rbistolfi,
What you wrote is good news to me. I used to worry about the ongoing development of GNU/Linux, but now I don't worry so much. I think it's quite likely that places like Argentina and Brazil hold a lot of potential for Free/Libre Open Source Software.
This makes me happy because whereas Microsoft and Apple exist to make money for their shareholders (nothing intrinsically wrong with that), Free Software exists for everyone and can be improved by anyone who has the knowledge and access to a computer.
I actually don't care all that much how widespread Linux adoption becomes (well, I care, I just don't think it's the most important thing) - I just want it to be there for those of us who want it. It won't just disappear like BeOS or OS/2 did because some company went out of business or decided to stop developing it.
A good example in my mind of how this can work is when XFree86 went unfree; we weren't just screwed, somebody picked up the ball and now we have xorg instead. Even if Linus Torvalds and the main kernel developers quit developing today, there would be plenty of people to step in and take over.
I can't imagine what it would be like to wait for five years for a new VL to come out and then get something like Windows Vista.
I salute all those, paid and unpaid, who develop free and open source software.
Tom