Slashdot Mirror
Stallman Convinces Cuba to Switch to Open Source
prostoalex writes "It's a big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, the Associated Press reports from Havana: 'Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code.' The AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro."
Irony in TFA:
There's this old canard about GNU-latry and a certain proletarian dictatorship that I'd rather not repeat. I will say this, though: the eagerness with which the Cuban communists adopted the rhetoric of “proprietary software” is comical.
I wonder how RMS is going to spin this victory to his States-side detractors?
In communist Cuba, Stallman switches you!
Given the extreme poverty of the country, such a switch is not a coup to me. I'm more surprised that Microsoft was allowed to sell Cuba copies of Windows in the first place.
"It's a big victory for Richard Stallman in North America"
Oh really? and a pretty bad day for geography!
get a photo of that cuban user switching from Windows. MSFT to $20.
Is there any chance that this sort of announcement will actually scare (I'm using the term loosely) some people away from OSS? Whatever the realities, things associated with Cuba and Venezuala are obviously not popular in certain circles in the US at least.
Or is it just one more bullet added to the ammunition of defenders of proprietary software? There's symbolism in this, but it isn't unmixedly positive: The two American nations listed are already bugaboos in the US culture wars. Won't this just be used to convince consumers in the US not to adopt Linux? "See, it's really just a plot by those big scary Reds..."
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
That basically means, that a full re-install takes about what? a week?
Sigs are for the weak.
Commie Convinces Other Commies to Go With Commie Software
D U H!!!!
Well, this should totally kill their economy. One bad idea for another. But, I bet you the medical equipment hooked up to ol' Fidel is still run by Closed Sourced Commericial God Bless America Money Making Software.
I am quite certain that we will see things saying how appropiate. Yet, it will be overlooked that Windows is the dominant in totalitarian states. In fact, MS over the last 2 decades sold it into East Germany, USSR, Cuba, Communist China, Panama's Noriega, Huisein's Iraq, and even into Syria. All in all, pushing Linux into CUba is simply doing the same thing that MS has done for decades. While I like seeing countries pick up Linux, I am not certain that I want Stallman going into every country that MS is at.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
'the eagerness with which the Cuban communists adopted the rhetoric of "proprietary software" is comical'
What rhetoric ?, where does it say that. Where did the Cubans adopt the 'rhetoric'?
was: An Old Canard . . . (Score:1)
davecb5620@gmail.com
What is with this guy? First convinces the communist state government of Kerala to switch to Open Source. Then another Indian state that formed a coalition government with the communists. Now cuba. I have nothing against communists using Open Source. But I dont think it benefits the image of open source to be associated with communists so much. Others will spin and try to claim guilt by association.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Does that mean RMS can be thrown into jail now? Or is it okay since it isn't exactly trade giving away Free things? Or is it even something like Radio "Free" Europe, and he gets paid by the CIA?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Stallman speaks about Free Software, the writer of the article has obviously no clue regarding the distinction between Open Source and Free Software.
Once again Stallman proves that brilliance as a programmer does not necessarily translate into brilliance, or even competence, in other fields. I'll bet that the MS PR team is practically salivating over this little tidbit. Thanks Richard, you've just made it harder to move people into OSS in most of the industrialized countries of the world and in exchange you were able to "win over" a nation that already has a small economy, limited technical personnel, and little encouragement for technical innovation at the state level. As an added bonus you grabbed the good will of another nation that is busily shrinking its economy and following the path of the first.
People wonder why the OSS movement struggles to attract more support....
Hey, maybe this is just the irrelevant concern of somebody who works in PR and marketing. But if you're trying to be the ambassador of a broad-based movement, you generally avoid making public appearances with anyone who's a polarizing figure on either side politically. (i.e., if you're with a charity that wants people of all parties to donate, you don't make public appearances with either Dick Cheney or Michael Moore.)
