Software Livre!

"Software Livre! Software Livre! Software
Livre!"...the words got louder and louder like a chant. No, not
like a chant, it was a chant--and I was leading it! Hundreds of
people were in the Forum Internacional for Software Livre held May
2-4, 2002, chanting "Software Livre" (free as in freedom). While
this was only a small fraction of the 2,900 people who attended, it
was late at night, after the event closed, and they were still
talking to each other, still enthusiastic.Held in the port city of Porto Alegre, in the southernmost
state of Brazil, it was a different culture than the other six
times that I had been to Brazil. What Porto Alegre lacked in the
physical beauty of Rio de Janeiro or the beaches of Recife, it made
up with the intensity of the conference and the warmth of the
people.Several things made this conference stand out from some of
the others I have attended.First of all, this conference was sponsored by the government
of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), as well as private industry and the
Linux community. RS (as it is always abbreviated) has been using
Software Livre for several years as a method of meeting their needs
for production software in various areas. By using Software Livre,
RS has been able to cut software costs. The money that they do
spend on software stays in the hands of Brazilian programmers, who
buy Brazilian food, live in Brazilian houses and pay Brazilian
taxes. None of the last three points was lost on the political
leaders of RS, and several of the leaders showed up at the opening
of the conference to speak and lend their support.Held at a university (rather than a conference center or
large hotel like a lot of other conferences), the costs were kept
to a minimum, and all of the necessary items that a conference
needs (audio-visual, security, networking, etc) were available. In
addition, because Brazil speaks Portuguese and a large number of
attendees came from outside of Brazil, simultaneous translation
into English and Spanish from Portuguese (and vice-versa) was
offered in the main hall, where one of the conference tracks was
held. For this was an international conference, drawing people like
Robert Chassell of the FSF, Tim Ney of the Gnome Foundation, Peter
Salus (author of A Quarter Century of Unix and
a lot of other books), Mario Saito of Cyclades, David Sugar of the
Open Source Telecom Corporation and other foreign speakers.We also had a strong contingent from Uruguay, who not only
presented several times, but reinforced for me the art of
chimarrao, which is drinking a strong "tea"
made of the leaves of erva-mate. A very social
type of event, the tea is made in a hollowed out gourd called a
cuia and sipped through a straw called a
bomba. People pass it around from person to
person, each taking a few sips from the cuia.
High in caffeine, it is a somewhat bitter drink, but pleasant
nonetheless. Even their LUG's penguin used
chimarraro. An acquired taste, it is a lot
like another communal event I used to practice back in
college.Other strong contingents were found in the Debian group and
in the people from Conectiva. My friend Rik Van Riel, a kernel
developer employed by Conectiva, and his lovely wife, Fabiana,
spent some time with me also.Three conference tracks and two tutorial tracks were offered
on each of the three days of the conference, in addition to some
workshops. Through an agreement with the university, some of the
computer labs were used for the workshops. This cut down on
equipment costs, and again showed the government of RS, the
educational sector (this was a private university), the private
sector and the Software Livre community all working together--very
refreshing.I mentioned that the conference was kept inexpensive. Through
some generous donations by Hewlett Packard, PROCERGS and some other
companies, the attendance fees for both the conference and the
tutorials were kept within the reach of most people, including
students. Yet the niceties were there too, like having shuttle
service provided by PROCERGS to take the speakers back and forth
from our hotel when needed.There was also a show floor, but the low-cost of the venue
and the generous sponsorship of the main sponsors also allowed this
to be kept small and homey rather than being a huge show
floor.Finally, they had an on-line chatroom, where people could
chat with the speakers about different topics. Therefore, even
people who could not attend the conference could participate, if
they wished.We also had a lot of press people attend the conference, most
of whom were quite familiar with Software Livre and what it meant
to their country. Cyclades did, however, set up a dinner meeting
for me with some press and analysts regarding Linux and the telecom
industry. One of the press people had what Cyclades called a
"challenging" attitude in his question asking, and he found out
that I could be "challenging" right back. Polite but "challenging",
I had an answer for all of his questions and some of the questions
he did not even think to ask.My job was to give the Footnote, the last speech. It is a
little like a keynote in the fact that it should be "visionary" and
"forward thinking", yet also reflect things that happened during
the conference. One of the things that I have been pressing
recently is that all of the people in the Free Software movement
are important. Sure, there are people who are "known", like Richard
Stallman or Eric Raymond, but when people come up to me and say
they are "just" a documentation person or "just" a user, I have to
tell them they are also important to the movement. So in this
footnote I made two main points. I made everyone in the room
promise to bring two friends who did not currently use Linux to
next year's show, and I asked every programmer, documentation
person, user and supporter of Software Livre to please stand and
give each other a "thank you". The cheering of "Software Livre"
almost deafened me, and it was one of the few times in my life I
received a standing ovation.All Work and No PlayBefore the conference, Marcos Mazoni, the CEO of PROCERGS and
who everyone called Mazoni, took a couple of us out on his sailboat
on the large river that flows beside Porto Alegre. I have seen the
Mississippi and other large rivers, but this was immense. I learned
that a lot of other people argue about whether this is actually a
river, a lake or some other type of water body, but most people
seemed content to say it was a river. This was a nice day to
recover from the long flight on the airplane and from the press
conference the day before. It also allowed me to meet more of the
students who were helping out with the event and who I would come
to think of as friends in the days to come: Luciano "Lucifer"
Lopes, Gustavo "Kov" Silva and Andre Franciosi, among others.

