First Brazil, then the World

A high-leverage business project for free software and low-cost hardware

Too often we hear a project or an idea dismissed because it tries to "boil the ocean" instead of something more modest, like poaching an egg. But the problem with modesty is that we've seen the ocean boiled, many times. Linux is the prime example. Linus himself half-jokingly talked about "world domination" in the mid-90s, long before it actually happened. Other examples go back as far as J.C.R. Licklider, whose writings on "man-computer symbiosis" and the "Intergalactic Computer Network" predated the personal computer and the Internet by several decades. Both Free Software and Open Source were also intentional ocean-boiling efforts, which continue to pay off today in degrees of social, economic and technical value beyond calculation.

Watching and participating in successful ocean-boiling efforts can go to one's head. It certainly has for me (but we'll leave that one for another EOF — after we start seeing results). It also has for Jon 'maddog' Hall, who has been an accessory to Linux' success right from the start. But maddog is a modest guy. These days he's not trying to boil a whole ocean, but putting the heat instead on just one country: Brazil.

What he's cooked up is Project Cauã (projectcaua.org). While the website's first paragraph describes it as "a Free and Open Source Software and Hardware (FOSSH) project conceived to make it possible for people to make a living as a Systems Administrator/Entrepreneur using FOSSH as the basis", its ambitions are larger than that. Maddog wants to create a whole new business category with lots of jobs in it, while greening everything up by sucking less power off the grid and making cities more livable.

I got some hang time with maddog when he spoke at an MIT gathering earlier this year, and I like where he's going with Project Cauã. He looks at a city like São Paulo -- largest in the western hemisphere -- and sees "tall buildings and apartment complexes with servers in the basements and thin clients in the rooms" and "large new business opportunities for small entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and the economics that both support." When people ask, "How can I make money with free software?" his answer is, "By renting out thin clients, server space and services to back both, in large volume and at low costs."

On the technical side, "the software is done, and the hardware is close." The University of Saõ Paulo will design the thin client hardware and license the design to manufacturers, who will compete to provide components and finished gear at the best prices. This will provide some needed income to the University as well.

"But the main part of this isn't technical," maddog says. "It's economic. Most of our work will go into running the pilot project, and preparing educational and documentation materials. We want to make starting and maintaining a business as easy as possible, for as many people as possible."

Thin clients and fat servers make equally good business and technical sense in a city like São Paulo -- and across the rest of Latin America, where the vast majority of people live in urban areas. Especially as both television and computing are moving onto the Net and into "the cloud." A cheap connected device with a good display (also cheap these days) and a capable server with plenty of low-latency storage is a bargain for customers and a business for entrepreneurs who like to be highly connected (literally and otherwise) to their communities.

With its concentrated urban populations, proactive government, cooperative universities, advanced manufacturing facilities and growing FOSSH-friendly technical community, Brazil is a large lever on the rest of Latin America, and the world beyond. "After we get it working in Brazil, we'll translate the materials into Spanish, then run pilots in other countries. Or help others do it for themselves. We'll all learn by doing."

For a new entrepreneur, here's the drill:

Right now maddog and friends are evangelizing the project and raising funds. going after funding now. We need that because volunteers only get us so far. Some things they don't do well, such as legal things, working with the government, paying fees for registration, typing and clerical work, documentation. "Once we have the money guaranteed, we can start hiring and get the project going fully. It should take six months before we get to a pilot." His goal at the outset: "Three million, guaranteed."

For investors, the "play" isn't Project Cauã, but the entrepreneurs it bootstraps. For the biggest and most aggressive investors, $3 million is an ATM withdrawal. My advice for them -- and for anybody wanting to heat things up -- is to step up to Project Cauã's table and start placing some good bets.

Postscript: Thanks to maddog for his patience while I wrote this up, and to podcast.de for some of the quotage.