[ox-en] Free Software and social movements in South America
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:55:10 +0100
Hi!
This weekend I attended a local conference in the town of Biella
(Northwestern Italy). Among other things it was a nice opportunity to
meet some Hipatia [http://www.hipatia.info/] people there.
According to some talks which have been given there in South America
there is some rather strong connection between (classical) social
movements and Free Software. I heard of this before but actually I
didn't know how strong this seems to be.
Now this is something which confuses me a bit because from what I see
for instance in Europe there is no connection between (classical)
social movements and Free Software. There are also more theoretical
reasons why I think to no such connection is more likely than to have
one.
In other words: An interesting phenomenon I'd really like to consider
in detail. May be Oekonux and other interested parties like Hipatia
can gain some useful insights by this.
To start the discourse I have some questions which I think would be
interesting to start with.
* What kind of connection is there between social movements and Free
Software exactly? What is the nature of this connection? How strong
is it really?
* Why in contrast is there no strong connection between Free Software
and social movements in more industrialized countries?
* What are the goals of these social movements and how does Free
Software help these? How can Free Software help?
* Do these movements help Free Software? Can they help? If so: How?
* What are commonalities and differences between Free Software and
social movements?
* Can this phenomenon of the strong connection between Free Software
and social movements in South America be compared to other
phenomenons happening around Free Software?
* Does this phenomenon relate to the things we learned about Free
Culture in South America / Brazil and if so how?
I really want to invite the Hipatia people to join this discussion
because as far as I understood this connection is a big topic for
them. @Graham/Juan Carlos: Could you please help with this? As an
exception: Would cross-posting between the lists make sense?
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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