An annual survey conducted by CETIC (Center for Study of Information Technology & Communications) found that the use of free software in mid-sized and enterprise companies continued to grow through 2009. The survey, TIC Empresas 2009, has been surveying commercial trends in Brazil’s growing technology markets for five years now.

While government adoption of free software is ordered by presidential decree, voluntary commercial adoption continues to grow in Brazil. The survey found that open source software has been adopted in 65% of large business, up from 61% in 2006. For mid-sized companies, open source adoption increased to 49% in 2009, up from 44% in 2007 and 2008.

The study found that 35% of the companies had adopted free software at the operating system level (mostly Linux).

Alexandre Barbosa, a spokesperson for CETIC, said that “[t]he increase for Linux and other open source operating systems in mid-level and large businesses reflects a search for cost reduction, greater security and the fact that there are more professionals specializing in [open source].”

This analysis is in line with NorthxSouth’s own observations: that the widespread adoption of free software by the government, public schools and digital divide programs has created a unique talent pool in Brazil of IT workers and programmers that creates a bias in the labor pool that favors open source.

Another NXS organizational favorite — remote collaboration — is also trending upwards in Brazil. The survey found that telecommuting is used by 25% of companies in Brazil, a 10% increase since 2006. For large companies, working remotely is even more widespread, at 62%. Forty-three percent of mid-size companies use remote work arrangements while only 20% of small businesses have adopted it.

Finally, the survey also revealed corporate vigilance against the use of social networks on company time: 48% of the companies surveyed ban the use of Facebook, Twitter and Orkut (the most popular social network in Brazil).

Mercosur is the South American largest trad bloc, the full members are Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Venezuela application for full membership is still under process) with the associate members: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The 37th summit of Mercosur took place in Paraguay during July 23/24.

This was the ‘governments summit’ where the leaders from each country met to discuss trades and resolve conflicts while focusing on the welfare and development of the continent. An article from Buenos Aires Heraldsuch points out some high marks from the summit such as an unified stand in defense of democratic institutions, as a result of the condemnation of the military coup in Honduras and the demand for Zelaya to be put back in his position. Also, Brazil and Paraguay finally came to an agreement about Itaipu’s power plant, increasing Paraguay’s profits which was more than fair since they were selling power way below the market price to Brazil for decades. A deal that was made during Paraguay and Brazill’s dictatorships.

A couple of days before the Mercosur’s summit, took place the Mercosur Social and Solidarity Program Summit. Where NGO’s and social movements could meet and debate a common agenda of actions to be taken by each group in their respective countries. The topics where divided by tables of discussion, where the Table 6 debated about “New IT’s, Digital Inclusion and Education”, each country presented the results of their work and all of them had projects using free software.

The final resolution recommend the governments members of Mercosur to support the Law Project presented to PARLASUR (Mercosur Parliament) which proposes the adoption of Free Software with emphasis on education to achieve social inclusion throughout the region. They propose to the governments of the region to choose policies that use free and open technologies such as free softwares to guarantee the digital inclusion and sovereignty of the countries. To move forward against the current monopoly of the media and this way guarantee the participation of the community media specially those with education programs. You can read their full resolution here(spanish only).

Brazil’s impressive Digital Inclusion program (Inclusão Digital) has received extensive coverage on this website, especially in comparison to technology education in the United States. FISL is an annual opportunity for Brazil to show off its commitment to society and Lula’s initiative to provide a world-class technology education for all students. And why shouldn’t they? Brazil’s efforts to bridge the digital divide has not only achieved countless successes but has set a standard that has spread across the Americas (except, unfortunately, in the United States).

The Open World Forum (OWF) is an international organization based in Paris, France. OWF organized an event in December 2008 which brought together people from across the FLOSS spectrum: programmers, advocates, corporate and small business users, hobbyists, academics and investors. OWF’s focus is the future of information technology within the context of the FLOSS revolution. One significant outcome of the 2008 event was the culmination of strategic, tactical and political discussions in the form of a roadmap through the year 2020.

