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.

The story of "Let's Do It!" is both a story of civic triumph and a validation of open source software technology. But like the successful campaign of Barack Obama, the story of the actual open source software used is far less important and far less interesting than the story of how much the principles of the open source model were brought to bear in solving a problem that seemed virtually hopeless using conventional means.

A special report from CNNMoney.com quotes Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney saying "As antitrust enforcers, we can no longer sit on the sidelines." It's about time!

The Center for Strategic and International Studies released their sixth update to their CSIS Open Source Policy Study last year, and given their track record we should expect to see a new report later this year. The report now cites 275 Open Source policy initiatives, with 70% now reaching "completed" status. What is become clear to me is the extent to which open source development, deployment, and maintenance practices are becoming the templates for government best practices for managing information technology and transformation.

Peter Hansteen of Bergen Norway reports that the Norwegian Police Force has disclosed two large-scale information security incidents. He explains that:

Apparently large parts of the bureaucracy that is responsible for the confidential and correct processing of criminal matters and all sorts of sensitive personal information associated with the crimes runs essential services on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

That version of the Microsoft product is so old it is officially abandonware, and early reports of the police network problems included the oldish news that even the antiware vendors have stopped supporting the system. Later reports had police IT department officials claim that the worm infections were not that much of a security problem, since at this point all the worm actually did was spread.