[LINK] The Free Software Challenge In Latin America

Howard Lowndes lannet at lannet.com.au
Sat Jun 4 18:22:35 EST 2005



Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> Antony Barry [tony at tony-barry.emu.id.au] wrote:
> 
>>"The Free Software Challenge In Latin America"
>>By David Sugar
>>
>>http://www.countercurrents.org/gl-sugar030605.htm
>>
>>As nations of the world increasingly turn to free software to cut costs 
>>and promote local development, some powerful North American commercial 
>>interests have responded by bullying
> 
> 
> "On the other hand, in the world of free software, there are no such
> monopolies, so money that is spent on free software is good for creating
> jobs and hence offers other direct and local economic benefits."
> 
> this is false. distribution of market share of open source products
> follows power law distributions. 
> 
> "In Latin America money that is spent on proprietary commercial software
> serves mainly to make already-rich foreign software publishers even 
> richer"
> 
> so instead of creating wealth in latin america, latin open source acts
> to create capital diffusion. this is the very pattern that entrenches
> poverty.
> 
> of course you cant possibly expect open source advocates to understand that
> last point. the notion of capital accumulation is rather disturbing
> to all good dotcommunists.

What it does do is retain capital in the Latin American countries 
instead of dissapating it to N America,  This has the effect of reducing 
poverty - a concept you do not understand.

-- 
Howard.
LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people <http://lannet.com.au>
-- 
When you just want a system that works, you choose Linux;
When you want a system that just works, you choose Microsoft.
-- 
Flatter government, not fatter government;
Get rid of the Australian states.


More information about the Link mailing list