Writing about free software in Latin America
This week I finally began to think more concretely about writing an article about free software use in Latin America. I am particularly interested in situating the story in the context of the Argentine crisis, which has proven to be a harbinger of similar crises in other South American countries like Brazil and Peru. (The Latinobarometro poll offers a particularly interesting overview of recent developments in the region.)
To what extent does free software use here constitute a populist rejection of the neoliberal model which permits powerful multinational corporations like Microsoft to extract profits without reciprocating with significant reinvestment? Argentines largely blame their crisis on a corrupt political class which managed to reap profits from the mass privitazations of national industry during the 90s. In July, popular protests rocked Peru in the aftermath of a resolution to privatize two major electricity companies. Does the increased level of interest in free software represent one facet of this same populist spirit? Expressed in less confrontational terms, does it represent an opportunity for poor countries to homegrow their own information technology solutions without reliance on the rich world?
Such an approach would have to include an awareness that free software culture is as international a phenomenon as could possibly exist. This recalls the widely noted contradictions inherent in the fact that the massive anti-globalization protests at events such as the WTO meeting in Seattle and the more recent G8 summit in Genoa efficiently organized participants of varying nationalities via the internet. (Which reminds me–if I’m going to be keeping an interesting Weblog, I’m going to have to be more on top of things. Why have I never heard of this Playstation game?)