Lena Zúñiga

During our research on Free Software communities in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2005 and 2006, I had the chance to work with partner organizations in 6 different countries of the region. In Argentina we worked with several different Free Software groups. At the time there were very different ideas of what a Free Software user group would look like. Would it have a political role, an advocacy role, an educational role? Would it be a support desk for new users, a forum for entrepreneurs? Many of these questions were already present all over LAC, and they were quite apparent in the final drafting of the book and final reports.

My partner in Argentina was SOLAR (Software Libre Argentina). This group is definitively about Free Software, but they have a clear mandate oriented to human rights and social justice. Their principles are explicit about non-discrimination, sustainability, solidarity and democratic participation.

Among other activities, Solar educates users (institutions and individuals) on the use of Free Software, and endorses spaces for discussion, from conceptual issues of free culture to a platform for technical support. They also help organize CRISOL, a strategic discussion event with topics specifically adapted to the needs of different provinces of the country. These events are usually organized with local Free Software groups and mostly put together by volunteers. This year the event was in Formosa and the topic was Free Software for Education and Social Inclusion.

In this event government representatives, local activists and FLOSS geeks got together to discuss the use of free software in the local e-government initiative. There was a Free seed exchange (seeds free from patents and pesticides). There was a talk about using free software for digital inclusion and fighting discrimination, and a debate over free software in local education initiatives. There were presentations by a workers cooperative that offers free software services and a Film production collective working with free software and open content licenses. Sounds amazing, right? Have a look at the chronicle (in Spanish). If you can read Spanish I also recommend to take a look at some of their other projects.