Chavez Announces that Venezuelan State Will Switch to Free Software

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1373

Caracas, September 29, 2004 — President Chavez announced yesterday that “we are working on a decree to establish in Venezuela, in an official and obligatory manner, the support and adoption of free software in the public administration.”

Chavez made this announcement during an event at which he opened numerous “info centers,” public internet access points, throughout the country.

The objective of this decree is for Venezuela to achieve technological and informational independence. Free software is software that is distributed free of charge. The best known example of this is the Linux operating system, which has become the world’s most important challenger to the Microsoft Windows operating system.

During the event, the Minister of Science and Technology, Yadira Cordoba, said that “all info centers are working with free software. The Digital Town Hall, in which 81 municipalities (out of just over 300) have incorporated themselves, also operate with free software and also the entire platform of the Ministry of Science and Technology runs on free software.”

And this comment at linuxtoday.com is too good to pass:

This fits well with Chavez' politics generally. He's a good dude. Seriously. He comes by something of a bad rep. largely because in a place where poverty is at 80% while the country swims in oil, he's trying to give some of the oil money to the poor, in terms of education, health care, small business loans and stuff. The folks who own the media down there are some of the same ones who used to collar all the oil money; but it's kinda significant that while the major Venezuelan TV stations and newspapers busily say how much of a tyrant he is and call straight up for his violent overthrow or assassination, none of them have been shut down for it. Some tyrant.

And much of the world news media takes their feed from the news media down there, reasonably enough up to a point. So they get a bit of a distorted picture.

[Radical Activist]

1. Great news

Pretty soon Bill Gates will have Bush launch another coup attemt against Chavez. In the grand tradition of United Fruit Company.

[ret5hd]

2. this is great great great...

good for venezuela
good for linux

[FullCountNotRecount]

14. Bill Gates is going to help Bush overthrow Cesar

with this bit of news.

[ret5hd]

16. cesar? maybe you mean hugo?

[redqueen]

3. Chavez, te amo!

:loveya:

[KlatooBNikto]

4. During a business trip to Trinidad about fifteen years ago, I took

a side trip to Caracas.At a plush hotel there, I met a Venezuelan businessman who was interested in knowing where I was from. I told him I was from Michigan. He was very friendly and invited me to join his party for lunch the next day. That evening I went for a walk around the hotel and ran into a couple of youngsters about 15 years old who told me how difficult life was for their parents who were Indian (or mulattos as they are called over there).They were more or less sharecroppers and could barely feed themselves let alone send their kids to school or provide for health. I asked the kids what they planned to do with their lives.They simply shrugged their shoulders and looked at each other and turned away.Because these children were the same age as some of my own at that time, it simply broke my heart that in the middle of a country swimming in oil, we had such disparity in life styles.Next day, the businessmen I had met told me how their wives go on shopping sprees all the time to Miami and one complained that his wife thinks nothing of spending $40,000
a week on her clothes.

I am relating this to show how much of a difference Hugo Chavez has made for those poor children I met if some of the land reforms he has implemented begin to turn the lives of these people. To even think that the oligarchy in Venezuela was going to be broken was a dream fifteen years ago.Now that it is a reality, let us hope those children and their children can look forward to a better future.

Hugo Chavez is a true democrat who has put himself on the line for the wretched of the earth more than once. Hugo, I salute you!

[madrchsod]

5. a major retailer of coats / clothes

in the usa is planning to go to "open source". makes a shit load of sense. hire some out of work programmers and tailor your software to fit your business computer needs. cut`s out a lot of fees to microshit....

[Blue-Jay]

6. IS HE SPEAKING THE TRUTH?

Sorry about the caps. Sometimes nothing else works. Just ask skittles. She knows.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. ChavezSpeaksTheGNU/Truth (nt)

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. That evil dictator is at it again?????

WHen will the world stop this madman?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. I'm pretty sure some RW and/or MS shills will spout about

how this "once again proves" his "evil-commie-ness".

[oly]

10. I sold PDVSA some email integration software. Very difficult

because IBM was in control of that account with a Notes solution. MS was pushing in the background.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Replace Notes? Now THAT's a challenge!

Were they using those funky cooperative applications you can build under Notes?

[NorthernSpy]

12. very sensible!

And I expect those info centers will be very useful to working class Venezuelans. It's a real treat to see a man who has the will to do such things. Too many of our politicians are cringing pantywaists who sell out ordinary Americans the minute someone waves a few dollars in their faces.


Mary

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. São Paulo is chock full of them. Great success.

Worker's Party mayor, ça va sans dire. Not in Rio, sadly. But the initiative is almost certainly going to be federalized soon.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

15. GNU/Kick (nt)

[Deja Q]

17. Those communists!

:wow:

:thumbsup:

Linux is awesome. Both as a OS and as a general economic policy philosophy. (and note how US corporations, when not slinging stupid lawsuits are otherwise ADOPTING it. :eyes: Even Microsoft had at one point for Hotmail...)