The leftist tone of this article gave me allergy. As a Venezuelan that emigrated to another country to escape from the disaster that the so called socialism (which is more like a pseudo-comunism) was installing on the country, I cannot be balanced with the words of the author when he uses Chavez and embargo in the same statement. All I saw in 12 years was a horrible government that had in USA the perfect excuse to cover his negligence.
I understand your feelings fellows US citizens, but please don't over-correct your bad government with another 10 times worse. That's what we did and we regret that every day.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it very difficult to understand how your comment relates to the article.
maddog mentioned Chavez and the cuban embargo in order to illustrate a point, which is completely valid: Brazil and any other sovereign nation (excluding the USA... maybe) should be wary about using closed source software and computers made in a foreign country. You can never completely trust them; but there exist alternatives which you can implement right now.
Sorry if you had bad experiences in Venezuela, but you don't need to freak out and start a commie witch-hunt any time Chavez is mentioned. And I live Argentina, so I also have experience with enduring populist governments; but this article isn't about them, at all.
I had the opportunity to meet Venezuela's pre-Chavez Minister of Education at a conference in the US around ten years ago. We had a very interesting conversation. The man was almost in tears as he described how his country was being destroyed from the inside by Chaves and his socialist/communist ideology. It goes without saying that he made a huge impression on me.
Is the only alternative to using software that the NSA may have infiltrated to use FOSS? Seems like there has to be other options. Can anyone suggest any?
I would think open-source, minus the "free software" bit, is good enough.
Freedoms 0 and 1, i.e. "freedom to run the program for any purpose" and "freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish" are reasonable. Given how software is taking on more and more critical functions, the days of closed-source software may one day seem quaint.
Freedoms 2 and 3, i.e. "freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor" and "freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits" appear more problematic.
Freedoms 2 and 3 are necessary to ensure long-term maintenance of the software. If they are absent, once the company who creates it dies, the software dies with it.
> Is the only alternative to using software that the NSA may have infiltrated
Actually, no. The NSA has not infiltrates each and every proprietary software publisher.
It is, however, the only way to run software you can trust. Even if your software provider was not infiltrated by the NSA, it can be infiltrated by other entity.
- "I hate to say i told you so Roussef.. now lets talk about that little project of mine.. remember you turn it down because you thought the support and training was too expensive.. it told you so! now here is the contract.. blablabla... "
Good points anyway, in the middle of the salesman speech..
But if he want to get this sort of contract he will need to wait for a bidding offer to show up, and put his project to compete with the others.. and i will say: it will be very difficult that he win something like that.. they require a lot of stuff and certifications from companies; ISOXXX, a certain number of paid people working, certain certifications from the people and the company.. its a hell..
Actually he has been in Brazil many times, and I personally saw Jon and Dilma on the same room, although they don't talked to each other. Also Maddog gave speeches witnessed by close advisors.of Dilma, and witnessed by Brazil Government RD company, in fact the government itself frequently.invites Maddog here. So what you are saying is very insulting, Maddog has been trying to convince our government to adopt FOSS even if it ignores Cauã since 2008
EDIT: above post before its own editing was only the part inside quotes.
I understand your feelings fellows US citizens, but please don't over-correct your bad government with another 10 times worse. That's what we did and we regret that every day.