A Visit With the Bolivarian Revolution

The third International Forum on Free Knowledge brought together many groups and individuals interested in the development of free software worldwide to the city of Maracaibo. One reason Venezuela choose to host this event is because starting in January, their new free software law, directive 3.390, comes into effect, which mandates all government agencies to migrate to free software over a two year period. I was invited to speak about Telephonia Libre; the use of free software in telecommunications.

While my travel had been planned a number of weeks in advance, as with all travel I have experienced in Latin America, this turned out to be on a different concept of time. I did not hear back at all from Venezuela until the weekend before departure, but this is actually not that remarkable. By Monday the 21st, I knew I would arrive in Maracaibo the next day, and return to the U.S. on the 29th. That much was confirmed to me by Ambar Rodriguez, who works for Conatel, which is their state telephone regulatory agency. I had a chance to speak with Ambar over the weekend prior, but I still did not know which airport I would departing from, or even what airlines I would be flying until Monday morning.

To understand the blissful attitude I had taken, one must know this. I recall one time I was staying with a family in San Paulo, where we were scheduled to take a flight to Porto Alegre. The airport was across town, and our departure time was about a half hour away when we finally wandered out to the car. We did not even travel particularly in a hurry. Yet somehow, in the twisted and bizarre time warp that is Brazil, we arrived on time for our flight anyway, and I never figured that out either. Time often has a very different meaning in Latin America.

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