The open-source community has a long tradition of looking for and hounding away at the very thought of Microsoft influence from government IT policies.
For example, Open Source Initiative President Michael Tiemann rightly decries an alleged tie between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's charitable donations and Microsoft's "cabinet-level access to inform policy."
Apparently, however, Tiemann has no problem proudly displaying a picture of Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wearing a Red Hat fedora, declaring...
Would that all Presidents and all ministers of all countries were so concerned about the sovereignty of their nation and the fiduciary care of their people!
...that they'd openly stand behind one vendor? That doesn't sound much like a sovereign act to me.
In fact, it sounds exactly like the sort of bias that the open-source community routinely inveighs against. Imagine the outcry if President Lula would have been seen posing with Bill Gates, wearing a Microsoft t-shirt?
Mark Taylor, president of the U.K.'s Open Source Consortium, lashed out against the U.K. government "pay(ing) lip service" to open source while "actually pursuing policies that are exclusive." Presumably it would be better if those "exclusive" policies actually favored a particular open-source vendor or technology?
That seems to be the message coming out of Europe, too, in its proposed policy changes around the purchase of standards-based technologies, which some suggest amounts to a built-in bias for open source. Policies that promote openness, generally, are good, because they help to protect a country's sovereign interests.
But when a country's leaders are seen to be supporting a particular vendor, even a vendor of open source and open standards, that strikes me as just the sort of favoritism that we disparage when the beneficiary is Microsoft. Just because it's bias in our favor doesn't make it right.
Back to Brazil. Sun Microsystems' Simon Phipps also posted pictures of President Lula wearing the Red Hat fedora, but also a Sun Java ring. (The president apparently said it made him feel like "James Bond.") At least Java is a technology, not a vendor, which makes this act of Lula less...loony.
Simon Phipps and Lula show their open-source colors
(Credit: Simon Phipps)That said, the ironic thing is that while Phipps points to the benefits Brazil derives from its commitment to open-source Java, he neglects to note that Brazil had this same commitment to Java long before it was actually open source.
Regardless, in describing Lula's affection for open source Phipps unwittingly makes him sound like an open-source groupie, which is hardly how I'd want my president to act, either for proprietary or open-source interests.
A sovereign nation should be just that: sovereign. Its leaders shouldn't bow to particular vendors or even particular development practices, nor should they be perceived to do such. For Brazil, it's immaterial whether the company is Sun, Red Hat, Microsoft, or SAP: it is a sovereign nation and should act as such.
A government tasked with the protection of its people should never look like a cheap infomercial for any vendor--either open source or proprietary.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
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.
Ever wonder why Brazil and other BRIC countries are so hot on open source, including Linux? Gustavo Duarte gives several reasons, not the least of which is the punitive pricing that Microsoft inflicts on these developing markets.
In the case of Brazil, Microsoft pillages businesses to the tune of 20.1 percent and consumers at a 7.8 percent clip. Some people pay tithing to their church; Brazilians are asked to pay a tithe to Microsoft. Perhaps this is indicative of Microsoft's self-important belief?
Microsoft licensing as a percentage of Brazil Gross National Income
(Credit: Gustavo Duarte)Sounds, bad, right? Well, it's particularly pernicious when you take into account how this compares to Microsoft's pricing in other markets:
... Read moreIf you work for a company with more than 1,000 employees in Brazil, the chances are overwhelming that your employer uses open source. Instituto Sem Fronteiras, a Brazilan research firm, surveyed 1,000 companies in late 2007 to figure out the rate and depth of open-source adoption, and discovered that 73 percent of companies with more than 1,000 employees use open source.
It also found that desktop open-source adoption increased 12.4 percent in 2007 by those already using it, while 53 percent still have yet to discover open source on the desktop. Apparently those that have been using it have liked the experience.
Why are these companies using open source? It's largely a matter of cost:
... Read moreChildren in rural areas of Brazil are about to get their geek on with a slew of new Debian-based Linux machines, as Softpedia notes:
Schools from Brazil will receive about 3000 Debian GNU/Linux based computers, with four multimedia terminals, as the Ministry of Education is willing to buy them for 3000 rural schools. The computers will have compatible printers and 36 months contractual support. This is not the first time when the Ministry of Education from Brazil is buying Linux-based computers, as about a month ago they acquired 90,000 Debian GNU/Linux PCs, with compatible wireless cards, wireless routers and laser printers. These were installed in 9000 brazilian schools!
It's interesting that the RFP called for Debian-based machines. Not generic Linux. And certainly not generic desktops. Clearly the government has had a good experience with Debian.
Brazil is home of joga bonitao which, loosely translated, means "beautiful play." It translates into beautiful, flowing football (soccer) that is a joy to watch.
Brazil is also the home of joga bonito in software, with open source playing a central role in the country's attempts to make IT work for it, rather than the other way around. To play in Brazilian IT, you need to "play" open source "beautifully," and not have it as a bolt-on marketing gimmick.
Perhaps this is why Brazil's City of Recife has turned to Red Hat for a wide variety of IT needs:
... Read moreFirst it was China. Now India and Brazil. The rout of Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) standardization efforts is now essentially complete. When the world's fastest growing economies reject Microsoft, Microsoft has a problem.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about India's and Brazil's separate rejections of Microsoft's attempts to standardize its Open Office XML. Microsoft is holding out hope that if it resolves all 200 of India's complaints with its submission, it will have OOXML approved.
Yes, but this largely misses the point.
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