Imagine something that you really love. Chocolate! I know very few people who are reluctant to this treat. Think that today, your life is tied to the chocolate. Your routine, your work, and even your entertainment time. Only one problem: the only place that produces chocolate is a small town in the Switzerland and suddenly, a law considers illegal the production, reaching the whole population. What will you do?
It was using this analogy somehow innocent and unlikely, that I intend to show you that despite all the problems that can be caused if laws such as SOPA, PIPA and Acta are approved, they raise a much deeper debate on the production of technology by developing countries like India, China and Brazil. Much of what we know as the Internet is tied to the United States and if laws such as those cited above are approved, they will have a global effect, completely changing the way we use the web.
You can now be asking yourself, but how a project that is in progress in American and European legislation may impact me, this innocent user of Facebook, with a couple of accounts in Gmail, which downloads music and TV series, did a remix with video "Leave Britney Alone" and uploaded on YouTube and has a blog - outdated! - on Blogspot. Most services used by you and by most brazilians are hosted in the U.S.. The big national news sites do you usually follow as well. Ok, I have not convinced you? The big porn sites like xvideos, redtube, youporn, all this can just go off the air from one day to another! (I kicked where it hurts now .. LOL!).
Now that I have your attention, what's the solution? More than users, we need to be producers of services and internet infrastructure, to create greater equality in terms of technological emancipation. You may not have noticed yet, but you are a dependent. Dependent on technologies produced by large companies. The Windows on your computer may not even be original, but you are paying the price through this dependence. The way out: using free software.
Free software is a program that gives you unrestricted access to its source code and having the expertise and knowledge, you can contribute to modify, improve and enhance these programs. "But this is too complicated." If you use Firefox, you are already a FS user and just because Firefox is free, new versions and updates come to you quickly as possible, because thousands of people around the globe are helping to improve it.
Everything is a matter of tradition. Before you were using Internet Explorer, until you understood the advantages of other browsers. Today the number of people who use other browsers to access the internet increased significantly. What is missing? Losing the addiction to windows and other software that does not allow you to have autonomy over them. If you are a student of the area, even better, as well as user, you can contribute to the advancement of the internet.
It seems impossible, but it is not. In Brazil, there are many initiatives related to Free Software and last week the Federal District adopted Free Software as official policy. With all this information, what you intend to do? Sit back, share some posts in your social networks and expect to be again legal to eat a delicious chocolate bar or to engage so that it will collaborate with the production technology in your country?
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