Another nice time happened a few days later, when Andre
Franciosi took me to the central market and helped me pick out my
own chimarrao set. This consisted of the
aforementioned cuia and
bomba, but it also included a hot water
bottle, a container to hold the erva-mate and
a hand-tooled leather case with a long strap to contain all the
ingredients. This chimarrao set became my
constant companion for the rest of the trip. I took pride in making
my first chimarrao from it and offering it to
my friends from both Porto Alegra and Uruguay.After the conference, PROCERGS arranged a daytrip to the wine
country for some of the speakers. This part of RS was settled by
Germans and Italians in the first part of the last century, and
there is a distinct Alpine look-and-feel to the country. We danced
at their May Day celebrations, ate their breads and cheeses and, of
course, drank their wine.But there is no real rest for the wicked, and the next two
days found me speaking at two universities in the region.At the second university, that of my friend Cesar Brode, I
got to see SAGU
first hand. SAGU was the brain-child of Cesar and his small but
efficient staff of people, and they are justifiably proud of it. I
should also mention that sagu is a popular
dessert in Brazil, made up of small red berries, a little like
cranberries, but much sweeter.While talking to the faculty of Cesar's university, I
proposed that students use Software Livre to learn not only
computer science subjects but also non-computer courses, such as
biology, chemistry and math. Many programs exist in the Software
Livre space for these courses. A lot run on Linux or *BSD, and some
run on Windows but are Software Livre themselves. I suggested that
the students be assigned to write programs that would help
demonstrate issues in their curriculum. I argued that when a
student understands enough about a topic to create a program that
can illustrate the concept to someone else, then they really
understand it. When one of the professors asked me if this meant
that their biology students would have to learn computer
programming too, I suggested a liaison between the two departments.
I argued that "even biology students" should have a feeling for
what computers could do for them and should be able to communicate
their needs to a computer science student. Likewise, a computer
science student who cannot listen to the needs of a user and create
code useful to them is a questionable hire out in the field.
Therefore, programs (both at undergraduate and graduate levels)
that bring the multidisciplined aspects of the university together
seem to be a good path. And Software Livre would leverage the most
of that partnership.Besides talking to the university staff and students, I was
lucky enough to talk to a group of technical high-school students
who were currently using Windows 98 and considering the use of
Linux. After my talk, I was told by a student that I had convinced
him and that he was going to switch to Linux. This was obviously my
hardest, and therefore most successful, convert.I stayed at Cesar's home that night and met his lovely wife
and three daughters. The next day we went to the church close to
Cesar's home, and Cesar treated me to hearing a harmonium played in
a large open environment, like it was meant to be played. For those
of you who do not know me, I collect automated musical instruments,
and harmoniums are part of that collection. Harmonimums are as
close to heaven as I will get until I can afford to place a small
pipe organ in my house.By then, my trip was mostly over. I went back to my hotel and
tried to pack all of the things inside my suitcase that I could,
which left only a leather chimarrao set and my
laptop to be carried on the plane. I waited for one of my new
friends to have breakfast with me, but he never showed up. Instead,
Tim Ney and I made a mad dash down to the central market, so I
could guide him through the purchase of his own
chimarrao set. While there I picked up a few
more chimarraro things (including a little
backpack for it) to round out my collection.
Mmm...erva-mate and penguin mints--be still,
my heart!
Traveling to the airport, I was just about to get on the
plane when two people from Varig airlines (the national carrier of
Brazil) told me there was an important message on the other side of
security, and that I needed to see this person. It turned out to be
Loimar Vianna and Kov, who had come to the airport to see me off.
So I bid a hurried good-bye and wished them "Software
Livre".Jon maddog Hall is president
and executive director of Linux International.

email: maddog@li.org