Friends:
Our President, Dr Kalam, has suggested on more than one occasion that we
should adopt open source software. Brazil is adopting open source software
(Linux, etc.) in a big way with full state support. In India there are
several groups who are promoting the use of open source, but many state
governments have tied up with compnies producing proprietary software! Also
many Indians are contributing in a significant way to the advancement of
open source software. Of course companies have marketing power, but open
source advocates are distributed all over and are not yet able to match the
marketing (and advertising) power of companies. Fortunately, companies such
as IBM are now coming round to promoting open source software.
Arun
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Carvin"
From the New York Times....
Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend
This article profiles Brazil's PC Conectado program, which will distribute computers and low-cost Internet access to one million low-income Brazilian families. The government is currently debating whether all of these machines should be installed with proprietary or free/open source software.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/technology/29computer.html
-- ----------------------------------- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media & Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com -----------------------------------