RMS is Free(TM) of course to make public appearances wherever he wishes in support of Free(TM) software etc. I'm just saying that the image of Stallman getting snuggly with Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez - other than being kind of physically gross - is not likely to assuage any US government or business fears about the ideals or politics behind the F/OSS movements. Free software seemed to be gaining some wide acceptance ... but RMS has just given the Bill O'Reillys of the world a powerful tool to shill Microsoft et. al. with once more. Again, it's his right to go ... but I think it's an exceedingly poor idea from a PR perspective. Then again, if RMS cared about PR, he wouldn't be RMS...
"95% of all Slashdot
Viva la Evolución!
He also donated 5 computers bringing their total to 10 and pointed a pringles cantenna from keywest in their direction... Castro hasn't been seen for weeks because he's now surfing myspace...
Seriously, I think Cuba has more to worry about than computers and OS's...
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
And here I was, thinking Free Software was about Freedom.
Obviously, these governments' only interest in open source is to shun corporate America, of course they don't care about the philosophy behind Free Software, this is no victory.
Unless I am mistaken, the United States has one of the most restrictive trade embargoes in place with regards to Cuba. It makes one wonder just how all of this software and the PC's it runs on actually made it into to Cuba. And before anyone jumps all over this and says it's other countries that sell to Cuba, you may want actually check the link above. Microsoft, Intel and a few others can easily be held accountable for the actions of wholly and/or partially owned subsidiaries.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
There are already a few comments about Cuba, communism and "Open Source" software. How this will discourage people from using Free Software, or how this will be a PR coup for Microsoft or whatever else.
I just have to say that anyone who thinks that Free Software is communistic because Cuba (and Venezuela) are using it are stupid. Firstly, Cuba is not communist. The USSR never claimed to be communist. Comments about Cuba being communist show the ignorance of the person saying them.
Secondly, if you refuse to use a superior (technologically, or because it's cheaper or whatever) option because "communists" are using it. Then you are stupid. Full stop.
Free Software is not about communism, if you read the FSF definition, you will notice that the software must not be restricted for *any* usage. That includes totalitarian regimes, or real communists living in a hippy commune somewhere. Free Software is about Freedom. And that means that Cuba is free to use it.
For a definition of "communism" or to find out more about "communism", see my "homepage".
I wank in the shower.
Maybe Stallman can convince Castro (and his mini-me) to open-source the Cuban regime, eh? Or if Stallman can't do that, maybe he stay and Cuba with his minders and cut sugar cane at the commune. Either that or hang out with whores in Cuba's many expat-only beaches. Or visit Cuba's many prisons and help torture dissidents. Good to know he's got his priorities straight though. Think of all the money he's saving a billionaire like Castro! Like viva the Linux revolution, deify Che and all that. Peace.
Cuba is part of the North American continental plate, in much the same way that Great Britain and Ireland are in Europe, Japan is in Asia, Madagascar is in Africa, and the Falklinds are in South America. (In case you're wondering, the Caribbean plate lies immediately south of Cuba.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Hammer and Sickle Linux (TM) -- Now with improved worker thread support and Cooperative multitasking.
Download it today, comrade!
almost dictatorial
Is that like being sort of pregnant? The guy just talked his pets in the legislature to allow him to rule by fiat. He's busy nationalizing industries that other people invested in and paid for. He controls the media, beats up and jails his political opponents, and is an all around jackass. It's bad enough that people like Joe Kennedy like to portray him as some sort of saint, but using him (and Castro) as some sort of victorious case study for Stallman's crusading is not, I think, all that helpful. Unless you like the way Chavez is going. Because in his country, companies like Red Hat would shortly wind up being The Ministry Of Software, and the "evil capitalists" that took the risks to found it, paid the people who got it up and running, and made it a viable enterprise would simply be shoved out the door. It's happening right now in that country, and it's going to get worse.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Clearly anyone who has ever had any contact with open source is a card carrying pinkie!
