[wordup] How free software is fueling a new kind of patriotism.

[Adam Shand]

From:http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/view.html?pg=4

Linux: The Next Generation
How free software is fueling a new kind of patriotism.
By Bruce Sterling

The autonomous region of Extremadura, in the bucolic southwest of 
Spain, is all hills, grapes, oaks, and olive groves. Centuries of 
industrial progress have breezed right by this place. Today it's an 
ecotourist bird sanctuary dotted with timeless farming villages. In the 
long siesta hours, dogs practically amble after cats.

But this quaint haven has suddenly become a bastion of Tux the Penguin. 
Extremadura has gone whole hog for free software:¡Software libre para 
la libertad! Its government has minted some 80,000 CDs to marinate the 
populace in Linux. Social workers carry the latest open source code to 
remote schools, municipal offices, and city-funded ISPs. Thanks to Juan 
Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, the left-wing academic who became regional 
president and has dominated local politics for the past 20 years, the 
Global Project for the Development of the Information Society aims to 
give every resident access to the knowledge gathered by humanity 
throughout history.

Ibarra's ambition is born of desperation. Extremadura suffers chronic 
brain drain to Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, and hubs throughout South 
America. This trend is centuries old - the conquistadores Cortez and 
Pizarro were both from Extremadura. It's a pretty area, but there has 
never been much to do here. Unemployment is a staggering 22 percent.

As a business, it makes no sense to wire Extremadura's scattered 
hamlets. If the locals weren't given Net access by state fiat, they'd 
never manage to pay for it. They can't afford fancy brand-name 
software, either. So they have two choices: sit on their hands and 
watch the information revolution pass them by, or boot up a new kind of 
digital socialism.

Luis Casas Luengo, a sometime Eurocrat and expert in technology 
transfer, kindly demos the product for me: a local version of Debian 
GNU/Linux, translated into Spanish and renamed LinEx. Technically, 
there's nothing wild or woolly here. LinEx comes with what most folks 
really need from a computer: word processor, graphics processor, 
spreadsheet, emailer, browser, chat client, MP3 player, CD burner.

The features may be mundane, but they add up to something quite new: a 
patriotic regional operating system. The emailer's logo is a stork, 
Extremadura's most beloved bird. The word processor is named after a 
famous local poet. The desktop is crammed with hallowed symbols of the 
homeland. Extremaduran schoolkids could stand up and pledge allegiance 
to this thing.

Free software has always been free for the sake of technologists, 
providing open range for code wranglers and server farmers. Now 
Extremadura is claiming it for the campesinos. Here, open source isn't 
about the process of collaborative development or objections to 
intellectual property. It's about power to the people. The LinEx stork 
is a direct connection to the global economy.

This deeply rooted regional approach could prove a more nurturing 
environment for Tux than either the EU, with its stifling bureaucracy, 
or the US, where lawyers for SCO are eager to sue the daylights out of 
anyone who dares to propagate the penguin. Right now, most of the 
action is in government, where officials are beginning to wake up to 
the advantages of open standards and malleable code - and not having to 
pay Americans for any of it. India is releasing Linux variations in 
local dialects from Assamese to Telugu. China, Japan, and South Korea 
are collaborating on their own OS. South Africa recently approved an 
open source strategy, and similar things are going on in Argentina, 
Australia, Bulgaria, Peru, and Ukraine.

These initiatives, as dramatic as they are, directly benefit only 
functionaries and tax collectors. Those who, like Extremadura's Ibarra, 
view open source as force for social liberation have their eyes on 
Brazil, which is now run by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former union 
leader turned president of the world's fourth largest democracy. Lula 
is the new darling of the global left. In Extremadura, he's considered 
the vanguard of social progress.

Brazil hosted the recent Fourth International Forum on Free Software, 
held in the World Social Forum's stronghold of Porto Alegre. There, 
jazzy pop star Gilberto Gil, now Brazil's minister of culture, promised 
to "tropicalize digitalization," presumably a reference to bridging the 
developed and developing worlds. If Extremadura is the harbinger, those 
tropicalized digits will be globally connected, fiercely patriotic, and 
free as sunshine.

Email Bruce Sterling at bruces at well.com.
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