Here’s a random slice of life from the free software movement in Brazil — middle-age learners all using Linux in a computer lab.

Major newspapers are reporting that Brazil will start switching to electronic voting machines, beginning with the 2008 municipal elections, that are based on Linux. Compared to the closed source, corruption-riddled voting machine scandals happening in the United States with right-wing companies like Diebold, one has to wonder how the United States can still pretend like we are the model of democratic innovation.