Microsoft's Shared Source will be available in Brazilian Universities. The announcement, made during an audience between Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer and Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso, have brought about a bunch of protests from Brazilian Linux Community.

Microsoft's Shared Source Program will be available to Brazilian universities. This commitment was signed yesterday, during an audience between Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer and Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso in Brasilia, capital of Brazil.

Eight universities are expected to have access to Redmond giant's softwares while changing their specifications according to the institutions' needs. "I am glad that we are the first country in Latin America that are able to use this kind of technology", says Cardoso.

This is not the first pro-MS action by president Cardoso, who will be out next year, when presidential polls will be take place. The telecom agency Anatel has recently acquired 200,000 computers including proprietary softwares. Free Softwares had no chance here.

For that matter, Brazilian linuxers have launched an petition that call for people in order to ask for cancellation of Agency's decision. And more than 2,000 subscriptions have been already made.

"This acquisition hinders legal competition from providers and operators. It also stops high-level offerings in IT market", says Brazilian Congressman Walter Pinheiro, who is the author of Brazilian Free Software Law.

The Brazilian Free Software Law are being voted in the National Congress, and it discusses the widespread adoption of free softwares in Brazilian public administration.

Indeed, Brazilian Government does not included Linux or another Open Source operating systems in the "Popular PC" project, which consists in the production of low-cost machines(US$ 200) for poor people in the country. The Popular PC are expected to be available next October.