South America and Open Source

[kleph]

Open source - The trend to Open Source in South America seems to be stronger than it is anywhere else. Almost all governments there seem to be setting an Open Source agenda. The governments of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Peru have all been pushing free software for public and private use. Microsoft has been working hard to offset these efforts by lobbying politicians and trying to block legislation in several countries. - IT Analysis (http://www.it-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=12563&SESSID=7b619e8a12e8cec3aa6c9f39abce9096)


please note, although this is not a technical subject, i am posting it in this forum to ensure a constructive discussion on this topic. i am considering writing a story about this topic and i am interested in any input folks with familiarity of the topic have to input. let me know if this is a problem, druid.

[druid]

It's not a problem. In fact, topics like this are welcome.

About the subject, I'm not an expert on South American culture so this is just a guess:

It seems to be that advocating free software on that continent might be easier than, say, in Europe. The biggest problem seems to be prejudice that stems from lack of knowledge. Example: A civil servant in a bureau which was about to roll out Linux asked me questions I thought were obvious but were quite important to her. Among other things she asked if she can get the software in her native language (yes) or if using it is any different from the programs she uses now (not really). After getting some simple answers she seemed more open to the upcoming change.

So where I'm going with the South American thing is that somehow I have the feeling that the people might be more open to this kind of change, possibly because they haven't yet been indoctrinated by the competition due to the technologial gap mentioned in the article. Proper informing and a rollout strategy would still be necessary to succeed in this.

In the end what matters is how the administration sees the total cost of ownership. In my opinion there aren't really reliable studies on this yet so it's a tough call. In small economies the very low cost for procuring the software may be rather tempting. It will be interesting to hear about the long term experiences in Brazil or Peru.

[kleph]

i believe the venezuelan government estimates it will save $7 million in licensing fees alone - and that is a pretty sizeable chunk of the overhead budget for running a beauracracy. the push there and in places like brazil is to implement open source via the government and then urge it in the general population as a means of fostering compatibility.

an interesting side not to the microsoft offensive in this skirmish touches on your point about language. in peru a great portion of the indigenous population speaks the ancient incan language of quechua. the people have limited internet access but the push for local internet cafes has been providing them more and more access to the technology at a relatively affordable rate.

so, guess what new language microsoft is about to introduce for windows?

[s3raph]

So does this mean I'll be able to set my computer to speak ancient Incan? I can't see how that would really sway the Latin governments though, I mean for the $7 million they'd save in licensing, they could employ a team of programmers to get linux to run in Incan.