In 2008 I visited Portugal for a conference in Lisbon and to advocate the use and development of OOo there. I met with government ministers, including those involved in education and culture. The issue was that the Magellan system that was to be installed in education netbooks boot either into Windows or Linux, and OOo was only being put on the Linux partition. This, I thought, was worse than crazy: it effectively placed one of the most valuable tools a student would have--OpenOffice.org, in Portuguese--in a domain that he or she would very likely access only seldom if at all.
I insisted that OOo be included in the Windows partition, too, alongside what was already to be put there, MSFT's Office. Of course, nothing was done. But no surprise: The logic of what gets installed has nothing to with what is best for the country, citizen, people. It has to do with money and appearance. So, in this case, I have no doubt that in exchange for this installation, the responsible politicians and technocrats received generous investments in their area. Not a bribe, but, honestly, what's the difference?
Call it systemic corruption. Laws are put in place to enable the legal promotion of "special interests," and in a situation or context like this, one does not need at all any kind of under the table arrangement. One need only to exploit the laws and situation in place.
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