More on Brazil's embrace of Free Software

Just to point out the obvious re: Microsoft et al's complaints that government shouldn't be choosing what software goes on the machines. The government will necessarily be deciding what software gets pre-installed on the machines. No one is seriously suggesting they can offer every possible option. (AmigaOS, for example?)

And there's nothing to stop Microsoft coming up with a cheap CD of software which users can install over the free software they get on their machine, once they get it home.

But this isn't what MS want. They want to turn the Brazilian government into their retail channel by making the government do the pre-installation. That's got nothing to do with a free market for software, and everything to do with the corporation trying to co-opt government to bias the market.