Brazil has recently announced that they’ll be using Linux as the basis for their electronic voting machines, away from Windows CE. In addition, open source software will be used in the auditing process as well as digitally signed verification of the code. This is a significantly different process than used in the United States where a closed source, proprietary system for voting machines was developed by Diebold, a company in North Canton, Ohio which was exposed by a whistle-blower to be lying about the security of their voting machines, which led to a lawsuit against them led by the EFF because of a DMCA takedown order received by none other than your local community colo! Did we forget to mention that Walden O’Dell, then CEO of Diebold, had said that he was committed to delivering votes to Bush in a Republican fund-raising letter for the 2004 election? Things that make you go hmmmm!

LugRadio is a fortnightly British radio show with a very humorous vision of free software/open source. You can get the show’s podcast at their site. The radio show became such a cult that an event was created, LugRadioLive. The event is done by the community for the community, with speakers, a live recording of the show in front of an audience, and lots of fun within an inclusive atmosphere.

San Francisco is hosting the event in the USA, it took place on April 12th & 13th. North-by-South and the San Francisco Community Colocation Project were at the event and we met with a lot of people, including Google’s Open Source Program staff, FreeBSD, KDE, Postgres, the various Linux user groups in the Bay Area and a whole bunch more. Everyone was interested in the work we’re doing with the Latin American open source movement.