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Cuba Switching to Linux
Tony Montana writes "According to several news sites the government of Cuba is dumping Windows in favour of Linux. Cuba's director of information technology, Roberto del Puerto, says that Cuba already has approximately 1500 computers running on Linux, and is working towards replacing Windows on all state owned computers."
I submitted it here as a YRO story, but it was deemed less relevant to Your Rights Online than Darl McBride's new open letter in response to Groklaw's new open letter to Darl McBride.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Cuba does have a positive image - it's a lovely place to go on holiday: the people are friendly, the weather is sunny, the booze is cheap and there's hardly any Americans! Even the flights aren't too expensive these days, and you can make some of that back by selling all the cigars you imported to your friends.
Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps Canadian companies that sell computers sold the Cubans their computers and Windows? Canada does a lot of business with Cuba. Just because the US has a trade embargo with Cuba does not mean that the rest of the world has to follow. As for selling to Communists, well the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, etc. administrations had no problem selling to Communists, they just have a problem with selling to Cubans.
Australia
South Korea
Brazil
Spain
India
Vienna
French Police
Dutch
Venezuela
Germany
I've been to Cuba, and I loved going to Cuba. The people were wonderful - friendly, charming, and Cuban women surely give interested tourists the best welcome one would ever want :-).
But all I heard from citizens was gripes about the government. The "free" healthcare is worth about as much as you'd expect a dictator's promises to be worth. The capitalist things, like the taxi system, work gloriously. The hotels, being right under the government's thumb, are a model for poor service and bizarre rules. For instance, you can't take your Cuban girlfriend up to your hotel room without paying a bribe.
I read a lot of books on Cuba before I went, and it seems like people who go to Cuba with an ideological agenda are shuttled carefully to the right places, where things look shiny and new. This is a potemkin village that impresses the heck out of people who want to be impressed.
But if you go a few blocks away, you see scenes like I did. All these pictures were taken on what would be prime real estate in any other country, a block or less from the Malecon, the giant seawall that faces the ocean and is a major gathering spot for Cubans.
Cubans live in their decrepit and dangerous housing until it collapses, because if they maintained it the government would take it over and give it to someone else. No joke, sadly.
To put this slightly on topic, Cubans are generally not allowed to use the Internet, at least not at prices Cubans can afford. The Internet connections in the tourist hotels are closed to Cubans; only non-Cubans can use them. This is part of an effort to keep tourists on the busses and away from contact with the Cuban people.
The Cuban computers I saw were woefully out of date, with truly ancient versions of Windows on display. If my memory serves it was mainly Windows98, and I went in December 2002. So I doubt that this mandate from Castro will have that much effect. It's probably a propaganda effort to make Slashdotters look at his rule more favourably.
Even open source tyranny is still tyranny.
Alas.
D
I think you forget that the software is Microsoft's property. It's up to Microsoft to determine the terms under which it's willing to allow the use of its software in Cuba. Cuba has no right to declare that it can use the software without compensation.
If Cuba isn't a signatory to the international copyright convention, then Cuba has every right to do whatever it wants with Microsoft products.
However, it seems it is a member of the WIPO, so I suspect it is legally bound to recognize Microsoft's copyright.
Castro is the President, not a dictator. Cuba has a parliament, and *gasp*, a constitution.
-Reid
Not that we could import windows due to the trade sanctions anyway ;)
Maybe not, but I've seen Windows blue-screening at a Cuban airport! I don't know where they would purchase it from (or even if they would purchase it), but there were many products I'd view as US products available in Cuba - for dollars ;-)
This is where the serious fun begins.
Summary: you can be arrested and detained for up to four years because the police think you appear dangerous and might commit a crime. Police are using this power to imprison people who are not criminals by any stretch of the imagination - it's a purely repressive tactic, used to intimidate and control.
If anything, the American media is too soft on Cuba, often forgetting (as apparently you have) that it is one of the last holdouts of an unacceptably repressive style of government that much of the 20th century was spent abolishing. Unless you actually live there, you do the Cuban people a disservice by trying to diminish the seriousness of these problems.
