Open Source Initiative

The following is an English translation of the speech President Luis Ignatio Lula de Silva gave at the 10th FISL conference. I was there and heard a live, simultaneous translation of this speech courtesy of former OSI board member Bruno Souza.

Well, actually, Dilma spoke for the Brazillian government. There was no need for me to say absolutly nothing in here today, because I think that passing through that 'Polish corridor', which I passed to get here, it was worth at least four speeches. But I wanted to congratulate my comrades from the Ministry who are here with us.

I would like to congratulate the federal deputies, our senators, our former Governor Olivio Dutra, the mayor Fogaça. I would like to greet a special guest who arrived late here, our comrade Lourdes Munhoz, from Spain, a congresswoman for Barcelona and who advises the President Zapatero in Free Software. I do not see her face because she hasn't presented herself yet. Stand up.

I want to congratulate our dear Dean Joaquim Clutê. I want to congratulate our dear comrade Marcelo Branco, general coordinator of the 10th Free Software International Forum. I greet the comrades of the Brazilian public institutions who are here. I see in front of me the Bank of Brazil and Serpro. I greet the foreign guests. I salute that child who is there, and must be thinking: what are we doing here and why her parents brought her here? One day, she will know.

And I want to congratulate a special person who is here, which is Sergio Amadeu, because now that the dish is prepared ... I also want to greet the comrad Tigre, our chairman of the Industry Federation of Rio Grande do Sul.

Now that the dish is prepared, is very easy for people to eat it. But to prepare this dish was not a joke. I remember the first meeting we had, at Granja do Torto, which I understood absolutely nothing of this language that this people were deciding, and that was a huge tension between those who advocated for the adoption of free software by Brazil and those who thought we should do the sameness of always, buying, paying for others intelligence and, thanks God, prevailed in our country the issue and the decision of free software. We had to choose: or we were going to the kitchen to prepare this dish the way we wanted to eat, with the seasoning that we wanted, to give a Brazilian taste to our food, or we would eat what Microsoft wanted us to eat. Prevailed, simply, the idea of freedom.

My recent visit to Brazil was a wonderful validation of the belief that I've held for more than 20 years: if you give people a better way to do things, they'll do better things. The Brazilian government continues to expand its adoption of open source, both across more and more ministries and deeper within each ministry. I had the pleasure of talking with one of Brazil's top IT strategists, and she told me some very interesting things, both encouraging and alarming.

Yesterday I had a chance to meet the lead singer of O Teatro Magico and then see their show. It was amazing! This creative group of musicians were about to "live the dream" by signing with a record company a number of years ago, but after they recorded the songs for their first album, the recording company said "sorry, but you need to change everything so that it sounds more like pop."

There's a lot of good news that does not always reach me at my desk in a single hop. But when I travel around the world, the good news of the region I'm visiting has a way of finding me, such as the news that the ITU has bestowed the World Telecommunication and Information Society Award on President Lula of Brazil. Congratulations, Mr. President!

President Lula's acceptance speech is instructive, as it specifically calls out the social benefits of free and open source software (original Portuguese, [with English translation bracketed], emphasis mine):

I've heard a lot of arguments against software patents (SWPAT) since Richard Stallman first raised the flag at the League for Programming Freedom, and almost all of the arguments are variations on a theme. A valid theme, but a theme that, after 20 years, has become a bit monotonous. Herman Daly puts that theme in a new context that has me all excited. He says

According to a feature article in Federal Computer Weekly, the Obama Administration's new CIO Vivek Kundra has specifically called out open source as one of the key technology initiatives he will support to make the government work better at a lower cost (and with greater transparency). But the article continues to point out what seem to be persistent talking points of the FUD spinner, and this is where we need to make some real progress.

Launched on the eve of his birthday, the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) and the Advanced Information Technology Institute of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center for Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), have decided to join forces with the Sohne family to establish a Fellowship in memory and honour of the great work that Guido accomplished. So I was not worried to make the 15-hour road trip to get to Accra to be part of the event.

Michele Boldrin of Washington University in St. Louis talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about intellectual property and Boldrin's book, co-written with David Levine, Against Intellectual Property. Boldrin argues that copyright and patent are used by the politically powerful to maintain monopoly profits. He argues that the incentive effects that have been used to justify copyright and patents are exaggerated--few examples from history suggest that the temporary and not-so-temporary monopoly power from copyright and patents were necessary to induce innovation. Boldrin reviews some of that evidence and talks about the nature of competition. Listen to the interview.