FLISOL - The Latin American Festivals of Installation of Free Software are install fests organized by the regional free software communities since 2005. The event is the largest distributed free software event in the world — last year, there were install fests in more than 200 cities in 18 countries in Latin America.

The goal of the event is to promote the use of free software, so the general public can know its philosophy, install GNU/Linux on their computers, learn about the applications and understand how they are developed by volunteer communities. Every install fest is free of charge in every location and they also include lectures, presentations and workshops.

Check out the list of countries hosting the event:

If you can read Spanish, the Madrid-based newspaper Público has come out with a nice article which surveys the Latin American open source movement: Linux conquista América Latina. The article’s tagline is Los Gobiernos suramericanos impulsan el uso de software libre frente al propietario buscando independencia tecnológica, seguridad y desarrollo local, which translates as “South American governments boost the use of free software over proprietary software, searching for technological independence, security and local development.” Similar to North by South’s recent presentation at GOSCON, the article surveys the development of free software in each of the Latin American countries adopting free software: Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Cuba, Uruguay.

North by South will be presenting at this year’s Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON 2008) about the use of open source software by governments in Latin America: The Latin American Free Software Movement. The presentation will give updates about the latest public sector efforts in Central and South America including Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay. Having just returned from CONSEGI 2008 and continuing to keep in touch with contacts from all these countries, NXS will be able to provide the latest news about open source in Latin America.

GOSCON was established in 2005 as an annual conference to discuss the use of open standards and open source software in the public sector. The latest that we’ve heard is that Marcos Mazoni, head of the technical committee to implement free software in Brazil, will join a panel discussion through a video link. NXS will provide pictures and further updates from GOSCON 2008 from the conference itself as it goes on.

CONSEGI 2008 is over and North by South was honored and excited to have been a participant in this convergence of public free software initiatives from all over Latin America. We are providing here an English-language update of some of the highlights of what we saw and who we spoke with during CONSEGI.

Between all of the presentations and debates about free software usage and policies within government, one of the most important things that came out of this first annual CONSEGI meeting was the CONSEGI Declaration, signed on the conference’s last day by Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Cuba, Ecuador and Paraguay. This declaration is a letter of protest against the ISO/IEC’s rejection of the formal appeal from Venezuela, South Africa, Brazil and India of the ISO vote that approved Microsoft’s OOXML as an international standard.

North-by-South was happy to have the opportunity to sit and talk with Marcos Mazoni, head of the Technical Committee to Implement Free Software in Brazil, about the many issues involving free software in Latin America. He confirmed that CONSEGI will continue to happen next year and that plans are already underway for CONSEGI 2009. Talking about the topic of transparency in the government, which was expressed in many of the painels, Mr Mazoni explained that creation of IT policies in Brazil will include consideration of participatory democracy, enabling the average citizen to follow the governmental actions as they affect people’s lives by making these actions transparent to the public. You can read more about our discussion with Mr Mazoni on our CONSEGI 2008 Summary Page as well as issues such as licensing government-sponsored code and reports on free software initiatives in Argentina, South Africa, Ecuador and Venezuela.

On Dec. 9, standing before the flags of their countries, the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela, along with a representative from Uruguay, gathered in Buenos Aires and signed the founding charter of the Banco del Sur, or the Bank of the South.

With the creation of the Banco del Sur, the current progressive leaders from Latin America have taken another step at institutional independence from the economic colonialism that had survived the era of overt colonialism. As the U.S. loses more of its ill-gotten profit from Latin America, what impact will that have on the U.S. economy?