Key Advantage of Open Source is Not Cost Savings
I wouldn't be surprised if they stole it.
You'll recall that the former Soviet Union copied the IBM 360/370 design for their Ryad series of computers. I vaguely recall reading long ago in Datamation that Cuba tended to rip off DEC designs (e.g. the PDP-8).
Very high literacy rates and low infant mortality at USA level, among other tidbits : Population, Health and Human Well-being : COUNTRY PROFILE - Cuba
Actually the embargo has nothing to do if a profit is made or not. An US citizen with a permit to travel to Cuba (and that's very, very rare) can bring back Cuban goods up to a value of 100.00 USD. Others are not permitted to import anything Cuban into the US.
There where rumours that non-USians are permitted to bring 50 Cuban cigars for personal consumption. Unfortunately this is bollocks.
If you do find Cuban cigars in the US the only advise I can give you is to stay clear. It's not so much the legal side, but your chances are in the 90-95% range that you just bought a fake Cohiba for 40 bucks. This applies also for Mexico, the entire Caribean and virtually any cruise ship originating from the US. The only exception are La Casa Del Habano franchises. It's incredible profitable business and your customers usually don't shoot you when they are not happy with the merchandise.
This is also the reason why a lot of US cigar smokers think that Cuban cigars are nothing special. They smoke the odd "Cuban" cigar (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), which in all likeliness was manufactured in Mexico. They are very easy marks, since they don't have a point of reference.
To cut to the cheese: No, you cannot import anything from Cuba except the 100$ limit if you where traveling on a permit.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Internet users (per 10,000 people) 106.8 (2002 est) Personal computer users (per 100 people) 3.2 (2002 est)Cuba
Human rights abuses aside - and ok that's quite an omission - Cuba does remarkably well for itself. Take a look the UN's 2004 Human Development Report Cuba Fact Sheet. If you put this in the context of the US's trade embargo, it's quite impressive.
To those posters who've been to Cuba, and been shocked by the poverty they've seen, here's the full Human Development Index - maybe your next vacation should be to one of the 125 countries lower down the list.
you know i've been to cuba many times now. walked around everywhere. spoke to alot of people. truth is the majority of people love thier country. the majority of people support castro and building socialism. not everyone does of course and that is potrayed here in the US as everbody. I won't go into particulars. Cuba is a poor country. They have old hardware.the overwhelming majority of cubans cannot afford home computers. So what the government currently has and is now putting more money into because of recent better financial times are community computer clubs. this is where people go use a computer, use the internet etc. when i visited these clubs they were all using linux. these were two different clubs in havana i saw. this is part of a broader campaign by the government now that they have some more finanacial stabilty. the money doesn't go into some rich buggers coffers but into social programs like these. including the university for all, which are educational courses taught over T.V.. they print newspaper like textbooks on classes like english,literay critisim etc.. things that don't have some direct economic effect but just raises the cultural level of the country. i can see using linux as an advantage for all the reasons we do here and other third world countries do, including running on older hardware and being free as beer.yes,ideologically it is about one more thing being attached to the US and capitalism in general. that's no secret.
Thus, the US has the highest imprisonment rate in the world. (Or very close- we don't know North Korea's)
I'd be suprised if North Korea had a higher rate of imprisonment than us. I've never seen a study that showed ANY other country as having nearly as high a rate of imprisoned citizens as the US. So much for "land of the free."
A lot of people know about the alchohol, tabacco, and pharmaceutical industries countributing tons of money to the US War on Drugs. What a lot of people don't realize is that there are a couple of other key players.
Department of Corrections employees have a huge lobby to keep pot and other drugs illegal. Then there's Marriot, the company that builds most of our nation's prisons. Imprisoning less people in the US would be bad for business. It would result in loss of jobs, and worse could affect some big corporations' stocks. Can't have that ya know.
As a Canadian, I can honestly say that I prefer Americans to ignorant, rude Frenchmen. There are lots of those too.
I know you're a troll, but I'll bite.
