--"Then, they fight you," May 2008

ABOUT a week ago, The New York Times wrote a piece about Stallman taking his message to Argentina (the word "crusade" was inappropriately used, which assimilates Free software to religion and subjugation). Argentina is in the process of moving towards Free software (see [1-9] below), so this speech from Stallman is important.

“Argentina is in the process of moving towards Free software...”Several people at Identi.ca are now pointing out that "Microsoft canceled [this] Stallman conference in Argentina."

Here is the source of their claim (automated English translation), in addition to others.

Does any of this sound familiar? The events summarised by the quote at the top very nicely relate to the special relationship between Microsoft and Romania.

Later on people ask questions like, "why does the FSF complain about Microsoft?" [1, 2, 3, 4] ⬆ ____ [1] Argentina considering going 100% open source

Argentina's congress is actively considering a bill that would require all government offices to use open-source software.

Argentina may become the first country in the world to require all government offices to use open-source software, pending the outcome of a bill recently introduced in the nation's congress. € 

Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that YPF SA, a leading oil and gas company in Argentina, has migrated from proprietary UNIX operating systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization technology on Intel€® Xeon€® processor-based servers for its YPF Gas business unit. With the Red Hat on Intel processor combination, YPF Gas' IT infrastructure has experienced reduced costs, boosted performance, increased scalability and agility and expanded flexibility.

Hardware support was good, I didn't really have to set up anything upon boot. I did have to adjust the the X server settings, but that's par for the course for me and my two vastly differing monitors. Otherwise sound, usb, printer, etc seemed ready to go. System performance was amazing as mentioned before.

Sponsored by international heavyweights as Red Hat and Intel alongside local outsourcing firms Globant and Tecso, the sixth yearly edition of the Linux and Open Source conference -once again perfectly organised by the Buenos Aires Linux Users Group, CaFeLUG was held at Argentina's capital. € 

Unfortunately, what looks like a small ISP contracted by the government to do the streaming, choose to use Windows Media for this chore, that means that things are not as easy as they could be for Linux and non-Microsoft users. Fortunately MPlayer 1.0 along with the MPlayer plug-in for Mozilla seem to handle MMS just fine. But depending on your Linux distro you might need to install those. €  € 

Latin America was the fastest growing region for US Linux operating systems integrator Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) during the second quarter of fiscal year 2009, ending August 31, Red Hat's Latin American marketing manager Martín D'Elia told BNamericas.

Red Hat has an incredible brand here in South America. Customers trust our quality and value. They may not have heard yet of an Alfresco or Zimbra, but they know Red Hat.

In South American countries, as in most other areas of the world, the government is by far the biggest purchaser of software. Thus the Open Source trend that is now established in the government sector across the continent will doubtless spur Open Source adoption in the private sector.

There are a variety of motives for Open Source adoption in play in there, from the reduction in software costs to the desire to provide a "leg-up" to the local software industry. However, the motivation of the Peruvian government is unique in that the Peruvian supporters of the bill see "Open Source" as a citizen's right. The ownership and responsibility for the use of data and software have become a political issue in Peru.

This is an idea that is unlikely to go away.