Tom
Adelstein writes:
I received this letter from a friend in El Salvador. He has stepped
forward and volunteered to accept and distribute Linux and other
Open Source Products to his countrymen. He has arrangements with a
small Computer manufacturer to warehouse and freely distribute the
software. He has also agreed to train service professionals to
assist anyone in learning Linux.Luis is not a native English speaker, but we think he made
his point.Concerned, he wrote me one side bar item:
Luis: I also forgot to tell you that I read two different
small classified advertisings in the newspapers offering to install
Linux and StarOffice at $40 to $50 per copy. It that legal? Is this
in accordance with Linux policies? What you suggest I do?Here’s your opportunity to answer him.
Now, here is his letter:
Linux, or the Opportunity to Pay an Old Debt
to the Third World
By a Linux-Advocate
Between all the technological advances that have arisen in the
last decades in the developed countries, the personal computer
(PC), among them, has been possibly the one that with more
amplitude has been implemented in the third world and specially in
Latin America. All the spaces of the society positively have been
hit by means of the use of this powerful tool that already
comprises the daily living in our countries.
Efficiency in the work and the application of new technologies
is the direct consequence of the use of PC´s in this area.
The impact of the internet has been vastly understated. With every
day that passes, millions of internet users miss out on the
opportunity to perceive the bigger picture, that the world is
bigger and more beautiful than they ever imagined? And of the e-
mail, that it has facilitated us to communicate with all the
humanity in ways that we never dreamed before it would be
possible?
Latin America has taken a step inside of the global village that
is today this world in which we lived. But a ghost threat to
prevent that the dream continues. For several months the
governments of Central American area have been approving new laws
that protect the intellectual property. Between the most benefited
with this new law we can find the producers of music, the
manufacturers of clothes, and of course, the software
producers.
This new laws apply fines in money and also jail to anyone which
is non-authorized to use the software. Only in El Salvador, Central
America, at least 80% of software companies and individuals are
using are illegal. The amount in money to legalize each copy at the
moment in use has been considered in hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
The MS software in the region is expensive and very few have the
capacity to obtain a license. As the deadline approaches to
legalize copies already in use, it increases the uncertainty of
small industralists and medium companies about how to resolve this
situation. Many are asking themselves how to keep going ahead
without this powerful tool of work that some of them consider
almost just as their right hand. For them the future it is seen
hard and uncertain. These medium and small businessman are the
immense majority that maintained the economy of the country during
almost twelve years of civil war that finished some years ago.
Surely that the Intellectual Property must be respected. There
is no doubt about that. Latin America can, one more time, stay
solely as spectator of the great transformations and technological
advances that are the vehicle for development because it cannot pay
the rights to enter that wonderful world.
It is now the day, in which the developed nations, must share,
for the benefit of the less favored nations, a part of their wealth
and knowledge disinterestedly? Linux seems to be the answer for
this so urgent situation.
Gratuitous Software of good quality and technological
development are at hand with Linux. The Community of Linux has a
great challenge ahead, the challenge to demonstrate that in the
humanity still there are human beings who are interested in the
benefit of the others over their particular economic interests. The
challenge to demonstrate that on the Earth still there are people
who thank for the gifts that life has given them, and are able to
share them with those to which the life favored them less, solely
because they were born in different a geographic zone. The
situation is propitious, the resources already exist. Will it
surpass the Open Source Community? Or will apathy towards its
Southern neighbors prevail? Who will dare to make this effort
effective?.
Meanwhile, the horizon in Latin America is uncertain, and an old
debt, inherited from generation to generation by the developed
countries remains unpaid. A debt only recognized for those who
understand that the abundance of one individual has been created to
satisfy the necessity of another.
Donations of CD’s, books and materials to help El Salvador may
be sent to:
Linux-Advocate
Inversiones 2000
Colonia Montebello Poniente
Pasaje Santander
Casa No 13
Mejicanos, San Salvador
El Salvador, Central America.