[seul-edu] Update on the Brazilian FUST situation

[Felipe Bergo <bergo@seul.org>]

Some weeks ago it was posted here an article about the situation where
brazilian government agency Anatel was running a buying process to
populate schools with computers and it practically excluded any
possibility for Linux.

Good things are happening, it seems (all links are news items in
portuguese):

Sep 6 - Anatel admite rever licitação da internet escolar
(Anatel admits reviewing school internet buying process)
http://www.computerworld.com.br/templ_textos/noticias.asp?id=14491

Sep 5 - Conectiva vai à justiça contra o FUST
(COnectiva goes to Justice against FUST)
http://www.computerworld.com.br/templ_textos/noticias.asp?id=14447

Aug 31 - Anatel suspende licitação da Internet escolar
(Anatel suspends school internet buying process)
http://www.computerworld.com.br/templ_textos/noticias.asp?id=14331

Quick resume: the process has been temporalily suspended by the justice.
Political parties, state governments, Universities and Conectiva are
demanding changes in the requirements text (which originally required that
all class A and B computers used Windows Me)

And due to a political budget issue, the actual buy date has been
postponed from Dec 31 2001 to Feb 28 2002 (but the licitation where the
government chooses what will be bought from who will happen before that,
but the date hasn't been set yet [it depends on the approval od the new
requirements text]).

The whole process is for buying 290000 PCs, 16000 servers and internet
connection infrastructure for 13000 schools benefitting about 7 million
students. It affects only schools with 600+ students.

Microsoft, Computer Manufacturers (Dell, Itautec) and related suppliers
(AMD) all complained all over the last week about the postponing of the
buying.

I'm quite happy to see my tax money not going to Microsoft so soon. I'll
post news when (and if) the new requirements are defined.

.........................................................................
Felipe Paulo Guazzi Bergo - Free Software Developer (bergo@seul.org)
Personal Info and GPG Public Key: http://www.advogato.org/person/khazad
Campinas - SP - Brazil - Earth

* Mainframe: the biggest PC peripheral available.