South America has seen relatively friendly attitudes toward free and open source software (FOSS), with some governments even mandating its use (or at least consideration) in public sector computing projects. This has been driven by a variety of factors including cost considerations, the belief that public systems should be engineered for public scrutiny, and the desire to become technologically independent from US-based software corporations (especially during the leftist “Pink Tide” trend in the early 2000s).

FOSS adoption in geographic information systems (GIS) is also popular in South America. For example, in 2018, I found 16 Argentinian provinces running their public facing web map viewer with FOSS, as opposed to one using proprietary software. This situation is almost the reverse of the United States, where state governments tend to build their public web map portals with proprietary GIS. At the national level, South American governments have adopted more proprietary software in their web maps, but in the countries where FOSS is mandated, FOSS gets used for GIS.

I am particularly interested in the ways that local technical groups build community and educate users about FOSS GIS options and implementation. For example, the FOSSGIS Brasil online magazine offered information-packed issues that shared software tips, interviews with FOSS developers, and galleries of user work. Although the publication eventually converted into a social media channel, back issues are archived online as a community resource in the Portuguese language. Another successful example of community building is the Geoinquiet@s Argentina group, which has consistently brought FOSS GIS users together from across the Southern Cone region for workshops and conferences, while maintaining an active channel of communication and organization on Telegram. Finally, several FOSS.4GIS.GOV conferences provided a forum for various governmental branches in Brazil to communicate their successes with FOSS.

I discuss the above concepts in detail in the paper Free and Open Source GIS in South America: Political Inroads and Local Advocacy. Here is the PDF of the author’s accepted edition.