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..."

commodities

[alatesystems]

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."

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.

Re:Great!

[Karpe]

I'm a brazilian researcher. Public universities, like the one I work at, are responsible by the largest part of scientific research in Brazil. While most of what we develop is open source, it is not because any government requirement (I had never heard about this "requirement" prior to reading this article), but by the nature of what we do. I am pretty sure many people develop closed source software in the universities. Do we get government financing? Well, you could say that, since the government pays the universities bills (electricity, communications), professors salaries, etc. But that's mostly all about it. It doesn't have any money left to spend on researchers, equipment, etc, and universities have to find financing elsewhere (typically in cooperation projects with the private sector, who, among other things, requires NDAs and ownership to some of the deliveries of this funded research).

Free software, in Brazil, has become much more of a publicity stunt, and definitely used for self-promotion by a lot of people. But definitely not that close to our reality. It is a pitty and a shame.

Re:Good..

[pixelpusher220]

Sometimes its better to spend more if it will save time/money/lives later on.

Agreed, and spending *more* to convert/train/implement open source in the short term *will* save you much more money in the long run.

Re:I love Brazil!

[Anonymous Coward]

but they have a government with a working brain too!

Obviously you're not from down here.

You know how this ends, right?

[russotto]

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.

Re:commodities

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really amazing how we (Asians) take broadband for granted now. Only 10Mbit broadband! And thats tops, most of the "westerners" only get 1.5Mbit, if even that. I download GIGS of stuff every hour, and my cellphone can download and store a dvd in 15 minutes. American DSL wouldn't even make me wake up in the morning.

Re:Have to say . . .

[DrSkwid]

How computers make kids dumb [theregister.co.uk]

Computers bad for kids [theregister.co.uk]

etc.

Re:NYT article.

[Eccles]

They're not offering Mac OS X either. Nor AmigaOS, BSD, Gnu/HURD, Irix, Solaris, VMS, MS-DOS, Plan9, BeOS...

Get the point? Choosing one OS for a gov't program is not a paternalistic choice. the citizens of Brazil are free to choose another OS.

Re:Brazil: Just Do It!

[wronski]

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?]

The fingerprint thing was reciprocation for US visa policies. I think what annoys people the most is not the number of hoops they have to jump to get a visa, but that insufferable attitude US consular authorities have of treating visa-seekers as supplicants.

The former policy of outlawing the import of computer equipment if a made-in-Brazil one existed (Reserva de Mercado) is widely regarded as a massive failure. Today tariffs are high, but not as ridiculous as in the past. All components are still manufactured in Tawain, and the higher cost trickles down to the whole productive chain making the economy less competitve as a whole.

There has been an upsurge in interest in Brazilian culture in general. Some of it is due to the goverment, but most is not. The culture minister (Gilberto Gil, a major artist) recorded a song for Wired under a GPL licence, but this is was a one-off. He generaly supports music with less restriction on distribution, but AFAIK does not support wholesale free downloads. Here [legaltorrents.com] is a (entirely legal) bittorrent link to the song (along with the rest of the CD)

Re:Why is OSS equated with Leftist ideology?

[WillAffleck]

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.

You bring up a good point. Open Source is really Capitalism at its ideal - closed monopolies are actually anti-Capitalist by definition, since they discourage (actively) competition, depend upon all players in the market not having equal and free access to information, and don't price to equilibrium but distort the market.

Sigh. Why do people believe the lies of the red commie Bushies so much ...

Visit in batches - Please dont /. it

[narsiman]

Here is a 3rd world govt that implemented IT [ap-it.com] in every facet of its operations. Corruption was part of the deal but committment was paramount. The end result is a happy citizen. Netcraft [netcraft.com] links this as an Apache on Linux site. It would be prudent for Brazilian planners to learn from the experiences of the AP implementers.

Re:It doesn't matter...

[listen]

They will end up being replaced by the user by an easily bought U$2 pirated version of Windows XP.

This is where Trusted Computing should come back and bite MS in the arse.

Seriously : it would not be hard to make these machines incompatible with Windows (eg. just have the bios boot differently), and still compatible with Linux (worst case, provide a kernel/grub patch). Say you are doing it to combat piracy: then if they modify Windows to cope, it kind of puts all those "We hate piracy" rants in perspective. They know the number of people who will buy windows on these PCs is minimal, so it would totally be a mind share preservation move.

Re:Which distro will Brasil use?

[Anonymous Coward]

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/ [guiadohardware.net]

Re:Best news I have read in ages

[Locke2005]

You forgot 7) Is corrupt as all get-go.

Many years ago, our government mandated GOSIP (Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile). Many years later, how many of the computer systems used by the US government actually meet these requirements? None that I know of! As long as government can be swayed by the contributions of deep-pocketed corporations, we're better off not having the government involved in promoting operating systems...

Re:What a load...

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't eaten or drunk* an animal-derived food in the last 4 months, apart for the unfortunately rather ubiquitous lactose (e.g. in salad dressings) and honey (peanut bars etc.). I also gave up coffee and black tea, although I consume other sources of caffeine, and I now prefer whole-grain cereals over white flour products.

*) This is important to mention since I used to be a junkie for cow's milk.

Health results:
* Lost 12 pounds of fat (was slightly overweight, now lean).
* Lost my problems with bone pain under heavy phys. stress.
* Lost my problems with electrolyte imbalance (insuff. potassium and magnesium).
* Lost my depression.
* Didn't lose a grain of muscle.
* Gained physical endurance several times over.
* Gained (and this baffled me most as an amateur Karateka) fast strength.
* Gained creativity and mental clarity.

Animal food apologists will tell you you need meat, milk and eggs especially for protein, iron, zinc, vitamins A, D and B-vitamins. ALL LIES!

All vital nutrients can be obtained from plant foods, and at better ratios (higher carbohydrate to protein and fat, higher unsaturated fatty acids to saturated ones, higher magnesium to calcium, higher potassium to sodium, higher branched-chain amino acids than other amino acids, higher basic amino acids to acidic ones ...). B12 is somewhat scarce in plant foods under conditions of modern hygiene, and nowadays mercury, caffeine and alcohol increase our requirements, but it's easily supplemented from fortified soy milk, breakfast cereals, multi-vitamin candies etc.

After all, omnivores eat these same fortified foods all the time, and drink vitamin-enriched (vits A and D) cow's milk all the time, so why shouldn't I?

Bottom Line: Judging from my own experience, at least people with blood group A should never eat any kind of animal food whatsoever. But don't spread the word - some 37% of the population are BG A and the meat boards and dairy councils all around the world wouldn't be too fond of a 37% drop in revenue. So let's just continue to spread lies about the supposed health value of dead animals, udder juice and these white round things that come out of a chicken's asshole, ok?

PS: Sorry for preaching to the choir.