[FOSS-PDI] Brazil's FOSS utopia image at risk

[Sunil Abraham]

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/01/17/2018227
Brazil's FOSS utopia image at risk
Wednesday January 24, 2007 (09:01 PM GMT)

By: Bruce Byfield

According to the international media, Brazil is a leader in free and
open source software (FOSS) adoption. The New York Times describes the
country as "a tropical outpost of the free software movement," while BBC
News claims that "Increasingly, Brazil's government ministries and
state-run enterprises are abandoning Windows in favour of 'open-source'
or 'free' software." However, FOSS advocates familiar with Brazil
describe a less hopeful situation.

They talk about unsystematic support by the government, and a business
atmosphere in which mention of FOSS is more about hype than
understanding the underlying philosophy. They say violations of the GNU
General Public License are commonplace. Some genuine FOSS adoption does
happen, they say, but, too often, it is marred by inefficiency, and
possibly widespread corruption.

During the first term of the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,
which began in 2003, FOSS adoption was announced as a major policy. In
addition to encouraging federal and state governments to switch to FOSS,
Silva's government also used FOSS in PC Conectado, a program to make
inexpensive computers available to the Brazilian public. The
announcements of these initiatives created the impression
internationally that Brazil would soon become an example of FOSS
adoption to the rest of the world.

However, not only is the potential of this promising start yet to be
realized, but there are signs that pro-FOSS policies are stalling. When
Silva was re-elected in late 2006, his party's platform contained only
one brief reference to free software -- a general promise to "improve
direct and remote service-rendering to citizens, simplifying procedures,
training civil servants and broadening the technological base, including
the utilization of free software." Nothing of the earlier widespread
plans for FOSS was in evidence. Possibly, this de-emphasis of FOSS is
due to increased opposition by proprietary software interests, such as
those trying to mount a constitutional challenge in the state of Rio do
Sul against a law giving preference to FOSS solutions in the government.

Whatever the case, Brazilian advocates have learned to be skeptical
about claims for FOSS. For example, although Conectiva (now part of
Mandriva) widely publicized a deal with systems integrator Positivo that
resulted in more than 90,000 computers shipped with Conectiva installed,
Debian developer Gustavo Franco suggests that "almost all the users
installed Microsoft Windows copies over that." Franco does not
substantiate the claim, but his point is that lower-income Brazilians do
not want free software as much as what they see on TV or in ads. Even if
his suggestion is not completely true, it reflects the wariness that
advocates have learned through bitter experience.

Interest in FOSS still exists throughout Brazil, but signs of progress
are hard to see in 2007. "There're a lot of people doing almost nothing
but talking a lot," says Debian developer Otavio Salvador. 

Hype over quality 

Some signs of FOSS adoption are still visible through Brazil, but FOSS
observers are concerned about the quality of the code being released and
where the efforts are being applied.

Gustavo Noronha Silva, another Debian developer, notes that the federal
planning ministry is developing an inventory system called CACIC under
the GNU General Public License in partnership with a public company
called Dataprev. "The code is not that great," he says, "but they're
bringing the free software concepts into the government, and are
releasing real code and maintaining it." 

Similarly, the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia da Informaç a government
software company, and SERPRO, Brazil's official federal data processing
service, have developed some free software courses and assisted in the
migration of some government departments to FOSS. "I took part in some
of this process when I was managing the IT of one of the ministries,"
says Silva, "and I could see that their job was very poor quality-wise,
and with no planning at all." 

Silva cites one case in which source packages were built on top of
installed Debian packages and mixed Debian workstations with
Windows-based rdesktop connections, and another in which email services
were migrated without concern for the existing infrastructure. "They
have done lots of damage," Silva says.

In another case, CAIXA, one of Brazil's largest public banks,
implemented its own Debian-based operating system. Silva says that the
system "basically breaks if you try to upgrade it, so it's impossible to
use sanely on servers" -- although that is where CAIXA is using it. He
notes, however, that the release of the software was announced "in a big
conference with lots of IT heads of the government." Silva's concern is
that such efforts will discredit the whole concept of FOSS because of
their poor performance, and represent a triumph of marketing over
technical considerations.

Similarly, Franco is concerned about government plans to buy laptops
from the One Laptop Per Child project. "I think the project is a good
idea," Franco says, "but the government's goal is to put the laptops in
the teachers' hands" rather than distributing them to lower-income
citizens as the project intends.

