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Free Software Is Not About Money

Simon Phipps, Chief Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems, attended the just-concluded FISL conference -- the 5th International Forum on Free Software -- in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His blogged reports from FISL are brief, but interesting, and one in particular stands out: "FISL: A Government that Gets It."

They understand the real issue - it's about sovereignty. They no longer want to funnel Brazil's wealth abroad when they have a growing and excellent software community of their own. They want local people to provide service and write software for the government and industry. They want local skills to enrich the F/OSS world and build exportable skills. They have a vision for how to both enrich the culture and skills of their country while creating a power-house for the export of services in the future. They get it.

We couldn't agree more.

Comments (2)

oso:

Wouldn't it be a good idea to use free and open source blogging software (like wordpress) to publish WorldChanging? This is a great site - I'll be around often.

It's unfortunate that I couldn't make it to FISL to present my paper on Intellectual Usability, which really fits in with the sovereignity aspects.

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