Speaking in terms of why Free/Open source software is so beneficial to the developing world, he said:

"The cause is not hard to see: according to the United States, Brazil, for example, is a pirate nation. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (which, its name notwithstanding, represents U.S. copyright interests) estimates that this piracy cost United States copyright industries close to $1 billion last year. Consequently, the U.S. has begun to put pressure on Brazil. That pressure has produced an unsurprising reaction against the stuff that makes it possible for Brazil to be a pirate nation--proprietary code and proprietary culture.

For there's another way to reckon the cost of the proprietary. According to the Brazilian government, for example, Brazil sends close to $1 billion to the north each year just to pay for software licenses. So as the Brazilians see it, tongue firmly in cheek, this proprietary stuff is a bad thing all around--costing the U.S. $1 billion, and Brazil $1 billion as well.

The obvious solution is to dump the proprietary stuff. So the Brazilian government is pushing itself and the nation to substitute free software for proprietary software. As one member of the government said during a speech at the World Social Forum, "We're against software piracy. We believe Microsoft's rights should be respected. And the simplest way to respect their rights is for Brazilians everywhere to switch to free software."

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