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More and more mainstream software engineering institutions are picking up on what we’ve been saying for the past 2 years: South America is a hot-bed of software engineering and software business innovation. Dr Dobbs Journal, which has been publishing its magazine for programmers since 1976, has just published an in-depth look at the Latin American phenomenon.

This article takes particular note of Brazil, which is where northxsouth has its Latin American headquarters. 2008, as we’ve predicted, should be the year when this trend really takes off, and northxsouth is positioned to be at the forefront of collaboration with Latin America for web-based software development, having done open source development work with Latin America for over 8 years.

As an exporter of software, South America generally is a player and is growing at a double-digit rate. Outsourcing relationships with South American companies are already big business, and often a smart decision for North American companies. IDC identifies Latin America, which also includes Mexico and Central America, as having a pool of software developers essentially equal to Central and Eastern Europe, a region that many consider a hotbed of software talent.

The World Social Forum has played an integral part in the adoption of the free software through the Americas as well as in developing countries around the world. For this reason, the WSF is topical for this blog.

Roberto Savio is probably among the best informed insiders at the World Social Forum (WSF). He has been on its international committee since it was created in 2001, and since 2003 he has been coordinator of the ‘media, culture and counter-hegemony’ thematic area. In this interview with his own Inter Press Service, he talks frankly about the WSF.

The Department of Homeland Security has contracted San Francisco-based Coverity to certify open source software as “secure”. The first list of secure open source software has been released and includes Amanda, NTP, OpenPAM, OpenVPN, Overdose, Perl, PHP, Postfix, Python, Samba, and TCL.