I'm sure arguments about freedom convinced them :P
...another "Linux is planned to be adopted at some future date by {insert government here}" story. Until there's a "Linux successfully adopted by {insert government here} and significant improvement in user acceptance, cost savings, and citizens benefot greatly by increased resources being available to them" stories this is just virtual masterbation (perhaps even actual masterbation, but I digross...er...digress) by Linux fanbois who hang on every word of every news story with the words Linux in it.
Stallman shouldn't even be dealing with these thugs. There are much better places to push for free software. Forget computers, Cuba's a place where you can be thrown in jail for promoting reading.
"Our goal is not revolution, or even the civil toppling of any political forces. All we seek is for the people to be allowed to choose what they want to read, and to be allowed to draw their own conclusions from that reading"
first world corporations just don't get second world economics. in fact, the third world is what's left over after the first world gets its cut. from what i see, microsoft, and the software industry in general, clearly use an overpriced and unethical business model which attempts to limit choice and competition. wherever these "capitalists" can't compete, as in profit, others have gone and will go. this folks is evolution in action, the inevitable outcome of simple economics. eventually, these monopolies all end badly, with only the people enduring
Viva la revolucion!
Can someone please point out whats so bad about communism?
From wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism)
Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownership of the means of production.
whats so terrible wrong about that?
will use it. Computers are banned for Cubans.
Bill said "some new modern-day sort of communists" to describe people who want to do away with commercial software.
But Bill doesn't seem to realise that Open Source is empowering, you can avoid all the DRM and government imposed restrictions present in Vista. Open Source is about freedom, so how can that be anything like communism?
There are many Linux based distributions, all different. surely having everyone running Windows more like communism?
What it is it going to take for the left to realize that Chavez is now a dictator? Millions killed (oops, sorry, Chomsky is still a left wing hero after his ass-kissing of Pol-Pot.) Maybe death camps & ovens? (Probably not, since we could bow to his "wonderful achievements in making the trains run on time.") What's really scary is that no one seems to see this coming. The people of Venezuela (and elsewhere) are going to suffer for many years over the failure of one Venezualan patriot to put a bullet in Chavez's head when they had him in custody. There is at least one thing they can learn from the Left. Chavez wouldn't have made the same mistake.
It's about time socialist countries start doing this. Whether the libertarians like it or not, free software is basically communist, because it's created from each according to their ability, and distributed to each according to their need. It is no longer fully a commodity, as it is easier to give it away than it is to sell it. Free software is a harbinger of the obsolence of money. Ironically many of those who help to make it can't imagine a world without money; but then, the medieval burghers and merchants and runaway serfs who eventually overthrew feudalism rarely imagined a world with aristocrats, either.
Well, yeah... it's good that they adopted open source at a national level... and how is that supposed to be good? I mean, Cuba is not a democracy, and someone interested in "freedom" should battle for it first, rather than open source...
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for FOSS use in governments, but here the priorities are messed up.
A dictatorship gets Open Source for its government and so they are good? I don't see the point.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
The people who stand to gain most in the short to medium term from FOSS are those in poor countries with good educational systems, i.e. where the intellectual resources are there but not the cash. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but most of those countries are of the left wing statist persuasion (except, I think, for Botswana and Iran.) That means that Kerala State, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, parts of China and some other parts of India are all prime candidates to hear the FOSS message.
Russia is rising again, China and India are growing, Cuba and Venezuela are starting to change. Stallman may irritate the hell out of me at times, but his approach is spot on. When the grown ups are locked into the monopoly, preach to the kids.
The "C" word may frighten - oh, maybe 50 million Americans - but not two billion people in BRIC. What they and their governments want to know is how they can get better lives in future. One key to that is not having to pay rich people in developed countries a tax on what is essentially a commodity. Computer technology is not neutral. Spread widely, it benefits ordinary people regardless of political persuasion. Stallmann is right to spread that message.