This first version of the roadmap is open for comments and will be re-assessed annually during the OWF event. Experts from all around the world will conduct studies in 7 key themes (public policies, innovation, ecosystems, cloud computing, IT governance, careers and FLOSS in an open world). The OWF 2020 FLOSS Roadmap can be downloaded here.

The Brazilian government’s experience with FLOSS was chosen as one of the best real-world cases for the adoption of free software in the public sector. The case was presented by Professor Christiana Freitas, from the University of Brasília (UNB), and Corinto Meffe, coordinator of Brazil’s Portal do Software Público. All of the key themes will be evaluated annually until 2020, documenting the positive and negative experiences and results.

The Public Software Portal of Brazil works to aggregate all the initiatives with FLOSS inside of the Brazillian government. It also connects them with the community in that it’s open to anyone (companies, individuals, etc) who want to contribute or propose a new solution. It’s an important step forward when the citizens of a country can see and contribute to the technology and the source code used by their government to serve them. This is a level of transparency that, without doubt, has become a critical element of modern democracies.

Many of the predictions in the existing roadmap have already started to come to fruition. For example, FLOSS has already begun to bridge the global digital divide. FLOSS continues to become more and more mainstream, despite the billion-dollar initiatives to marginalize it.

In particular, North by South is interested in OWF’s prediction that “FLOSS communities are enablers of Business Ecosystems” — the unique nature of North by South’s business structure is an early example of this prediction. NXS operates as a distributed, global company with a flexible network instead of a monolithic corporate structure.

OWF makes a number of other predictions as well as recommendations for the expansion of FLOSS adoption. North by South is proud to do its part in contributing to these recommendations for success.

This is an interesting story because it provides a direct link between San Francisco and Sao Paulo. For North-by-South, our two main hubs are in SF and SP. In Brazil, Inclusao Digital is a project initiated by the administration of President “Lula” da Silva in 2005. Its intended goal is to bring technology and training to the poorest sectors of Brazilian society in a country with some of the sharpest contrasts between rich and poor. Combined with Brazil’s commitment to open source software, this program has done amazing things like build media centers in urban favelas (basically, huge ghettos that encircle Rio and Sao Paulo and other major cities) but also in remote regions of the country (like the Amazon) where many indigenous populations live. The entire program is built on open source, free software so not only has this program helped bridge the digital divide but it has also provided state-funded employment and experience for open source programmers.

But, this isn’t really news. The program in Brazil has been active for over 3 years and many of the developers working with North-by-South have experience working at Inclusão Digital. What led me to bring this up is a recent story in PC World about a digital inclusion program beginning in San Francisco. While SF is the center of the internet world, there is an enormous gap between the high-paid technology workers and the poorest sectors of San Francisco:

Access to technology is substantially below average for San Franciscans earning less than $10,000 up to $25,000 per year, the study said. There is also a big technology gap for the large numbers of residents who speak only Spanish or Chinese.

And, like in Brazil, open source is playing a key role in San Francisco’s digital inclusion program:

The PCs were ill-equipped with old operating systems like Windows NT and Windows 2000, Griffiths said. “They were a wreck, there were pop-up ads and spyware and most of them didn’t load Internet Explorer because no one took care of the lab.” Griffiths got to work, replenishing the lab with 15 donated computers and getting volunteers to load up Edubuntu OS, a version of Linux for the classroom. Now the training center offers free classes to teach basic computing skills to individuals.

The task force for a digital inclusion program in San Francisco was joined by the mayor’s office last year. However, a local non-profit, Media Alliance, has indicated that San Francisco needs a more comprehensive program, similar to the one in Brazil. In an area which has generated so much wealth from the technology industry, it seems like we could at least do as much as Brazil has. That said, this link between San Francisco and Sao Paulo is compelling and highlights the real world impact of open source software. It isn’t just a serious option for enterprise-level business, free software is a critical part of closing the digital divide. When you support free software, you’re helping to change the world for the common good.