Chile: A Controversial Agreement with Microsoft · Global Voices
Rosario Lizana

There is a feeling among Chilean bloggers that the agreement signed between the Economy Minister, Alejandro Ferreiro and Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer de Microsoft Corporation on May 9th is not good for Chile. The title of this post written by Christian in elfrancotirador [ES]  explains the situation in a simple way:
“Chicos, ¿qué me dirían si les cuento que desde hoy, los 15 millones de chilenos (todos) vamos a ser usuarios de Microsoft… lo queramos o no. Lo imaginé.
¿Y qué tal si agrego al paquete que, en adelante, realizar cualquier trámite estatal o municipal requerirá el uso de software Microsoft? Pero no nos conformemos. Sumen que toda la educación chilena será ejecutada sobre plataformas Microsoft y que -no conforme con eso- cada estudiante matriculado de nuestro país se convertirá en “cliente preferencial” de la empresa.”
Guys: what would you say if I told you that starting today that the 15 million of Chileans will (all) be users of Microsoft, even if we wanted to or not?  That's what I thought.
And, what if I added, that from now on, to make any state or municipal transaction will require the use of Microsoft software? Don’t be content with this beacause in addition, the entire Chilean education system will be carried out through the Microsoft platform-and that's not it, but every registered student of our country will turn into a “preferential client” of the company.
Microsoft buying Chilean citizen’s information?
Carlos in diabloendetalles [ES] give us some extract of the agreement (ES):
The common creation of a “space” where the citizens have access to all the relevant notification information and interaction with the public institutions
Microsoft commits to supply 15 million users the platform Live (mail, Messenger, Spaces and mobile) for the mail service, instant communication, blogs and the access to them from mobiles for free. Microsoft agrees to assume the operational cost and administration of the infrastructure associated.
For many, this agreement continues to get worse and worse. The Economy Ministry also commits to give the information from the Internal Revenue Service to charge the citizens’ accounts. As Fayerwayer [ES] explains, Microsoft also commits to teach all the Chileans between 18 and 35 to use Windows, Word, Explorer and the rest of the Microsoft platform.
No a usar un computador, no a usar un procesador de texto, no a navegar la web, sino más bien a utilizar sus productos y únicamente sus productos — ¡gracias Microsoft!
Not to use a computer, not to use a data processor, not to use the web, rather only use their products and only their products- Thank you Microsoft!
Other view of the agreement is from Rodrigo Walker [ES], that the agreement should have been done through a public bidding, but which also ruled out the chance of free software.
Blogger reactions didn't wait, “The Front of Digital Liberation” [ES] is a movement that was created to alert, inform and report on all the digital development decisions. This initiative was created as a reaction of the agreement with Microsoft. Bloggers can support this initiative that has all ready 738 signatures.
To track the forums discussion (all in Spanish): Tarreo and Atina Chile