Pining for the fjords
You pitch a product as being in-line with the ideological tenets of two dictatorships and you think you have a victory? This has probably set back the perception of linux in the enterprise just a bit. He'll probably play it down as much as possible.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Look it up, count them.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Making that conflation will backfire because you could make the SAME statement about Windows and MS Office.
They're going to probably avoid drawing attention to this- China going this way didn't make for the FUD
people were afraid of (Well, I didn't see much of it...) because of the aforementioned problem with using
it in this case.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I wonder how RMS is going to spin this victory to his States-side detractors?
Look no further than the fine AP article for an explanation:
So, thank you Bill Gates for inspiring Cuba and many other countries. The disturbing part of this story is that citizens of the free world willingly give Bill Gates the authority that Fidel Castro will impose by force, and that's the real inspiration provided. I don't have any illusions that Fidel Castro will allow real software freedom anymore than he allows a free press, free association, free worship, so on and so forth. Fidel Castro and his party will be the owners of whatever Linux distribution he makes, just as Bill Gates is the owner of Windoze.
Whatever their motives, software freedom will be better for them. The government will own it's systems but their people using free software may also get a taste for real freedom and have better tools to persue it. Unless they use further M$ tricks like DRM, Cuban computers will work better with really free sotware.
So, how's a dose of reality for a spin? When you use non free software, someone else owns your computer. The non free way of "be so grateful for what my software does for you that you do as I say." When you look behind the rhetoric and lables, what you find is minds that think alike. You would never move to Cuba or China because they would strip you of many of your freedoms. Why willingly surrender your software freedom, with all of the dire implications for other freedom of speech, press, and what those freedoms safeguard?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
If you have tried to investigate the copyrighted AP story you've rewritten at Slashdot you would discover many more interesting facts on the subject. First of all beside proclaiming it's intention to switch to FOSS (since MS and other proprietry sw vendors are blocking their access to security patches based on IP addresses they use) Cuban government sites are mostly optimized for IE6 and 800x600 resolution and government agencies and ministries are still using MS as their OS of preference. In 2002. Castro himself founded "la Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas" (University of Information Sciences) or UCI - a very secretive facility that still doesn't have a properly functioning website (sic!). It is UCI, with it's "claimed" 10,000 students and 5,000 teaching staff, which stands behind Cuban efforts to build their own Linux distro (Novalinx) based on Gentoo as well as behind Castro's vision of Cuba as free software player on a global scale. Furthermore, Stallman's lecture, titled "El movimiento del Software Libre y el sistema operativo GNU/Linux", was part of an 3rd International Workshop on Open Source Software held as part of an Havana expo called "Informatica 2007." as well as 14 other International conferences. First hand experience from Marc Eisenstadt's who was present at the lecture. As you can see there is much more behind "Stallman's win" than just extracting parts of the original AP story, in light of the fact that even FOSS oriented UCI students are mostly using pirated copies of MS Windows his win in Cuba is even more questionable. Not to mention that for ordinary Cuban's owning a computer is illegal as well as any form of internet usage outside "official" channels.
Bratislav Velickovic blog.velickovic.net
whats so terrible wrong about that?
how about 100 million dead?
btw, i just laugh when people claim the birthplace of communism isn't really communist. what useful idiots.The digital arena is probably the only place where it works, too. (Because communism has certainly been an utter failure wherever it's been imposed - don't think so? Then why the hell did Fidel Castro have to get medical treatment from outside Cuba?)
Why would a form of communism work in the digital world but fail utterly everywhere else?
Because in the digital OSS world, you can "take" anything (modify it, change it, copy it, use it) without having to appropriate the original. Source code can be "collectivized" without taking it from the authors. Farms can't be collectivized without taking them from the farmers.
Gee, communism only works where it doesn't involve forced resource redistribution, or society (actually the *government*) appropriating private property.
Imagine that.