Cuba had the lowest malnutrition rate in Latin America from 1979-1992, before the US intensified sanctions. Its estimated number of malnourished as of the report date (2000) was 1.8 million, i.e. ~5%. This is almost completely due to the increased embargo; not being able to buy from the US (its nearest potential supplier) increases costs by about 30%; caloric intake during the time dropped 38%. Even still, for comparison, about 30 million Mexicans (~%28) are malnourished. Who is crying them a river?
As for your "ex-cuban" relatives, you are staring in the face the classic example of "selection bias". If they weren't anti-castro/anti-communist, they wouldn't have fled to the US, now would they?
Freeze Ray. Tell your friends.
Would you say that our "ownership" is simply a privilege granted to us by the state?
You got that exactly right.
In any country in the world, the government has the "right" to take your property, and pay you a price that they determine (which is sometimes zero).
In some countries, the government is up front about this, making it clear in property documents that you are merely granted use of the property until such time as the government wants it.
In others (such as the US), there's a pretense of private ownership. But when the government wants your property, they simply take it by "eminent domain" (google for it), and it's no longer yours. You have no recourse, unless you have the funds to bribe the right people.
You can talk all you like about property being yours. But it's just a nice social myth, belied by the actions of your own government.
A few years ago, there was a notorious case in Detroit. The city grabbed a big chunk of land by eminent domain, kicked out the people, tore down the houses - and sold it to an auto manufacturer for a price below market rates. This taught a lot of Americans just what "private property" really means to them. Some of us still remember it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Check with Ry Cooder (musician/producer). He produced a documentary and soundtrack (and perhaps some followups) of Cuban musicians (Buena Vista Social Club), in Cuba. I think one may have gotten an Oscar or Grammy.
What would be the diffence between music/film that was partially developed in Cuba and code that was?
He probably did it under a US government permitted cultural exchange program. Code exported to the US might be viewed differently.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Castro was a rich kid and lawyer, but he only took from that his education, if you knew anything about the revolution you'd know he lived in poverty in the revolutionary camps out in the boonies. You'd also know that the rich folks like his family tended to support the corrupt Batista regime, and that Castro had the courage to fight against the inequality, while nearly ALL other rich families supported Batista.
You complain about the average Cuban living in poverty but you miss the following - ALL Cubans have access to government-issued food, education, and medical care. That's EVERYBODY, from the chauffer who drives Castro around to a dentist in Havana to a farmer in la Isla de Juventud.
You also complain about poverty but neglect to mention 90% of that poverty is due to the trade embargo by the USA. Cuba is a third-world country, that is definitely true. Now if you look at its income and compare to other countries of similar income you'll see that Cuba is far far ahead of other countries. Many residents of Latin America admire Castro for what he has done for Cuba, especially in light of all the aggression the USA has against them.
Fulgencio Batista was a ruthless dictator, but that was all fine and dandy with the US because he was friendly with them. Not so with Cubans, which why Castro et al managed to overthrow him starting off with only 16 people.
And in Chile, Salvadore Allende was democratically elected, yet the US helped to overthrow him because he wasn't right-wing enough for them, and so that bastard Pinochet got run run roughshod over Chile for the next few decades. And that was all okay.
And in the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo ("he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch") ran a brutal dictatorship all with the help of the US. So why was he okay?
And in Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza ran a disgraceful dictatorship all nicely sponsored by the US for decades. But once again, somehow that was okay but Sandinistas were not.
And let's not forget that good buddy of the US, Saddam Hussein, who received assloads of military equipment because it suited the interests of the US.
US history is so overrun with embarassing stuff like this it's depressing. But the worst part is that it keeps happening, and most Americans just don't seem to give a damn.
Wow that is remarkably myopic. You might want to watch how you throw around absolutes like that. Democratic does not always mean good or just. Open any history book for an example of that.
Coca Cola in Cuba is imported from Mexico
Well, the US got a clause in the charter that makes communism against it. But the reason for it is that Americans have had 40 years of propoganda that communism is the root of all evil, to support them going in and replacing the governments people want when they don't like them.
