LibrePlanet: Conference/2009/OpenConferenceSchedule/fsla

With Ryan Bagueros and Alex Oliva

Brazil's gov't mandated by presidential decree the use of free software both internally and public facing services (ie: web)

Why Brazil, why did it happen here?

for 500 years Latin America has been under someone's thumb. Brazil has been the US's backyard.

Latin American people chose leader's who didn't agree with DC and those leaders were taken out, this was followed by a series of military dictatorships.

Those dictatorships fell and were replaced by very lefty democracies. Aligned with Cuba's anti-imperialism.

The desire to avoid northern control, dovetails very well with the values and independence inherent in free software.

How divorced should free software be from politics?