Linux desktop's on-again, off-again relationship with Brazil
Wow. In discussing the Brazilian government's attempts to subsidize interest rates for Linux desktops in order to promote the open-source operating system, CNET uncovers a sad statistic about Linux desktop adoption. Despite a lot of noise around Brazilian adoption of open source and disdain for Microsoft, Microsoft is getting lots of love, as CNET reports:
A big part of this has been a government-backed "PC for all" program that subsidizes the interest rate for some models, though only those with Linux qualify....
That said, some estimates show as many as 18 or 19 out of every 20 machines sold with Linux ultimately are converted to some form of Windows.
"There was a retailer in one of the countries that sold their systems with Linux," said Gartner analyst Luis Anavitarte. "They made a survey of clients within the first 30 days; 95 percent were already on Windows."
This is why I repeat over and over and over that the way to drive open source adoption is not through government fiat. It's through the end-user's heart. Where open source is better, people gladly use it. Where it's not, people will use their preferred solution.
The good news? Open-source solutions are increasingly better than their proprietary counterparts. Where they aren't, however, we shouldn't expect people to use them just because they're open source.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
There are quite a few estimates of how long people take to ditch their preinstalled Linux systems from their "PC for all" computers, and the most reliable one (performed by ABINEE, our association of electronics manufacturers) states that 28% of all machines sold in Brazil with Linux preinstalled still run Linux after **three months**.
One of the largest companies in the local PC market, Itautec assembles its own PCs and sells them with its own Gentoo-based distro (called Librix). Itautec has been measuring how many system updates they receive at their servers, and they have checked that 40% of their Linux-based PCs still run Librix after three months.
That said, all the most knowledgeable Linux proponents in Brazil seem to agree that government fiat is **not** the right way to increase FOSS adoption. To me, FOSS-enforcement in Brazil is completely based on political reasons, which boils down to trying to bring down anythin American.
Linux has enough features to attract lots of friendly users. Anyone forcing FOSS down their employees' or voters' throats should know they are doing the exact opposite of promoting it.
There are quite a few estimates of how long people take to ditch their preinstalled Linux systems from their "PC for all" computers, and the most reliable one (performed by ABINEE, our association of electronics manufacturers) states that 28% of all machines sold in Brazil with Linux preinstalled still run Linux after **three months**.
One of the largest companies in the local PC market, Itautec assembles its own PCs and sells them with its own Gentoo-based distro (called Librix). Itautec has been measuring how many system updates they receive at their servers, and they have checked that 40% of their Linux-based PCs still run Librix after three months.
That said, all the most knowledgeable Linux proponents in Brazil seem to agree that government fiat is **not** the right way to increase FOSS adoption. To me, FOSS-enforcement in Brazil is completely based on political reasons, which boils down to trying to bring down anythin American.
Linux has enough features to attract lots of friendly users. Anyone forcing FOSS down their employees' or voters' throats should know they are doing the exact opposite of promoting it.
I hate open source! here is why:
Software is no different from any other products, which should be manufactured in formal product lines, in an engineering way, that has strict QA procedure and a supporting system. Can you imagine your car was made by a couple of volueenters who don't necessarily make a living on it. Windows has handreds of milliions lines of code, how can this be done by a couple people who barely know each other, and who have no strict responsibility on the quality of their code? Linux code base was created by a college student. Can you expect a product like that can be reliable? I do software development for a living. I just don't think people should do anything like that.
Leave open source to professors and computer science researchers, that where it starts and that's where it belongs.
Do the words 'glasshouse' and 'stone' mean anything to you? After all, Torvalds graduated.
- by Arthur Belle Dent August 29, 2008 7:41 PM PDT
- Bravo. Good corporate lackey.
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(5 Comments)Ina Fried gets a fluff job from the Microsoft head liar in Brazil and she runs with it THREE times and now you jump on it.
Bravo.
By the end of this year the governments Proinfo iniative will have built 30,000 computer labs (server, thin clients and KVM switches) and 50,000 by the end of 2009 to serve their 50 MILLIONS students with a localized Linux distro running KDE.
Did french fried have this in any of her articles?
Of course not. She takes her cues from the Microsoft guy who tells her about Linux adoption.
And you of course, WONT write about because you dont agree with it.
I know the one child, one laptop order is not a huge one with its 150,000 Linux running machine but 50 MILLION students? Yah,....let's just not mention it.
One of my wife's brother in law works for an organization sends old computers and parts to Porto Alegre in Brazil every year because the prices of computers are 3 times what they are in north america and they can do to old PC's what Cuban mechanics can do to old cars. The only thing that runs on some of that 10 year old hardware is an XCFE desktop.
You, on the other hand, would tell them to eat Apple.