I am trolling
Interesting that the government of Cuba is running Windows though isn't it? Isn't access to technology and other tools to modernize their society *exactly* what the sanctions are meant to prevent? So how is a US corporation able to provide the Cuban government with those tools?
This is what the trade emabargo is about:
1. Florida is always a very close state in terms of Democrat/Republican split and it has a lot of electoral votes.
2. Florida has a large Cuban population who are mostly anti-Castro and strongly favor sanctions against Cuba.
3. No president will dare break the sanctions because Florida is a make or break state in every election and breaking the sanctions will, everyone believes, effectively give the state away.
The US will punish non American businesses for trading with Cuba to show that it is being tough on Cuba. US companies do plenty of trade with Cuba and everyone knows it. They do it through their non US subsidiaries who never seem to get noticed by the US. The sanctions are about perception nothing else.
Of cause you will deny all that I have said, saying that I have a warped view of history, am an anti-american zealot or that I have my head full of conspiricy theories. But why do you say this? Because you too have been brainwashed by your government. But condemn the Cubans for it. You somehow have been convinced that your government is conducting a rightious crusade against the ideology of the corrupt ledership and liberating the people from tyranny, when really all it is doing is robbing medicine and food from the people when the corrupt ledership can still get whatever they want. Your told that America is the country of freedom and honesty while Cuba is the country of propaganda and lies when in reality it is your government that calls Cubans to defect yet turns them back in the water. America is in an indefensable position here, Castro may be a brutal dictator and a warped propagandist but whatever harm Castro has done to Cuba, America has easily done triple.
Cuba is not evil, Cuba is just another country with it's own stupid ideas that will get it nowhere. The Cuban government does not deserve placation either. However what Cuba needs is a little bit of compassion for the innocent people who are being hurt by America's oppression of them. America is not evil either, but what America is doing to Cuba is far more evil than placating Pol Pot or Edi Amin or any evil person who has ever walked.
Blindly patriotic Americans may mod me down all they like, but for every -1 I get, that's another demostration of how widespread this brainwashing is.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I was in Cuba in I think 1992, in the middle of the periodo especial, when western press reported of continuous power outages, no running water, oppressive policing. We (me and dad) were in a group of 8 tourists, and there was no VIP among us, so no chance they were polishing the country for us (though the tour guides obviously did not bring us to the worst conceivable places).
Facts observed:
Is Cuba a place that had the same leader for too long time? Granted. Is Cuba a place that has a low GNP, much lower than the US'? Granted too. Were the kangaroo trials on three men who tried to hijack a boat to the US and a few days later got executed a shame? Sure bet. Would Cuba be better off with socialism out and market economy in? I say, look at Haiti.
Lesson learnt: if it's about a country your country does not like, for any reason do not trust the information you get. No matter which country is yours and which the other. Either go and check for yourself, or simply guard your doubts.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Hell, you don't even have to go *that* far back. During the 1st Bush term, we helped stage coups against Aristide in Haiti (sp) and Chavez in Venezuela (both democratically elected). What's so hilarious (in a depressing way) is what happened afterwards. Chavez was brought *back* into power by the people and Aristide simply said in effect "Well, if you Americans claim I left the country voluntarily, then I should be able to go back..."
Mind you I'm American, but a lot of us are complete fools scarfing down whatever propaganda our leadership feeds us. I've seen the lie become truth so often in the past few years that I've developed a completely new respect for the foresight of George Orwell. The guy looks like a damned prophet today.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That doesn't change the fact that food prices are 30% higher due to the sanctions, which means that being allowed to import from the US would provide 30% more food for the same amount of money, almost eliminating the change in caloric consumption - *and* the fact that even in their present state, Cubans are better off than many, if not most, Latin American nations when it comes to malnutrition.
As an example: Cubans eat a large portion of their calories from rice. Currently, they import most of their rice from Europe, which has to be shipped across the Atlantic. Yet, some of the cheapest rice in the world is grown in Texas, right nearby. It's things like this that make food have an effective "embargo surcharge" in Cuba. Incidentally, it hurts US farmers at the same time.
