FISL10: Brazil’s Digital Inclusion Initiative Highlighted in Porto Alegre
27 de Junho de 2009, 0:00 - sem comentários ainda
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).
FISL10 starts today! Come and see the North by South presentation on Saturday!
27 de Junho de 2009, 0:00 - sem comentários aindaThe 10th edition of the Free Software International Forum (FISL), the biggest event of free software in Latin America and maybe one of the biggest in the world, starts today in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
North by South has been invited to speak at the mega-conference, and we will host a panel about our unique business model, on Saturday, 06/27. We will also be hanging out with the developers of our network and meeting people we work with online everyday and enjoying this very special edition of FISL.
Just a few weeks before the event, the portal SoftwareLivre.org launched a new version of their site with a new software, a social network free software system developed with Ruby by our friends from COLIVRE, a free software coop. The name of it is noosfero and it would be great if every country could use such a tool to get all LUGs together, closer. Another cool tool is @FISL, developed by Vida Nerd (Nerd’s Life). They decided to create this tool “just because they love the event.” Vida Nerd is a platform where the user can login via a Twitter account and see which panels friends are attending or what they have planned to do and which panels have more people attending so you can see the most popular ones.
FISL10 will have over 7,000 participants, including the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva! NXS will be posting photos, a translation of Lula’s comments at FISL and more information on the morning of Saturday, the last official day of the conference.
How the US Blockade Against Cuba Affects Information Technology
27 de Junho de 2009, 0:00 - sem comentários aindaAs mentioned before on this news site (US firewall exposed by bloggers from countries like Cuba or Syria), the embargo laws in the United States have a direct impact on information technology development in the affected countries. Now, a blog from Cuba has reported that Google Wave is blocked for Cuban internet users.
The article (Spanish only) goes even deeper and itemizes other examples of how the USA embargo affects the IT development in Cuba. Here is a translation of some of the cases:
- An English travel agent, Steve Marshall, lives in Spain and sells travel packages to tropical destinations, including Cuba. In October 2007, about 80 of their web sites surprisingly stopped working, as a result of an action by the U.S. Government. The Treasury Department stated that eNom Company had not acted in accordance with the law, as the agency helped Americans evade restrictions on traveling to Cuba and was “generating resources used by the Cuban regime.” Among the domain names that were shut down include www.cuba-hemingway.com (a site about literature), www.cuba-havanacity.com on Cuban history and culture and other support services for tourists from Italy and France, such as www.ciaocuba.com and www.bonjourcuba.com.
- The Institute of Scientific and Technological Information (IDICT) was affected significantly, when it was denied access to the Database Premier Academy with eBooks from Taylor & Francis Publishing. It was launched in 1996 as a central database for researchers in the fields of science, technology and medicine.
- In 2008, access to new versions of the database engine free software used all around the world, MySQL, remained limited, as also happens with Java, after they were purchased by the US corporation Sun Microsystems.
Carlos Martínez, the author of the article, also lists some websites that express the blockade against Cuba and other countries between them. The most famous ones include: Cisco Systems, Oracle Technology Network, Telefónica Spain and the Total Bank, an online banking and payment services, banking and business credit cards company.
The good side of it, according to Carlos, is that the Cuban users will have to look for alternatives to Microsoft Messenger and Google Wave tools in the free software communities. But by doing so, the users will gain more security, privacy and software freedom. He says:
Technically, although Cuba is living these prohibitions as a disadvantage compared with other Internet users, this blockade will force the Cubans to use messaging services libres (i.e. Jabber), giving them more security and privacy.
Elastix - an amazing GNU/Linux distribution to set up an Asterix-based PBX
26 de Maio de 2009, 0:00 - sem comentários ainda
Elastix is a complete GNU/Linux distribution with Asterisk, DHADI, Openfire, Postfix and many other free software packages. It has a user-friendly interface that integrates the best tools available for Asterisk-based PBXs, as well as its own set of utilities which allows the creation of third party modules. The software was created by PaloSanto Solutions, an IT company from Ecuador, and released to the public for the first time in March 2006. Elastix has a good support for telephony hardware … you can see the complete list at their hardware compatibility list. Elastix was used during the last presidential elections in Ecuador and what they have to say about it is very interesting:
… it was decided to optimize the communication system in all the locations where the voting counting was taking place to help monitor the process. Elastix was chosen as the communication platform because of the technical and economic benefits it offered for this project. […] Elastix was able to provide smooth communication between more than eighty (80) locations involved in the vote counting process. Thanks to Elastix it was possible to implement a communication system of this size all over the country in only two (2) weeks!
Elastix made life easier for those who are looking for a VOIP solution, proven out by its rapid popularity growth. The project has been nominated in various categories for Source Forge’s Community Choice Awards (CCAA) in the years of 2007 and 2008. This year they are recommending that the votes go for the following categories:
- Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything
- Best Project for the Enterprise
- Best Project
If you want to help this amazing project to win for the first time Sourge Forge CCAA, vote for them at this link (you can select multiple categories). Remember that Friday, May 29, is the last day to vote for nominations!
Northeast Free Software Meeting in Bahia will discuss the economic and social role of free software
22 de Maio de 2009, 0:00 - sem comentários aindaPresenting the free software model as a way to provide viable and sustainable access to new information technologies while encouraging the economic and social development of a region is part of the goals of III ENSL, the Northeast Free Software Meeting and the Fourth Bahia Free Software Festival, happening on May 29-30 at the campus of Bahia State University (UNEB) in Salvador, Bahia’s capital.
The Bahia’s Free Software Project and Colivre - Cooperative of Technology Livre (Free) - are jointly promoting the event. Colivre is part of North By South Developers Network and have done a great job organizing these two important events, at once! They’ve put together great panels which include Jon “Maddog” Hall and Sérgio Amadeu, who created the largest municipal telecentro project in Brazil while he was head of the Department of Communication from São Paulo. Today he is a professor at Casper Líbero University in São Paulo and part of the movement against the Internet Project Law that will restrict internet freedom in Brazil.
Other well-known developers from the free software movement in Brazil were invited as well as lawyers, educators and digital inclusion activists. During the two days of the event, the space will be open for professionals, technicians and users to discuss and reflect on the economic, technological, cultural and educational role of free software in our society. The organization is estimating more than 800 attendees.
