Throughout Latin America, free software matters for many countries and people, who have chosen to use these resources for use in their public administration, as well as to find solutions for other challenges. For example in Cuba, the free software movement has helped with sustainable development. The Ecuadorian government has put forth public policies that have embraced Free Software, similar to what another regional leader in free software and free culture, Brazil.

On April 24, 2010, many promoters and users of free software in Latin American celebrated with a party called FLISOL2010, as explained by Leo:

FLISOL is the Latin American Free Software Installation Festival, an event organized by the Latin American free software community since 2005. FLISOL takes place on the fourth Saturday of April every year. The sixth edition of FLISOL was celebrated last weekend, on April 24, 2010. Today, FLISOL is undoubtedly the biggest FOSS event in Latin America and maybe even the biggest single installfest on the planet. The 2010 edition of FLISOL was organized simultaneously in 20 countries and 250 cities all over Latin America and, for the first time, in Europe (three local events in Spain).

Each and every celebration across the region is unique. For example, in Antigua, Guatemala, they broke a Piñata to celebrate free software, which was only one of the activities organized by Antigualug, a group of Linux users.

Celebrating with Piñatas used with permission, no rights reserved.

The FLISOL celebrations in Caracas, Venezuela combined the activities with live music [es].

Nicaragua celebrated with communities in Estelí, Granada, and Managua with its self-proclaimed “Installers Rock-Stars Team”.  Central American communities are  joining efforts to integrate Free software communities as you can read in the Free software users from Central America Planet.

Uruguay celebrated by installing Fedora, in Mexico the activity took place in different locations where organizers installed free software on the computers of many new users, while 8 Chilean cities hosted FLISOL2010 celebrations. Cuba also hosted simultaneous activities in different localities from Havana to Matanzas.

Flisol 2010- Caracas, Venezuela by Kamijacker under a CC NC SA license

Finally, Mozilla Colombia and OpenBSD in Medellin participated in events held in Colombia and a 3-city FLISOL marathon took place in San Cristóbal, Cúcuta, and Pamplona.

This is just a small window to show you how free software in Latin America created a network of interconnected youth, from each and every social, political and ethnic background, collaborating and innovating together. A “shared platform” promoting a “shared culture”, for more information and connections you can read in the Latin American Free Software Planet [es].