Again, very funny. Because the governments of Cuba & Venezuela are both ALL ABOUT freedom of information for their citizens. Oh, except Venezuela is also cracking down on the freedom of the press, firing judges who dare to challenge its authority, and let's not forget prison conditions... but other than that? Yays Open Sources!!!!
Not sure I entirely understand how Stallman isn't getting slagged for this, after Google got so roundly derided about its decisions to filter results in the China market... after all, Google is a company, interested in profits. Stallman professes to be all about idealism, and freedom, doesn't he?
Kommunix of course.
+4 Insightful? He didnt do anything but take some sentence fragment of the parent poster's completely out of context and make a pointless comment. Get off the crack, mods.
Lying for and making excuses.
Basically socialism works in theory. It's just the practice they never can defend.
BTW Africa isn't exactly capitalist. Feudalism or socialism are the common modes of government on that continent.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
With Chavez's arms buildup I think something may be coming. Maybe it's just his paranoia over being invaded by the US, but I would not be surprised to have his troops moving in to liberate his socialist brothers in neighboring countries. By that time most of the middle and upper class citizens will have fled Venezuala to the US or other countries, so the country will be even more dependent on oil to fund his plans. Venezuela doesn't have the industrial base to be as big a threat as Hitler but that doesn't mean that a lot of people wont' die as Chavez builds his socialist paradise.
Well, as much as I hate M$, I do not understand why a US citizen wants to help a country, who is one of the biggest enemies of the US. If they are using M$ windows, let them use it and let them pay US in licensing costs and what not. Why liberate them them from another US stronghold. Oh I know why: Because Stallman does not care what happens to US. Given the chance, I am sure he had no problem helping the terrorist countries like Libya, Iran and Syria.
In my opinion, one has to choose his/her battles more appropriately and think twice before committing to such a stupid cause.
Down with Cuba and Cuban communist regime.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That's why communism CAN'T work with large groups or where members can't opt out. It works just fine for religious orders, some small communes etc. But they need to operate in a larger more free environment.
The same reason all variations of socialism can't work.
Granting that large corporations concentrate power as well. But as long as they have competition the problem is largely self correcting.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
These are myths made up after he died to put some soft edges on his personality. This was done primary by the remnants of the Nazi regime (and their lawyers of course) who were put up on trial after the war.
I told you RMS was a commie...
President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, also met with Stallman a few months before getting on power, and had announce also a switch to open source platform for all government agencies in Ecuador. Along with Peru who was the first to begin a switch to OSS, seems like Latin America could be a region that will be moving to OSS in the next few years
USSR, Cuba, and even "communist" China were never good examples of communism. They are all totalitarian states. Yet in America, we call them communism.
The truth is that only decent example of pure communism would be Israeli collectives. You can certainly argue that Linux is good communism, but I believe that it is really pure capitalism (without any gov intervention). The truth is that coders offer up ideas and code. They are rewarded with fame (name and code on-line) and if good, they will almost certainly pick up salaried positions. If they decide to become one of the huge number of OSS start-ups, they run a better than average chance (which is still not that high) of making money at it. In particular, most seem to ignore how Linus, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, etc have profited off OSS. As long as somebody remains at the top of their game, then they will be just fine. But if they do not stay on top, well they will be finished.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That is just not true, and I'm surprised people still state that as fact. While the CIA and Bin Laden had the same goals and worked to get the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, there is no credible evidence they were in touch or worked together.
You canread this that will debunk it.
Quote:The story about bin Laden and the CIA--that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden--is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently.
The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.
Interesting that people would call this "communist". Does this mean that every company that exports a product to Cuba is also "communist"? Does this mean that Microsoft was "communist" as long as Cuba was using Microsoft software?
Free software is a product, and a darned good and cost-effective one at that. That means that, like all products, all sorts of people, institutions, companies, and governments are going to use it.
The government of one of the three poorest countries in the western hemisphere.