Franco also mentions rumors that some of the other attempts to deliver
cheaper computers in Brazil "bundle dubious quality hardware with a
random Linux distribution that doesn't fully support the hardware."

Silva's and Franco's concerns are that such efforts will discredit the
whole concept of FOSS through missteps and poor performance. The fact
that some government initiatives are being funded by multinational
companies such as IBM and Cisco could only add to the disaster for FOSS.
"The FLOSS hype in Brazil is a marketing thing," Franco writes in his
blog, and, privately, Silva echoed the sentiment to NewsForge.

The software but not the spirit 

Advocates are even more concerned about the priorities behind FOSS
adoption. The concept of free software has so many positive connotations
that both governments and private companies wish to be associated with
it. Yet, in practice, many seem more concerned with the free cost than
the philosophy of freedom. In many Brazilian FOSS projects, Franco
blogs, "Nobody out of the project office (when there's a real one) ever
see the source code," even though sharing code is at the heart of the
FOSS communities. 

In fact, many organizations and companies developing and selling free
software in Brazil appear to be in violation of section 3 of the GNU
General Public License (GPL), which requires them to either make their
source code available, or to offer publicly to provide it. Such
companies include Kurumin, a distribution widely installed by new users,
as well as Poseidon and Kalango, two Kurumin derivatives, Blane, and
Dual O/S (formerly Freedows). None of these distributions appears to
offer source code anywhere on its site. 

According to Franco, the reason that Kurumin does not provide source
code is that its developers claim that the distribution uses only
original Debian sources. "This isn't true," Franco insists. However,
even if it were, the distributions would still be obliged to provide
their own source code. Many other distributions in the same position
have been found in non-compliance by the Free Software Foundation, and
there is no reason to think that Kurumin or any of these other Brazilian
distributions would be exceptions.

Moreover, Franco notes that Kurumin's end-user agreement contains a
provision stating that users who sue the distribution's developers "lose
the right to use 'their software.'" Similarly, Dual O/S includes an
evaluation copy that expires after 240 hours of use. Both these
restrictions seem to violate additional aspects of the GPL, including
Section 4's against sublicensing and Section's 6 requirement that
distributors pass on the GPL's rights to subsequent users.

Franco also mentions Plurall, a thin client project, as being in
violation of the GPL for not releasing source code. However, Ricardo
Prado Schneider of emrede, the non-government organization developing
Plurall, tells NewsForge that a repository containing the source code
will be available shortly.

FOSS advocates are concerned that, rather than addressing such issues,
Brazilian companies and projects are attempting to redefine free
software for their own purposes. Silva points to the license developed
by the state of Paraná, which is incompatible with the Free Software
definition. The FSFLA, the South American sister organization of the
FSF, is trying to get the license altered, but comments like those of
Omar Kaminski, one of the drafters of the license, that the "GPL is
incompatible with Brazilian legislation," and that "perhaps free
software in Brazil is moving in a different direction than in the USA"
do little to reduce the concerns of FOSS advocates.

Franco worries that, should present trends continue, the FOSS movement
in Brazil "won't be a community-oriented one, but something being
managed by a well-paid company. Details and source code won't be
available. In a way it's already happening, but on a smaller scale."

Corrupt or unaware? 

Some FOSS efforts in Brazil do appear to be genuine. Silva cites
Mandriva as an example. The Insigne distribution also seems to be in
compliance with the GPL, and, although earlier releases were of poor
quality, the latest one is said to be significantly improved. Silva also
suggests that many individual Brazilians are making contributions to
free software, although they are mostly ones "who were doing their work
before the hype came up."

"A lot of government institutions, NGOs, and companies are using the
FOSS appeal and its arguments with the masses to do what a Brazilian
does best (after playing soccer)," Franco says bluntly: "Corruption."

By contrast, Silva feels that the problem "is mostly related to free
riders and people who are good at communicating stuff that they don't
actually do. I wouldn't go so far as implying corruption. I have seen no
evidence of such a thing related to free software. I'd mention
incompetence, free riding, and unawareness, though."

Still, one thing is certain: the image of Brazilian FOSS in the rest of
the world is out sync with what is happening. "What's being told to the
world isn't exactly the real truth," Franco says.

Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist who writes regularly for
NewsForge, Linux.com, and IT Manager's Journal.