Today, Brasil is a great example with regards to Free Software use and
adoption, from the regular user to the Federal Government. Inside this
adoption process, OpenOffice.org is one of the main tools, althought, there
is a particular aspect in its community development in the country.
In Brasil, the project exists since 2001 and presented various problems,
from localization tasks to the trademark, creating a possible trap to our
users and developers. "Open Office" is a trademark registered in
1996, on the National Office of Trademarks and Patents, and considering
a legal position, it's not possible to use this name or derivated versions.
The Brasilian Community generated critical mass and a support structure
for a number of users estimated in more than 7 million users, and with the
trademark problem, preventive measures were taken to ensure the ongoing works,
like the creation of a NGO called BrOffice.org, with the goal to collect resources
to invest in infrastructure and developers in our country, both to OpenOffice.org
and related projects, and beyond, to invest in projects that fights against
digital and social exclusion.
Today, Brasilian Community, protected by the BrOffice.org trademark, keeps
promoting and expanding the user base, encouraging new developers and projects,
technology, economicanl and cultural fixation.
Claudio Ferreira Filho, graduating student in Information
System, and work with IT since 1988, and with Linux since 1994. In opensource
world, initiated in 2001 with localization of OpenOffice.org for brazilian
portuguese, and created the brazilian communities of Mozilla and PostgreSQL.
Today, work into Mato Grosso's State Treasury Department