LibrePlanet: Conference/2009/OpenConference

Free Software in Latin America

Well, I guess I'll feel free to post about something I want to organize for Sunday. From what I know, we'll be having a panel discussion on Saturday with report-backs from around the world about government (?) adoption of free software. However, the movement in Latin America is so expansive, mature and exciting that people need to know about all the inspirational projects happening throughout the region. So, with an open invitation to collaborate on this with people coming from Latin America (some of whom I already know), I'd like to organize a larger presentation about the free software movement in Latin America. Before the conference, I'll be getting updates from people I know who are deeply involved in the movement in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Cuba and Argentina. I'm going to collect these updates into a paper hand-out as well as put something up on the web about it. Anyone who is interested in participating or developing this presentation, please get in touch with me (see Ryan Bagueros for contact details. In the meantime, you can get a preview in English at http://news.northxsouth.com/ ... sorry that this is the only thing on this page at this time; it'll get filled in as more people come with ideas.

Project Suggestion for an Open Machine

Considering what FSF is doing, I'm surprised that no one has demanded an open machine. It would simply combine the elements that FSF has produced along with the most likely hardware to produce a fully configured Open Machine. The first incarnation might consist of a bill of hardware materials along with a document that details steps to install software. Ideally, a coreboot BIOS would be incorporated. Using thorough documentation it could be built quickly by a knowledgeable person, or purchased ready to go from a specialized manufacturer. Such a machine could even be consumer friendly so that it does not take a great deal of time to get up and running. To my way of thinking, this is what is necessary for free software to be mainstreamed. Maybe FSF could make this a fund raiser by actually selling such a machine.

It needs to be a community effort. Anyone interested ? email: vogel@ct.metrocast.net

See related ideas at [[1]]

-- User:vogelrl

You need to spec out exactly what you mean by "open". For some definitions, some machines already sold commercially by for example Lemote and Silicon Mechanics would qualify; for other definitions you'd need to look at something like OpenSPARC. For the most stringent definitions we are pretty much screwed at the moment (think hard drive firmware and other firmwares at the component level).

Also the other bit of open-ness (or free-ness as we'd probably prefer saying), esp. in cases like your link talks about (voting machines), is IMHO having the complete system configuration, minus any authentication tokens, available. For the FSF I'm currently working on that at http://config.fsf.org , a project I'll be talking about on Sunday.

Also FYI for the special case of the current as free as possible desktop or laptop x86 system (coreboot etc), you are correct in that we currently know of no manufactures selling that, but the FSF does maintain a list of people who have asked for that. Look forward to talking to you at the conference; also if you are around on the Thursday before the conference, you should come to the Free Hardware meetup (see main page other events towards the bottom).

-- Danny 13:13, 14 March 2009 (EDT)