Free Software Is Not About Money
Jamais Cascio, 9 Jun 04
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.
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.
Posted by: oso on 9 Jun 04
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.
Posted by: Taran on 11 Jun 04
