Open Source as Liberation
Christopher D. Sessums,
Oct 19, 2005
Just an update on one of the most interesting stories of the web, the way in which the government of Brazil has embraced open source. "President Luiz Inacio da Silva, or 'Lula', has announced that all ministries will stop using Microsoft Windows on their office computers. Instead of paying through the nose for Microsoft operating licences, while millions of Brazilians live in poverty." This same story, with varying outcomes, is playing itself out arount the world, as a heated discussion on the Bytes For All mailing list attests. Microsoft, meanwhile, is beginning to bend - already offering deep discounts to countries and institutions that waver, the software company has also come out with shared source licenses, one of which - the community license - may actually qualify as open source. Of course, after releasing these three licenses, Microsoft picked an odd time to complain about the proliferation of licenses.
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