Argentina was in the news recently with a proposed law that would mandate the use of Free Software in government. This article gets more behind the story and takes a look at Diego Saravia, the professor who developed a boot-from-CD Linux distribution he calls “Utoto”. According to this story, Saravia was key to the recent proposed law.
“And, as an active member of the Frepaso (Frente PaÃs Solidario, one of the political parties in the ruling Alliance), Saravia has been in a position to do something about it. As head of the Department of Environmental Policy in the regional capital of Ciudad de Salta, Saravia saw to it that all computers ended up running Linux.
In fact, the installation of Linux at the Universidad de Salta and the Department of Environmental Policy is no news here. The computers at the SecretarÃa de la Gobernación, the Central Police Department and the Catholic University -? the other significant educational institution in the province ?- already run Linux.”