The momentum of the Latin American free software movement is accelerated every year by the International Free Software Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Last year, North by South was invited to speak at fisl10, where a decade of free software revolution was celebrated. NXS gave a presentation about our business model and we were honored to be included in the special audience for President Lula da Silva’s address to the free software world.
This year, we’re happy to help spread the word about the innovation being launched for fisl11 — a special social network that intends to facilitate on-going collaboration for people who meet each other during the event. The idea is to strengthen the bonds formed at the event and provide a vehicle for people to publish news & updates about their projects. Talk about an open social network outside of one company’s control has been happening at FISL for years, an idea that is gaining popularity in Silicon Valley.
FISL11 will take place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from July 21st to 24th. The call for submissions has ended already but you can still submit papers for the Free Software Workshop and online registration is now open.
Here is our coverage of fisl10.
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The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, confirmed that he will participate at the open ceremony of CONSEGI (Free Software and Electronic Government International Conference), which will take place at Brasília, August 26 to 28. This will be the second free software event in Brazil that the president participates. In June, Lula visit the International Free Software Forum (FISL) in Porto Alegre, where he met with John “Maddog” Hall, Richard Stallman and other members of the free software community..
It was at Lula’s first mandate (2003) that the use of free software for development of solutions to e-Gov (Electronic Government) became an orientation of the Federal Government. Lula also created the Technical Committee of Implementation of Free Software - CISL, responsible for promoting awareness, training and dissemination of free software in the Public Administration. CISL has already the authorization of Lula to build a public police for free software in Brazil, to generate a change of direction for IT in the country by promoting cooperative work, share of knowledge and skills and therefore help create a more inclusive information society and the development of the country.
During his speech at FISL10, the Brazillian president stated that there is no greater freedom then to ensure the individual freedom and emphasized the importance of providing conditions in which “people can raise their creativity and their intelligence, especially in a new country like Brazil”, land of great creative people. “Finally we have found ourselves. Finally this country is having a taste of freedom of information”.
North by South was at the first edition of CONSEGI last year and we covered the whole event, you can find a summary of articles about it here. It was a very inspiring conference and we are happy to see this second edition coming out. The event is free and open to the public, anyone can go and participate in the panels to be informed about the progress of free software adoption in the Latin American governments.
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In many ways, the FISL Week represents the great achievements in Latin America over the last decade: countries that had spent decades under the repressive control of military dictatorships are now experiencing a historically unprecedented re-birth and the culture of information freedom that we write about on this news website is representative of what could be called the new “open source societies” all over Latin America. Since the end of the Cold War, only one military coup was attempted in Latin America — in Venezuela in 2002 — and that coup was defeated as millions of Venezuelans poured into the streets demanding that their democratically-elected president be returned to power.
Unfortunately, one day after the closing ceremonies at FISL, on a day when Honduran people were expecting to participate in a non-binding election regarding constitutional reforms, a small group of soldiers from the Honduran military kidnapped the democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, declared martial law and installed a new, unelected president in his place. All flights in and out of Honduras have been canceled by order of the military and normal television and radio news outlets have been shut down at gunpoint. However, there are some things that are known:
- The mayor of San Pedro Sula has been kidnapped at gunpoint by masked members of the military. His whereabouts are unknown but his wife was visiting family at the time in another city and is deeply concerned about her children, who were with their father.
- Martial law is in full effect in Honduras, at this hour: Many other members of the government are being “arrested” by the military. The national media is off the air and the state-run TV station has been shut down. Radio stations have been raided and shut down. The national telephone system has been shut down and electricity has been cut off to many parts of the country. The military has set up checkpoints throughout the country to restrict travel. Many citizens who had volunteered to help the constitutional reform effort have either been detained or they are in hiding.
- The installed president has announced that a nation-wide curfew is in effect, requiring all Hondurans to be in their homes between the hours of 9PM and 6AM.
- One by one, the countries who are members of the Organization of the American States have condemned the illegal military coup, refused to recognize the military-installed regime and insisted that President Zelaya be returned to power. Globally, nations and international organizations have rushed to condemn the military coup that is taking place, including the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Antigua, Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, Belize, Barbados, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Spain, El Salvador, the European Union, the UN General Assembly, as well as the entire 35-country membership of the Organization of American States, who held an emergency session once news of the coup came out.
Currently, the world is demanding that the democratically-elected president be returned to power, martial law be ended and democracy be restored in Honduras. People in the United States and elsewhere are being asked to contact the Department of State, Honduran embassies and their congressperson to insist that democracy be restored in Honduras. While it may seem like the world is lining up to condemn the situation in Honduras, if they feel like no one cares, they may not apply the pressure needed to change things. To allow this type of military coup to succeed in Honduras would be rolling back the advances made in the Americas by 30 years. At NXS, we work with Latin America on a daily basis and we could not, in good conscience, allow this military coup to proceed without saying something.
- State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
- White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
- Contact your elected representative!
- Honduran embassies around the world
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North by South has compiled this post which aggregates video, photos and articles about this year’s tenth anniversary of FISL, the Fórum Internacional Software Livre, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. There were over 8,000 participants this year, including Brazilian President Lula da Silva! This page will continue to be updated as we find more links, so check back here or send us relevant links to include. Here is the Official NXS FISL10 Summary:
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North by South’s presentation at FISL10 is happening TODAY, Saturday, June 27, 2009 between 7pm - 8pm in 41F. Please join us to find out more about our unique, free software-based business model.
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