BBC News has an article describing Brazil's GNU/Linux Free Cybercafes. Two and one-half years ago there were about three million people in Sao Paulo without any access to computers. Now, about 250,000 people are using the nearly 100 net cafes.
Since last year, all the centres have been using the free operating system GNU/Linux.The government has plans within the next few months to buy 10,000 more computers for schools. Let's hope this doesn't turn out like the metric system. When the rest of the world is running Free Software, hopefully the U.S. will get on board too. Posted by Brian at December 4, 2003 11:15 AM | TrackBack"The government is the biggest software buyer," said Ms Tibirica. "We can save a lot of public money using the free software solution."
She pointed out that the free software has many advantages: no need to pay for licences and it is possible to use a simpler version of the computer, with one server and several thin clients - computers without hard disks.
These computers, according to Ms Tibirica, cost a quarter of the price of a machine and have reduced maintenance costs.