Russell Beattie

Interesting post from Victor's English blog:

Spanish open source software in the Washington Post

Europe's Microsoft Alternative. That's the title of the article published today by the Washington Post. Ariana Eunjung writes about the LinEx campaign in Extremadura (Be legal. Copy Linex).

LinEx is an easy-to-install Linux distribution aimed at general users. It is funded by the local goverment of Extremadura (Spain) and the development is done by Andago, a corporate that mostly works for public administrations and have been promoting the use Linux on the server side. One of the LinEx gurus in Andago is �lvaro del Castillo, a friend I know from Barrapunto fame (the Spanish Slashdot).

The minister of education, science and technology of Extremadura, Luis Millan Vazquez, tolds in the article:

"We are the future," he said. "If Microsoft doesn't become more open and generous with its code, people will stop using it and it will disappear."

Very cool. Extremadura is actually one of Spain's poorest regions so this makes incredible economic sense for them... I've driven through it on my way to Portugal and it's very beautiful - but too far away from economic centers like Madrid, Barcelona or Lisbon.

Here's some quotes from the article:

Already, Vazquez de Miguel said, more than 10,000 desktop machines have been switched, with 100,000 more scheduled for conversion in the next year. Organizers regard the drive as a low-cost way to bring technology to the masses in the impoverished region.

"We are the future," he said. "If Microsoft doesn't become more open and generous with its code, people will stop using it and it will disappear."

As they say here in Spain "�ojal�!" ("How I wish!")

-Russ