Continental drift

Abstract

Although the wider open source software community does not have a particular political leaning, some politicians in Latin America embraced it because they could present open source as an extension of their own ideology. Left-leaning governments in Brazil and Venezuela have embraced Linux and other open source packages - for them, the software can prevent globalisation of IT from being a one-way process led by rich incumbents based in North America. Latin America has come to see the open source ethos as an item of basic freedom that might go some way to bridging the social divide.