for businesses in Brazil (and 7.8 percent of consumer GNI). This leads to a second, related reason: At those prices, there's little hope that Brazil can build a home-grown software economy on the foundation of proprietary software. This factor is exacerbated by Brazil's widespread disdain for the United States, which also tends to favor software that is not perceived as American. Of late the free and open-source Brazilian dream may be fading a little but its importance to the long-term growth prospects of the Brazilian economy shouldn't be understated."
Duarte's blog post is interesting and cites some statistics, but calling it a "study" is a bit rich.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It has graphs and screenshots! It *is* a study!
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Backwards place to live? You get that from experience? I'd live in any brazilian coastal city over any US coastal city. Warm climate, nice girls, drinking caipirinhas all the time, hapy music, happy people.
The Brazilian gov't puts heavy taxes on any technologies that are imported. Their whole idea is to be so punative that companies that manufacture in Brazil won't have to compete vs. the outside world. The Wii costs over $1000 in Brazil and the Playstation 3 costs $1800. (These are 2007 prices, I'm not sure what's current) The games cost $300-$400 reais, which is probably about $200 US Dollars. It's not just a Microsoft issue.
Think about it, would you pay 2500 to 5000 bucks for your OS?, or would you want something in the realm of what you can pay for it, Open source is becoming an avalanche in poor countries just because its free, and its current ( up to date), 3.1416racy is rampant in poor countries because people can pay 5 to 15 bucks for the latest M$xp, and they can pay 3 bucks for a 3.1416rated game,but they can not pay the salary of a whole year for brutally expensive software according to their economy, when somebody can get an OS that does what they need, for free ( Open source/Linux), they spread the word AND the CD to all their social group, creating a geometrical distribution into their circles of buddies, I have several friends in South America, and none of them have an original disk of anything, they used the underground market to get what they needed, for the price they were able to pay. The day that M$/proprietary software matches the price of their products to the economic environment in which they want to sell ( Marking it geographically) they will get a hold of the market, in the mean time, people will want the lowest cost for the maximum benefit.
From the article: "I imagine Microsoft charges about the same and Brazilâ(TM)s brutal tax burden makes up the rest." The summary was pretty confusingly written, but the article actually covered that.
Most people outside of the US can keep those things separate; something many Americans seem to have difficulty with, as demonstrated by the accusations of "unpatriotic" if you say negative things about GHB.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Hey did your girl/wife just left you or something? Because there's no need to insult anyone to get some attention. I know it's more expensive than in ranting in /. but you should hire a hooker. You'd be more relaxed by now.
And the impoverished are not just "poor", as in "lacking money for basic elements of life". They're also extremely indolent and dishonest. They lack basic culture and effort to achieve any kind of progress.
Oh, do they? And you pretend to prove your point by tagging everyone as indolent, dishonest and with lack of "basic culture" and "lack of effort to achieve any kind of progress"? Oh you are so illustrated to think in black and white only. You really represent those ideals of "culture" and "progress", right?
As unlighted as you are, you probably know this already, but I need to enforce my point: Culture is not just the "american" way to live.
You forgot to mention "random drug-motivated murders". And also forgot to mention that all those "happy people" are actually impoverished idiots who would rather spend their entire day partying around the city than working hard to improve their lives. Remember the Ant and the Grasshopper? If not, it's a classic that explains a lot about those bozos you call "happy people".
I didn't forgot "random drug-motivated murders". I never wanted to include any negative points so no, I didn't forgot to mention that or anything you said I forgot. They happen everywhere anyway, including every US city. The "happy people" I refer to are not those you are talking about. I'm referring to exactly the opposite of people like you, that rants and bitchs about everything, being grumpy and cheer-less all the time, and using that ant-grasshopper tale to justify their sad and boring existence.
And if booze motivated my decision about where to live wouldn't be your business. But no, it doesn't. Never said it did anyway. It's that the world is so crowded with below-average ignorant people like you that I usually get sick of it.
Your post only shows your lack of culture and education. I wonder if the education story to you told up there is really your family story there.