[DMCA-Activists] NY Times: Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend

[Seth Johnson]

> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/technology/29computer.html


Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend


By TODD BENSON

March 29, 2005


SÃO PAULO, Brazil, March 28 - Since taking office two years ago,
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has turned Brazil into a
tropical outpost of the free software movement.

Looking to save millions of dollars in royalties and licensing
fees, Mr. da Silva has instructed government ministries and
state-run companies to gradually switch from costly operating
systems made by Microsoft and others to free operating systems,
like Linux. On Mr. da Silva's watch, Brazil has also become the
first country to require any company or research institute that
receives government financing to develop software to license it
as open-source, meaning the underlying software code must be free
to all.

Now Brazil's government looks poised to take its free software
campaign to the masses. And once again Microsoft may end up on
the sidelines.

By the end of April, the government plans to roll out a much
ballyhooed program called PC Conectado, or Connected PC, aimed at
helping millions of low-income Brazilians buy their first
computers.

And if the president's top technology adviser gets his way, the
program may end up offering computers with only free software,
including the operating system, handpicked by the government
instead of giving consumers the option of paying more for, say, a
basic edition of Microsoft Windows.

"For this program to be viable, it has to be with free software,"
said Sérgio Amadeu, president of Brazil's National Institute of
Information Technology, the agency that oversees the government's
technology initiatives. "We're not going to spend taxpayers'
money on a program so that Microsoft can further consolidate its
monopoly. It's the government's responsibility to ensure that
there is competition, and that means giving alternative software
platforms a chance to prosper."

Microsoft has offered to provide a simplified, discounted version
of Windows for the program. Though a final decision on which
software to install has been delayed several times, as has the
program's rollout, Mr. Amadeu and some other government officials
have publicly criticized Microsoft's proposal, calling the
version's abilities too limited.

Still, Microsoft has not given up just yet. The company, which
declined to make an executive available for an interview, said in
a statement that it was still "working with the PC Conectado
project to see if there's a way Microsoft can help."

Under the program, which is expected to offer tax incentives for
computer makers to cut prices and a generous payment plan for
consumers, the government hopes to offer desktops for around
1,400 reais ($509) or less. The machines will be comparable to
those costing almost twice that outside the program.

Buyers will be able to pay in 24 installments of 50 to 60 reais,
or about $18 to $21.80 a month, an amount affordable for many
working poor. The country's top three fixed-line telephone
companies - Telefónica of Spain; Tele Norte Leste Participações,
or Telemar; and Brasil Telecom - have agreed to provide a dial-up
Internet connection to participants for 7.50 reais, or less than
$3, a month, allowing 15 hours of Web surfing.

The program aims at households and small-business owners earning
three to seven times the minimum monthly wage, or about $284 to
$662. The government says seven million qualify, and it hopes to
reach a million of them by year-end.

That may seem ambitious in a developing country of 183 million
people where only 10 percent of all households have Internet
access and just 900,000 computers are sold legally each year.
(Including black-market sales, the number is closer to four
million, still a small fraction of the number sold in the United
States last year, according to the International Data
Corporation, a technology research firm.)

"We're well aware that we're talking about doubling the domestic
market for personal computers," said Cezar Alvarez, the
presidential aide in charge of the PC Conectado program. "But
it's absolutely feasible."

Some analysts have questioned the effectiveness of such programs,
noting that some similar projects in Asia have become bogged down
in red tape and, in some cases, have ended up favoring the elite.
In Malaysia, for instance, the government is introducing a second
affordable-computer program after its first attempt failed
because of poor planning and fraud - something Brazilian
officials say they are working hard to prevent.

Others say the government should focus its technology initiatives
elsewhere, especially in schools. Only 19 percent of Brazil's
public schools have computers.

The government says it plans to complement the PC Conectado
program with stepped-up efforts to put more computers into
schools. It is also investing $74 million to open 1,000 community
centers in poor neighborhoods by year-end with computers that run
free software programs and offer free Internet access -
supplementing similar programs by local governments and
nongovernmental organizations.

The drive to bridge the digital divide has drawn widespread
praise throughout the technology industry. But the preference for
open-source software has been controversial, with critics inside
and outside the government saying Mr. da Silva's administration
is letting leftist ideology trump the laws of supply and demand.

"The government shouldn't be the one who decides what hardware
and software will go into these computers," said Júlio Semeghini,
a member of Congress from the opposition Social Democratic Party.
"That's undemocratic."

The open-source route, however, has support beyond the da Silva
administration. Walter Bender, the executive director of the
Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose
opinion was solicited by the Brazilian government, replied in a
recent letter that "high-quality free software" has proved more
effective in stimulating computer use among the poor than
scaled-down versions of proprietary software.

Though he said he did not oppose giving consumers a choice, he
concluded that "free software provides a basis for more
widespread access, more powerful uses and a much stronger
platform for long-term growth and development."

Whatever the government decides, most industry analysts agree
that the program will probably help combat software piracy, which
is widespread in Brazil.

And by wooing new consumers, "even if the program doesn't reach
its goals, it's going to end up stimulating the computer and
software markets," said Jorge Sukarie, president of the Brazilian
Association of Software Companies. "It's not perfect, but it's
certainly better than nothing."