open source

20
May
2026
Free Software in Brazilian Government: Current State and How It Works

Free Software in Brazilian Government: Current State and How It Works

Free Software in Brazilian Government: Current State and How It Works

Brazilian public agencies have used free software for over fifteen years. You will find it in desktops, servers, and internal tools across federal, state, and municipal levels. The picture is uneven: some offices run almost entirely on open source stacks while others still mix proprietary licenses.

Adoption Snapshot

Recent surveys from the federal data-processing agency show roughly 40 percent of ministries already run LibreOffice on staff machines. Several states report higher numbers. Rio Grande do Sul and Pernambuco keep large municipal networks on Linux distributions.

  • Most common stack: Linux desktops, PostgreSQL databases, and Apache web servers.
  • Education platforms: Many state secretariats rely on Moodle and LibreOffice for schools.
  • Procurement portals: Several now publish code under public repositories on GitHub or GitLab instances hosted by the government itself.

Legal Framework

Decree 10.947 from 2022 requires federal bodies to prefer open-source solutions when they meet functional needs. State laws in São Paulo and Minas Gerais add similar preferences for public tenders. You must document why a proprietary option wins if a free alternative exists.

Examples from Daily Operations

The Federal Revenue Service replaced its internal document system with an open-source platform based on OnlyOffice. City halls in Porto Alegre run citizen service kiosks on a custom Linux image with Firefox and a simple ticket app. The Ministry of Health keeps a national vaccination database on PostgreSQL and Python scripts maintained by its own team.

Verification Checklist

  1. Confirm the software license appears on the Free Software Foundation list or the Open Source Initiative list.
  2. Check whether source code is available in a public repository without login barriers.
  3. Review the last commit date and number of active contributors to gauge maintenance.
  4. Ask vendors for a bill of materials that lists every component and its license.
  5. Test export of data in open formats such as ODF, CSV, or JSON before signing any contract.

Common Hurdles Teams Report

Issue Typical Fix
Legacy systems that only run on Windows Virtual machines or Wine for the few apps that cannot be replaced
Staff resistance to new interfaces Short internal workshops using real agency files
Cloud contracts that lock data Negotiate data-portability clauses before renewal
Lack of local support companies Build internal teams or join existing public-sector user groups
Posted by admin in Community & Culture, 0 comments
06
Apr
2026
Privacy Tools Every Brazilian Activist Should Know

Privacy Tools Every Brazilian Activist Should Know

Privacy Tools Every Brazilian Activist Should Know

If you organize actions or share sensitive plans, start with these three tools. They work on phones and computers common in Brazil and require little setup.

Secure your chats

WhatsApp logs everything to Meta servers. Switch group planning to Signal instead.

  1. Download Signal from the official site or app store on your phone.
  2. Register with your number, then enable disappearing messages for each chat.
  3. Turn on the screen lock inside Signal settings so others cannot open the app without your PIN.
  4. Invite the rest of your group one by one so everyone moves over at the same time.

Real case: A São Paulo collective used Signal voice notes with five-second deletion during the 2023 land rights actions. Police seized one phone but found nothing readable after the timer ran out.

  • Check daily that your security number matches your contacts.
  • Never forward Signal messages to WhatsApp.
  • Use the note-to-self feature for quick reminders that stay only on your device.

Hide your browsing and files

Public Wi-Fi at protests and home connections can be monitored. Combine Tor Browser with a simple password manager.

Tool When to use Quick start
Tor Browser Access blocked sites or read reports without your ISP seeing the address. Download from torproject.org, open it, and type the site you need.
KeePassXC Store logins for activist email or cloud folders. Install the app, create one strong master password, then save each new account inside it.

Carry a small USB with the portable version of Tor so you can plug it into any borrowed computer. Delete browser history after each session if you must use Chrome. Test the setup once at home before you rely on it during an action.

Posted by admin in Guides & Tutorials, 0 comments
20
Feb
2026
Securing Your Communications: GNU/Linux and Encryption

Securing Your Communications: GNU/Linux and Encryption

Securing Your Communications: GNU/Linux and Encryption

Encryption on GNU/Linux keeps your messages and files private. You can start with tools already in most distros and add a couple more when needed.

Generate your GPG key

Most people use GnuPG for email and file signing. Run this in a terminal:

gpg --full-generate-key
  1. Choose RSA and RSA (default).
  2. Set key size to 4096.
  3. Pick an expiration date you can manage, such as two years.
  4. Enter your real name and email exactly as you use them.
  5. Set a strong passphrase and store it in a password manager.

Encrypt email with Thunderbird

Thunderbird handles GPG out of the box once you install the Enigmail extension or use the built-in OpenPGP support in recent versions.

  • Import your key: Account Settings → End-to-End Encryption → Add Key.
  • Send an encrypted test message to yourself first.
  • Ask a contact for their public key and add it to your keyring with gpg --import.

Replies stay encrypted only if both sides have each other’s keys.

Encrypt files before sending

Use age for simple file encryption when you do not need the full GPG feature set.

age -r [email protected] -o file.txt.age file.txt

The recipient decrypts with their private key:

age -d -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 -o file.txt file.txt.age

age works well for sharing documents over email or cloud storage that you do not fully trust.

Choose chat apps with real encryption

Signal Desktop runs cleanly on GNU/Linux and uses the same protocol as the phone app.

App Protocol Notes
Signal Signal Protocol Default E2E, works on most distros
Element Matrix Self-host option, good for teams
Session Oxen No phone number required

Install from your package manager or Flatpak to keep the app updated automatically.