Freeze Ray. Tell your friends.
Chavez, the subject of the coup, has implicated the U.S. repeatedly. Moreover, there are plenty of facts all around that say the U.S. had its fingerprints all over it. Don't be so trusting of the official line. It's not like this was unprecedented as previous posters pointed out.
Fair enough on most points, except that the risk of punishment and severity of it was way overstated. For example, in 2003 (the last year that I found a list for), Amnesty International reported only three executions in the country (all for the crime of hijacking a passenger jet).
Yes, you don't have freedom of political speech in Cuba, and that is a shame. However, lets not overstate the situation here. For the vast majority of people (who choose not to involve themselves in politics and political institutions), as with Iraq before we invaded, it doesn't affect their lives much. Their main issues are things like economics, healthcare, education, security, etc - the things that citizens all over the world concern themselves with. Different individuals will differ as to how much of Cuba's problems are Castro's fault and how much are America's (often to extreme degrees), but the most even a very vocal dissident generally faces is jail time.
Freeze Ray. Tell your friends.
You started a long list, so we might just as well work towards making it comprehensive.
Among the democrats and/or moderates which the US replaced or actively helped to replace with dictators, we could add
Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in Zaire
Jacobo Arbenz, overthrown in Guatemala
Among the dictators which the US helped to stay in power for far too long:
The Shah of Iran (this backfired, since when he was eventually overthrown, it was by someone probably even worse: Khomeini)
And basically all of those who ruthlessly ruled Latin America until recently.
In fact, I'm trying to find a case where the US helped overthrow a dictator to let room for a democratic regime. The most recent case I can think of is Hitler. Has there been another since?
This is not possible. Under the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, US companies and their foreign subsidiaries are specifically forbidden to trade with Cuba.
You can go to jail for that.
For those of you who have incomplete history lessons regarding the time period between WWII and Vietnam in French Indochina....
There were actually a series of three wars in what we now call Vietnam which the US was involved in. In the first, we provided material support and training to the Viet Minh, lead by Ho Chi Minh as part of our fight against European colonialism. When Ho Chi Minh came to power, however, the US decided they didn't like his idea of land reform.
So a little while later, when the French decided to reinvade and the "Second Vietnam War" begun, the US provided material aid and support to the French. This lead to a stalemate, and the division of North and South Vietnam.
The third and final war in Vietnam is the one where the US sent large numbers of combat troops. The US was, however, deeply involved in both prior conflicts, having largely decided that they didn't like their former ally.
The great tragedy here is that Ho Chi Minh could have and wanted to be an ally of the US. If we hadn't decided that his policies of land reform (which were *completely* in line with our support for him against the French colonialists) were too similar to communism, neither of the other two conflicts may have happened, and we might actually have had a sound ally in that area, sharing a border with China.
Also regarding Stalin--- I see him as a primary example of placating evil. Of any of the leaders in WWII, he was the *only one* to successfully destroy an ethnic group (the Kossacks) as a cohesive unit. Even Hitler did not succeed there. Indeed, the fallout from Stalin's rule was far worse than anything we saw from the Third Reich. For example, estimates are that the Red Army killed 98% of the Kossacks, and the Cultural Revolution in China cost (by the official estimates of the Chinese Communist party no less) twenty million lives. Granted Stalin was not directly involved in the Cultural Revolution of China, but they had substantial material support from Stalin's regime.
Secondly, I am not really sure that we needed to coordinate with Russia in the war nearly as much as we did. I think it would have been sufficient to say "Ok, we will share intelligence, and provide limited information on our troop movements, but unless you commit to certain reforms, we will neither help you nor coordinate with you strategically, nor will we help you rebuild after the war. If you do these things, we will gladly welcome you with open arms."
One book that really opened my eyes to the nature of the cooperation between the US and USSR during WWII was "Ten Years and Thirty Days" by Admiral Karl Doenitz. It is an interesting read from a very different (German nationalist, but not NSDAP) perspective.
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