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! _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