Back up and protect your keys

Copy your private key to an offline USB drive you keep in a safe place:

gpg --export-secret-keys --armor [email protected] > backup.asc

Never store the backup on any machine connected to the internet. Test restore once a year so you know the passphrase still works.

Posted by admin in Guides & Tutorials, 0 comments
16
Dec
2025
Understanding Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet and Free Software

Understanding Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet and Free Software

Understanding Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet and Free Software

Marco Civil sets clear rules on privacy, net neutrality, and data handling for services in Brazil. When you build or run free software projects that touch Brazilian users or servers, these rules shape how you collect, store, and share data.

Quick orientation for free software teams

Start here if your project accepts Brazilian users or runs servers inside the country. The law requires you to publish clear terms on data use, respect net neutrality when routing traffic, and hand data to authorities only under specific court orders.

  • Publish terms in Portuguese when your service targets Brazil.
  • Log only what you need and delete it once the legal window closes.
  • Never throttle or prioritize traffic on your own network.

Core rules that matter for open source projects

Marco Civil protects users’ privacy and requires companies to keep connection logs for one year and access logs for six months. Free software projects that act as intermediaries fall under these duties once they reach a certain scale.

Article 15 and Article 17 spell out when a judge can request logs. You stay safe by keeping logs minimal and storing them in Brazil if the service is aimed at local users.

Steps to check your project

  1. Map where user data is stored and who can access it.
  2. Review your license text for any clauses that conflict with Brazilian data requests.
  3. Add a privacy section to your README that names the legal basis for each data point you collect.
  4. Test your log deletion routine against the six-month and one-year limits.
  5. Ask a Brazilian lawyer to review the final terms before you launch to local users.

Real situations and how teams handled them

Scenario What changed
A Brazilian university runs a Mastodon instance They added a clear log retention notice and stopped collecting IP addresses after 30 days.
An open source chat app gains Brazilian users Developers moved the main server to São Paulo and published terms in Portuguese.
A Git hosting platform receives a court order They released only the court-ordered logs and notified affected users within the required time.

Where to look next

Read the full text of Law 12.965 on the Planalto site. Check the CGI.br guidelines for intermediaries. Join the Brazilian free software mailing lists to see how other maintainers updated their infrastructure after the 2016 regulations came out.

Posted by admin in Software & Tools, 0 comments
09
Oct
2025
LibreOffice for Portuguese Speakers

LibreOffice for Portuguese Speakers

LibreOffice for Portuguese Speakers

LibreOffice replaces Microsoft Office with a free toolkit that handles text, spreadsheets, and slides. Portuguese speakers get full language support right away, so menus, spelling, and date formats match what you already use.

Download the installer from the official site, run it, and the whole suite lands on your machine in under ten minutes on most Windows or Linux systems.

Install and set Portuguese

  1. Visit libreoffice.org and click the big download button for your operating system.
  2. Run the file once it finishes. Accept the defaults and let it finish.
  3. Open any program, such as Writer. Go to Tools, then Options, then Language Settings, then Languages.
  4. Pick Portuguese (Brazil) or Portuguese (Portugal) from the drop-downs for user interface, locale, and default currency.
  5. Restart the program so the menus switch over.

After these steps, new documents start with Portuguese spelling and A4 paper by default.

Start with Writer and Calc

Writer handles letters and reports. Open it, type a short note, press Ctrl+S to save as .odt or export to .docx for colleagues who still use Word. The file opens on their side without layout surprises.

Calc works for budgets and lists. Enter numbers in the first column, add a formula like =SUM(A1:A10) in the cell below, and the total updates as you change values. Save the sheet as .ods or export it to .xlsx when you need to share it.

Program Typical use Example file you create
Writer Letters, contracts, articles Reunião notes saved as .odt
Calc Budgets, inventories Monthly expenses list with formulas

Keep both programs open at once. Copy a table from Calc and paste it straight into Writer when you need the numbers inside a report.

Posted by admin in Community & Culture, 0 comments
13
Jun
2025
Free Software in the Brazilian Judiciary: Case Studies

Free Software in the Brazilian Judiciary: Case Studies

Free Software in the Brazilian Judiciary: Case Studies

What free software changes in daily court operations

You see immediate differences once a court moves away from proprietary licenses. Staff no longer wait for approval to install a PDF reader or update a browser. Documents open in the same format across departments without extra plug-ins.

  • LibreOffice replaces paid office suites and handles the same .docx and .odt filings used in federal courts.
  • Firefox or Chromium serves as the default browser for the e-process systems run by the CNJ.
  • Local IT teams gain the ability to script routine tasks instead of opening support tickets with vendors.

TRF4 reported lower annual license costs within the first year after the switch. The money stayed inside the budget for hardware upgrades.

TRF4 migration to LibreOffice

The regional federal court in Porto Alegre began testing LibreOffice in 2015 on a single floor. Within eight months every workstation used it for internal memos and external filings.

Key points from their rollout:

  • They kept the existing document templates and only adjusted macro buttons that already existed in the old suite.
  • Training consisted of two-hour sessions focused on the three menus most used by clerks.
  • One IT staff member handled the help desk for the first month; call volume dropped after week three.

Other courts copied the same pattern. TJSC later adopted the same image and training outline.

Steps other courts followed after TRF4

  1. Audit current licenses and list every machine still tied to paid software.
  2. Pick one pilot department that handles mostly text documents and run it for sixty days.
  3. Measure time spent opening files and printing before and after the change.
  4. Document the three or four file types that caused problems and create a short internal wiki page for each.
  5. Roll out to the next department only after the pilot team signs off.

Courts that skipped the pilot step usually faced resistance when macros failed on the first day. Those that kept the pilot small fixed issues before they spread.

Posted by admin in Guides & Tutorials, 0 comments