And what a PR coup, to be the exclusive software of one of the worlds most murderous, repressive regimes.
Anyone has to admit that RMS is an achiever. Countless men and women have died and will always die wondering whether they actually made a difference with the time that they were given. RMS will never have to wonder if he has made a difference. He has. And he's done something that makes him one of history's most influential people. History will be very kind to RMS. His legacy, and the legacy of the Free Software Foundation is, I'll offer, richer and longer-lasting than that of Bill Gates and any other 50 people who have ever toiled at Microsoft.
Cuba is in the midst of change now and hopefully on its way to a more open more democratic society. I was in Cuba in 1974 as a member of the Venceramos Brigade. I didn't cut sugar cane, I dug foundations for houses. I was impressed by Cuba's schools, healthcare and relatively safe city streets. I was less impressed with the system of government. Too many rules. Too much repression.
Of course Yanqui imperialism in the form of the trade embargo and our CIA's addiction to terrorist attacks didn't help the cause of democracy in Cuba.
Cuba now is a much different place. The economy isn't doing as well as it did in the 1970's, but there seems to be an opening for a more democratic form of socialism. I would love to see that, but that should be up to the Cuban people, not a Yanqui like me...and especially not a Yanqui like George W. Bush.
Free Software encourages open collaboration and communication--- things that could only benefit the political changes now happening in Cuba. The Cuban Revolution is stuck in the past and its time to move forward
I can't wait until the companeros y companeras en Cuba discover the wonders of a software project like CivicSpace/Drupal. If projects like that can help revive our own moribund American Revolution, just think what a tool it could be to revive the ideals of the Cuban Revolution.
"What would men be without women? Scarce, sir. Mighty scarce."- Mark Twain
Quite right; as RMS says in his updated version of an underrated essay on gnu.org:
The notion that people would want to get credit for their work and not be identified with a movement that conveys a different message is apparently difficult for some people to understand and act upon. Witness the number of people who will refuse to give GNU a share of the credit and instead refer to a "Linux operating system" when that system features GNU software. The GNU/Linux naming FAQ responds to every rebuttal I've seen.
Lots of people don't understand the differences between the movements, even when those differences explain the vastly different results we see on the ground (such as explaining why free software movement proponents say proprietary software is anti-social and open source movement proponents endorse installing and running proprietary software). For years, the OSI told people the differences were "ideological tub-thumping" and that was about the most insightful explanation they had to offer. Meanwhile, the FSF was publishing a different and far more respectful explanation which was recently updated.
The OSI's president, Michael Tiemann, said the OSI is changing; distancing themselves from the views of Eric Raymond ("Eric does speak for himself but less and less for the OSI."). I hope that the OSI will be able to bring its audience around to understand why ethical understanding is important. Businesses greatest achievement has been to get people to believe they can separate what they do from ethics, and it's important we challenge that perception; in many cases this is a life or death matter. But there is much for the OSI to do because of the wedge they created; for example, convincing people that approving of similar sets of licenses is all there is to say on the subject (another followup to your post illustrates this point). RMS discussed the differences between the movements and Tiemann president responded.
Digital Citizen
Anything associated with socialism, Nazism or communisms is foe to FREEDOM. If Open Source Society wants to be associated with Fidel, Chavez, Putin, Lukashenko etc. - their choice. But please - don't speak about the freedom anymore! We, the People, don't need such a freedom as in soviet union or nazi Germany. If some old crackpot like Stallman wants free beer - he can drink it with Fidel, who really cares!
Wow. Stallman and Cuba. I can't think of a more perfect match.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Uhhh, isn't there supposed to be a US trade embargo against Cuba? So how does Cuba obtain its MS software? I think the FBI should ask Bill a few questions...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
> The GPL has nothing to do with social equality. It's purpose is to ensure that great software will continue to evolve. The main restriction it places on a programmer is that he must ensure his code stays open for others to improve upon.
