I spent the entire last week in Brasilia, participating in the ODF Workshop and CONSEGI 2009 and I would like to share with you here some things that I saw, heard and spoke there.The ODF Workshop 2009 lasted one and a half days (25 and 26 August) and with average attendance over 40 people on each day, coming from 13 countries (most of the international audience was composed by governmental IT managers and public policy makers in their countries).

The first day of the Workshop was held in the Itamaraty Palace (Ministry of Foreign Relations) and we were honored to have Minister Celso Amorim at the opening ceremony. It was a day of excellent presentations, which showed us the current status of adoption of ODF, open standards and also free software in various governments. I had the opportunity to present there a bit about the history of the ODF, and present the main new features of version 1.2 of the standard, currently under development at OASIS.

Perhaps the highlight of the first day of the event was the intense (and interesting) debate that we got a after a presentation made by my dear friend Nagarjuna, from Free Software Foundation India. Briefly, Nagarjuna argued that it’s necessary to consider the use of proprietary software and standards a crime, and also argued that we need a stronger reaction against proprietary technologies (strong, not aggressive, and used the example of civil disobedience from Gandhi) .

After his presentation, the debate was basically done by a group that agrees that we need a stronger stance against proprietary technologies and the group that believes that we must continue addressing the issue more calmly … and we had almost two hours of debate, perhaps the most interesting I’ve ever attended.

We agreed, among other things, that it is important to have this topic discussed and understood by executives and decision makers in governments and businesses, and that the discussions on the strategic levels of the organizations are essential for build the proper support on operational levels.

It was great to hear both sides, listen to good and bad experiences (from both sides), and the end, each one left the room with something to think bout… and according to the conversations I had in the following days, many people really thought about it!

It took me a few days to publish this post because I thought a lot about the debate, and would like to share with you my conclusions: Nagarjuna is right.

The best definition I know about insanity is “keep doing what we always do, and expect things to change.” Unfortunately most of us in the community of open standards and free software, by the nature of extreme freedom in our convictions, are acting with insanity.

I believe that the time to accept and live peacefully with the proprietary world is over, and if we continue with the same tolerant attitude, we will get nowhere. It has been many years (not to say decades) that we are explaining and showing everyone that a new paradigm of technological and cultural development is possible, but we still too easily accepting some things … (in other words, we keep doing everything the same way…).

Can I give you my own case as an example. Everyone knows what I work and promote the ODF, but there are people who still sending me documents in proprietary formats, and sometimes, based on the politeness I accept those documents… is it insane or not ?

I decided that, from now on, a document in a proprietary format that came to my hands will have two possible destinations: The trash or the sender… Only with that, the people I know will truly learn, at least, to respect my choice to only use an open standard … It’s not a question of radicalization, because for many years I’d talked about ODF even to the dogs I see on the streets… It’s a matter of respect.

Actually I already have a position like this in the software field, because on the past years I only use free software and once I’ve made my choice clear to everybody, it’s very rare to have someone commenting with me about a proprietary software.

As Gandhi once said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world,” and there are times when we need to pass from the beautiful speech to the effective practice. Again I repeat that for me it isn’t a radicalization, it’s simply a matter of respect … we talked and have been tolerant for too long.

The second day of the ODF Workshop was held inside the CONSEGI, an e-government and free software event organized by the Brazilian government that grows every year. In this second day, participation in the Workshop was open to all CONSEGI attendants and I was surprised by the number of CONSEGI’s attendants who also participated in the Workshop. Those who participated, had the opportunity to see a little more about what is being done about open standards, free software and ODF in three countries: Brazil, Ecuador and Cuba. They also watched the delivery of the ODF Award to Vitório Furusho.

In summary, the Workshop was excellent and the experiences and information exchange that we had there was essential. I was also extremely pleased to see that many of the countries that participated in the event are developing countries, and this is a very clear message to whoever want to listen: Open Standards and Free Software are part of our development agendas. It is not a technological or ideological decision, but a question of sovereignty.

To illustrate what is ODF in Brazil today, it is worth highlighting some numbers presented during the Workshop (by Fabiano, from Celepar during the presentation of the Parana Case and from Paulo Maia, the author of the Brasilia Protocol’s idea). The current estimate is that we have over 1.5 million users of ODF only in governments in Brazil, and with the new signatures to the Brasilia Protocol, we will overcome the barrier of 2 million before the end of this year.

The CONSEGI this year was better than last year’s edition and only thing I’m pretty sure is that the next year CONSEGI will be even better. The people from CONSEGI organization really impressed me with the dedication, professionalism and passion with which they worked in the event (more than 3.700 attendants).
The CONSEGI is a rare opportunity where you can witness an open and frank debate about public policy and technology, with the participation of representatives from various governments (and I’m talking about representatives of the Presidency of the Republic and ministries). It’s really gratifying to participate in those discussions.

As Latin American and free software and open standards militant, I am very proud to see how those things are on the technological development agenda of in most Latin American countries, and has also been a focal point through which excellent partnerships and technological cooperation begin to give solid results. It’s excellent to be part of an historical moment like this.

The CONSEGI still surprised me by the quantity (and quality) of talks and discussions on free culture, especially about a Brazilian movement called “Música Para Baixar” - something like “Music To Download” - (affectionately called “The new MPB) which makes me really believe that the culture of cooperation will prevail and pervade the society.

I was also surprised by the Brasilia Protocol signing ceremony, which was held during the CONSEGI. On this ceremony, the Protocol’s signature was open to private companies, academia and organizations. We now have over 44 signatures in the protocol and I was surprised by the number of companies that decided to sign the protocol, during the signing ceremony.

Talking about the Brasilia Protocol, during the CONSEGI’s opening ceremony, in the presence of President Lula, the representatives of Brazilian Army and Navy signed the Protocol. The Brazilian Air Force had already signed the protocol last year and now, the three Brazilian armed forces use ODF!

Talking about President Lula, I had the honor to meet him personally, minutes before the CONSEGI’s opening ceremony and I’m surprised by what I discovered: President Lula knows what is ODF is and its importance for our country

I would like to end this post by thanking SERPRO, Caixa Econômica Federal and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for helping with the organization and execution of the ODF Workshop. Without your help, this wouldn’t be possible.

I am also grateful for the company and partnership of Marino Marcich, which has published his own impressions of the ODF Workshop here. It was great to spend a few days with Marino, discussing what we’ve done together and what we’ll do in the coming years.

To get an idea of the success of ODF Workshop among its participants, we have offers to host the workshops in 2010 and 2011 and I have no doubt that those will be great events!

The presentations made at the ODF Workshop will be published here.