The director of the Brazilian government's national IT Institute, Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, has issued a short press release commenting on legal action taken against him by Microsoft, regarding comments made by him about their business practices. In the press release he says "the purchase of software that preserves the values of openness and freedom is, for the Brazilian government, a subject unavoidably connected to the democratic principle. And because it has been a long and painful path to reach our current democratic developmental stage in this country, we will not give up in our fight.... the future is free."
The original press release is available at ITI.br (in Portuguese), with a translation into English by Pablo Lorenzzoni at Propus.com.br. The Brazilian Free Software organization, Projeto Software Livre Brasil, is organizing petitions in support at Petitiononline.com (english version).
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