Living together BUT not married: RR/MC and Linux

[Bob Warren]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:00:01, Andre Garzia wrote:
 >I think I must step in since I am the only Brazilian in the list.

You may be the only "true" Brazilian on the list, but hopefully I might 
pass as an imitation! After 30 years in Brazil they make you Brazilian 
whether you like it or not - which is my case (I've been here nearly 32 
years).

I am not qualified to discuss the history of Linux in Brazil, so I thank 
you for your insights. I just know one or two things clearly:

1. Until recently, most computing in Brazil was done on PCs, using 
Windows. MACs were always too expensive for Brazilians, and this seems 
to be a continuing trend. A shocking example is the MAC Mini that one 
other contributer mentioned: the manufacturer's recommended price is 
almost 3 times what it is in the US.

2. The normal way of acquiring software (including Windows) has always 
been by pirating. This is not because Brazilians like being "dishonest" 
(if that has any meaning at all in this context) or that they "don't 
like paying for software" as someone put it recently, but because if 
they are to accompany modern technology (as they have always done very 
well), it is the only option open to the great majority of the 
population. Brazilian salaries are insufficient for survival in a lot of 
cases. The so-called "minimum salary" in Brazil is just about sufficient 
to buy the cigarettes I smoke! (No joke.)

3. The writing that is on the wall is that nobody will get beyond 
Windows XP in this manner. Nor do I imagine that Microsoft and other 
large software producers have any intention of changing their pricing 
policies to accommodate the world's poor countries. The rich have to get 
richer and the poor have to get poorer, and that is the way of 
ultra-capitalism and the egocentric proponents of it.

My conclusion is that the adoption of Linux in Brazil is not so much an 
option as a necessity, and that it is exactly that neccessity that is 
providing the driving-force for a move to Linux. Until recently, Linux 
has been too unreliable to use to any significant degree, but that state 
of affairs is changing fast. Give it another 2 years....

Personally, I would do ANYTHING to escape the clutches of Microsoft, 
especially after the VB6 fiasco. I think that trends are not only things 
we try to evaluate in order to predict the future, but what we establish 
ourselves because we think they are the right (or perhaps only) paths to 
follow. Personally, I couldn't care less about speculation as to what 
other people may or may not decide to do. Here in Brazil, Linux is the 
only potentially happy solution to a situation which profoundly 
disagreeable.

Long live (Ubuntu and Kurumin) Linux and Runtime Revolution!