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Brazilians use Linux in commercial/government IT projects like this one to avoid licensing software, rather than to contribute to open-source software. General
by emersonrsantos 11y ago
Brazilians use Linux in commercial/government IT projects like this one to avoid licensing software, rather than to contribute to open-source software. General public is completely unaware of Linux and GNU.
I worked as a Linux for enterprise teacher in 1998 and I see today that the business interest on open-source didn't took off as it did in almost every country out there.
Also, Brazil always lacked a strong hacking and programming community, and this is hurting the country technological development.
- rbanffy 11y agoI am very involved with the Python community and was heavily involved in the Zope/Plone space and had a completely different experience WRT free and open-source software. While it's true most people don't contribute back, this seems to be a universal phenomenon. Luckily, the ecosystem is so efficient even a little bit of help upstream maintains it healthy.
- dhekir 11y agoHardware cost and availability is definitely a factor: even a Raspberry Pi is ridiculously expensive. Without disposable hardware to try things "just for fun" (and without fearing that, if you break it, it will take lots of time/money to get another one), the hacking mindset is much harder to develop. One of the best (and sometimes only) way to obtain reasonably-priced hardware is to import things from DealExtreme and hope that customs won't block it. If all goes well, you just have a 30-day (at best) lead time between wanting to try something and actually being able to do it.