South America says "Si" to open source

The South American natives are getting restless, and they're clamoring for open source. From Brazil to Chile, South America is widely adopting - even legislating - open source. While it has yet to become a real commercial success for open-source companies, that will come. Adoption precedes monetization.

Given my parents' recent move to Argentina, I'm particularly glad to read this:

Argentina, having recently undergone an economic collapse, is also a lover of Open Source. The enthusiasm for it there has engulfed much of the private sector, where according to a 2004 survey from Argentina-based Trends Consulting, 42 per cent of Argentine companies use Linux and many of these are planning to use Open Source for all new applications.

Muy bueno! Perhaps when I'm there in August I'll have the chance to meet with some of the groups agitating for open source in Argentina. In the meantime, here's to the Che Ping?inos making it happen down south.

[ProbTrader]

Meanwhile off-shore IT costs are rising. A research from Hewitt India claims IT salaries are growing 15% a year.

"As the fight for talent intensified last year, salary hikes rose from
the previous year?s average of 14.4%, according to the study. In 2008,
compensation is expected to increase by an average of 15.2%, making it
the fifth consecutive year that salaries have risen in excess of 10%."

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/02/20/hewitt-india-salaries-markets-econ-cx_rd_0220markets01.html

[tristanbob]

Political correctness alert:

People in South America should not be referred to as savages: "The South American natives are getting restless..."

Reference: http://www.bluecorncomics.com/stype541.htm

[billxa]

As validation, at XAware.org we have seen the number of site visits and downloads from users located in Brazil and Argentina climb steeply. While the site logged visits from 78 different countries, the number of visits from Brazil topped the list last week. Argentina was not far behind. Open source interest is booming in Latin America. Bill Miller, XAware.org

[Matt Asay]

I don't view "natives" as referring to savages and certainly didn't intend that. I was an English major - political correctness runs in my veins. :-)

Just because someone is a native doesn't mean they're a savage. In this case, I intended that word because open source allows "the natives" to build their own software, rather than exporting pesos and Bolivars to the US.