[Runasimi] Bolivia FOSS - FOSS video software
Amos Batto
amosbatto en yahoo.com
Mie Abr 16 22:34:35 EDT 2008
flavio,
Almost every major city in Bolivia has a linux users
group. The general group for all of Bolivia is
software libre.org.bo, which has roots in La Paz, but
has people subscribed to its mailing lists from all
over Bolivia. There is less free software activity in
Bolivia than in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and
Uruguay, but Bolivia is pretty average compared to
other parts of Latin America and is certainly better
than most of Central America. There is a small
dedicated group of Bolivians who live for free
software, and they have been holding Congresos
Nacionales de Software libre for the last 7 years. The
group Ubuntu-Bolivia has made a really nice
distribution, adding parts to Ubuntu which make it
really useful for people who don't have internet
access. It comes in 2 CDs and is designed for
beginners who are afraid of the command line.
The government is starting to get on board, but it has
been mostly talk so far. For instance, the government
is building a 1000 telecenters in rural communities,
and they installed dual boot machines with Windows XP
and a Debian derivative, but when I visited the
telecenters, they were all running Windows and most of
the administrators haven't ever booted up the
GNU/Linux partition. At least they have OpenOffice
running in Windows instead of Microsoft Office. When
you talk to government officials in the Bolivian
Ministry of Education, they talk about software libre,
but most of them have never used GNU/Linux. The
vicepresidencia has a plan nacional de inclusión
digital, but software libre seemed to be added as an
afterthought. People in the government seem to think
that it is a good idea, but they aren't doing much to
promote it in general.
The situation in the universities is spotty. A lot of
the universities like la UMSA and UDABOL in La Paz
have linux users groups, but most of the university
classes are still geared toward proprietary software.
I don't think that there is a single class offered in
all of Bolivia on programming in GTK+, Qt, wxWidgets,
FLTK or any other free software programming toolkit. A
lot of places teach PHP, but I haven't heard of anyone
teaching Python or Ruby. At la UMSA, they are stuck
teaching Pascal using Borland compilers.
As for the average Bolivian computer user, most have
never seen a computer which runs anything other than
Windows and they certainly haven't seen all the cool
free software which can run in Windows like
OpenOffice, AbiWord, Gnumeric, Apache, nVu, MusikCube,
Download Manager, Bloodshed C/C++, etc.
At any rate, if you want to hang out with free
software people, my suggestion is to subscribe to the
general emailing list of www.softwarelibre.org.bo and
announce that you will be in Bolivia and would like to
meet some people.
--take care and happy travels,
Amos Batto
runasimipi.org
--- Yama Ploskonka <yama en netoso.com> wrote:
> flavio,
>
> E un honor pra mim que Voce me escreba. Muito
> obrigado.
>
> that's about it :-)
>
> Actually I reside currently in Austin, Texas.
>
> There is little or no free software happening in
> Bolivia. Microsoft was
> totally successful there in getting the country to
> become dependent
> through suspiciously easy piracy, and it is the
> country that will
> probably have the hardest time to free itself from
> those chains. The
> current government is quite connected with
> Venezuela, and it would be
> totally great if Chavez public stance for Linux were
> heard in Bolivia,
> but it hasn't happened yet. Government as a whole,
> media, etc are
> Redmont with a very few Macs. Maybe a few dozen
> Linux, but don't expect
> much more.
>
> One of the few active, organized things going on
> about FOSS in Bolivia
> is around Runasimipi.org. I love those guys, you
> could do worse than
> getting in our mailing list. I am copying this to
> the list, there might
> be other people who are actually in the ground there
> that would be
> interested to know about you and might be able to
> tell you more of what
> I cannot see from here, and hopefully correct my
> mistakes in what I am
> saying.
>
> I am sure they'd like to know more about Plumiferos,
> I was a fan in the
> days I was into Blender, multimedia and Cinelerra.
> I have dropped all
> that for this project:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bolivia
> but I hope that at some moment Luminera and other
> such will make it as
> part of it.
>
> Hope to keep in touch.
>
> Yama
>
>
> flavio wrote:
> > Hi, there, Yama,
> >
> > I saw this mail of yours on the list. My name is
> flavio, I am the
> > maintainer of the portuguese translation
> documentation and probably one
> > of the most experienced video researcher under
> free software here in
> > Brazil. I'm writing this e-mail because I saw you
> reside in Bolivia and
> > I have recently returned (jan08) from a bicycle
> trip crossing Uruguay
> > and stopping in Buenos Aires, where I got in
> contact with the guys who
> > are making Plumíferos and to a very interesting
> group residing in the
> > triple-frontier, Misiones, Argentina, where a
> friend and I gave a
> > workshop on this issue.
> >
> > Well, matter of fact I understood that travelling
> by bicycle is a very
> > rich experience. The talks we had during the trip
> opened my eyes to see
> > what is really happening in Latin America as a
> whole. I understood that
> > my second trip will have to be photography-based
> so I'm pretty much
> > under study of digital photography techniques so
> as to be able to really
> > register what is to be seen - apart from being a
> video documentarist, I
> > am also a still photographer. That second trip
> starts in La Paz,
> > probably by the end of the year.
> >
> > So the main reason I'm writing you is to ask for a
> personal statement of
> > your as to what is happening in Bolivia concerning
> the use of free
> > software, especially (if not exclusively) on the
> multimedia area. I have
> > worked for two years for the Ministry of Culture
> here and travelled
> > around - the MinC was responsible for spreading
> free software here (an
> > interesting shift, since usually people relate the
> theme to technology
> > and not culture) and I think I've had a glimpse of
> what is happening in
> > Argentina and Venezuela (the second mostly by
> reports of friends coming
> > from the World Social Forum that happened there).
> >
> > I don't want to sound bureaucratic or
> organ-dependent. Actually, the
> > story of this movement here relates way more to
> independent groups and
> > how these groups have infiltrated the organs. And,
> to me, Latin America
> > seems to be where a lot of things are happening.
> >
> > Thanks previously for any response,
> > flavio
> >
> > 2008/4/16 Yama Ploskonka <yama en netoso.com
> <mailto:yama en netoso.com>>:
> >
> > Dear Cinelerra, Luminera friends,
> >
> > It's been a most enjoyable ride, but a new
> full time job and an
> > exciting volunteering project with OLPC will
> take all the time I can
> > afford, so I'll be moving on for at least a
> while.
> >
> > I own the domains Luminerra.org and
> Luminerra.com
> >
> > Good to anyone who fronts 20 dollars US for
> both, Paypal, to cover
> > my expense (if Luminerra had been the chosen
> name, as it should :-)
> > it being connected with Cinelerra... etc, I
> planned to give the
> > domains to the project, as I announced at the
> time)
> >
> > I'll be watching the list just in case someone
> wants those domains,
> > and then I'll sign off.
> >
> > BTW, let me encourage you to help OLPC FOSS
> work. It would be great
> > Luminera eventually be part of that project.
> >
> > Yama
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bolivia
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> > Cinelerra mailing list
> > Cinelerra en skolelinux.no
> <mailto:Cinelerra en skolelinux.no>
> >
>
https://init.linpro.no/mailman/skolelinux.no/listinfo/cinelerra
> >
> >
>
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>
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>
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