Fórum Internacional Software Livre
It was considered one of the world's largest free software events, harboring technical, political and social debates in an integrated way.
The project's goals were: After much difficulty and many delays, the first FISL happened on 4–5 May 2000 in the Noble Hall of UFRGS (Rio Grande do Sul Federal University).
[5] The 12th edition of the International Free Software Forum happened from June, 29 to July, 2, in 2011 and the main subject was "Net Neutrality", because it is believed that content must be equally accessible to every person with no interferences in online traffic.
Representatives of both RS and national public sector attend fisl every year, and strengthen their commitment to free software.
In this edition, fisl hosted the presence of the Minister of Science and Technology Aloisio Mercadante, the RS Governor Tarso Genro and the Porto Alegre Mayor José fortunati, the President of the Federal Data Processing Service, Marcos Mazoni, the Manager of Technical Innovations of the Ministry of Planning Corinto Meffe, the Secretary of Logistics and IT of the Ministry of Planning, Delfino Natal de Souza, the President of the RS Data Processing Company (Procergs), Carlson Aquistapasse, the President of the Data Processing Company of Porto Alegre, (PROCEMPA), André Imar Kulczynski, federal deputies Paulo Pimenta and Manuela d'Ávila, besides other authorities.
Public Hearing – the Minister of Science and Technology, Aloizio Mercadante participated in a public hearing with fisl´ organizers, people from the Hacker Transparency movement, developers from Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware and ODF among other groups, talking about how hackers can help increase government's transparency and technological development.
FISL12 in numbers Participants: 6.914 Brazilian states: 25 +Federal district Countries: 13 Users groups: 40 Convoys: 58 Tracks: 21 Proposals submissions: 581 Speeches: 352 Speakers: 521 Total traffic: 391 GB Wireless: 104 GB Traffic peak: 151 Mbit/s Max simultaneous hosts: 267 Page views: 311.922 Sponsors: 28 Solutions showed: 21 Supporters: 6 Exhibitors: 26 Organization team people: 217 [6] This editions happened from 21 to 24 July 2010.
It hosted a total of 7.511 participants which circulated between the Free Solutions and Business Fair and fisl itself, attending speeches, workshops and debates.
Besides the record number of participants, 84 people helped build the largest free software event in Latin America together with organization teams.
[7] This edition happened from 24 to 27, June, 2009, with names such as Jon "maddog" Hall, Peter Sunde, creator of the famous torrent sharing site The Pirate Bay.
The picture of President Lula hugging Peter Sunde shot by Mariel Zasso was circulated in blogs around the world.
[7] OBS: In this year the event's name in form of versions was abandoned, and a normal running number scheme was adopted.
It became acknowledged by the presence of companies such as Sun Microsystems, Google and Intel and of personalities such as Linux International's Jon "maddog" Hall and Louis Suarez-Potts from OpenOffice.org.
19 mobilizing activities to fisl 8.0 were carried on, among free software events, speeches, promotions, courses and institutional visits, between various Brazilian cities.
In the panel "Digital Communication and the Building of the Commons: viral networks, open spectra and the new ways of regulation" the sociologist Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, journalist Gustavo Gindre and Intervozes member João Brant and Jon "maddog" Hall debated the deep changes that digital technologies impose to the telecommunications sector.
It is important to remark the discussions about digital inclusion, technical speeches about software usage and community meetings about communication and popular participation.
The official opening ceremony was led by the Governor of Rio Grande do Sul and had the attendance of the President of the RS Deputy Assembly, Unesco, Mayors, Universities and NGO's.