:)
Ironically, it does enforce social equality (by making sure that everyone has access to the code), and it is this social equality that ensures that great software continues to grow and be intelligently designed
It's odd, though, to see something like social justice and pure capitalism working together for once, though. Imagine what things might be like if we got rid of politics and people worked in ways that were actually beneficial to everyone, even if they were only doing so out of their own self interest?
Nowhere has a national communist government ever been anything but totalitarian. Even in Cuba - that was a political revolt against Batista that was taken over by Communists. In Russia, the Bolseviks were a minority imposing their economic theories on the majority after they seized political control.
And no. It's a fallacy that Communism has failed only because it's never been done right.
Heck, it's based on a fatally flawed theory of economics. That flaw is the Marxism assumes all economic is a zero-sum game, so that the only way to get something is to take it from someone else.
I don't see how Cuba could be use anything else anyway. Since Microsoft, Apple, etc are all American companies and it is illegal for American companies to trade with Cuba, how would Cuba get a legal copy of Windows, Mac OS X, or any other American made operating system. I don't necessarily agree with the embargo as it really accomplishes nothing, but if Microsoft is allowed to trade with Cuba why can't I?
Democratic oversight? Where? Name one 'Communist' state that kept democracy. I realize there are no 'true' commie states (according to commies). I've got a dozen real world examples and all you've got is a theory that fails real world testing.
Communism/Socialism is contrary to human nature.
To counter that you need police, later secret police. (e.g. Nazi Germany, the USSR, Red china, Cuba, Cambodia, Venezuela etc etc etc). Until you can come up with ONE counter example my point stands. Even the nordic states with their mixed (but heavy socialism) route are restrictive. Try and buy yourself some health care above the amount you are rationed in most of those countries and see what happens. (If you are over 60 and smart you will take a vacation to get you hip replacement, so you don't get your doctor arrested.)
A democratic communist state would vote the reds out with the first bread shortage. Funny how bread shortages always follow nationalized farms and price controls. It's almost as if Adam Smith was right all along.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I am quite certain that we will see things saying how appropiate. Yet, it will be overlooked that Windows is the dominant in totalitarian states.
If you wish to fire back, note that they're just starting a transition -- everything they've done to date has been backed by Windows. Now that Castro is about to kick the bucket, Cuba faces potential for renewal, and that can start with FLOSS.
Chavez is, unfortunately, on the other course. But while we've got former US Congressmen doing PR work for him Linux is the least of our problems. When they return the bribe oil and start lobbying for nuclear power plants or windmills off the coast of Massachusetts to actually solve the heating cost problem then we can can worry about computer software.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think GNU projects are great and linux has become a huge success in the server market especially on a corporate level. I would venture to say that linux is doing BETTER in the commercial environments then it is in the free world. While Linux claims to be "free" I think it's fascinating at how much money goes into Linux development and commercial support. I recall IBM investing millions into Linux, let alone the cost of commercials promoting the brand at the super bowl a few years ago.
Sure, the Richard Stallman's of the world might neglect IBM's contributions (and other funding) but think about this. Without IBM doing commercials trying to show how great Linux is, how could they pitch using Linux to their fortune 500 companies if they just thought it was a bunch of free stuff thrown together?
I have always loved GNU Linux and everything around it. But it is anything but "free". The only thing "free" in regaurds to Linux is the license states that nobody can sell a product containing code or compilations of the code and derivatives of the code have to be available to the public. I believe all the major Linux developers are all hired by some sort of corporation being paid to work on the GNU project. Such as Red Hat or IBM or Novell. Honestly, how many "free" developers are actually out there doing things for "free" for Linux?
About 10 years ago I felt that linux was 5 years away from taking over commercial offerings from Microsoft. Ironically, instead of Linux being ready around 2002 it was Mac OSX which derived from the BSD family. And at that time I thought Linux was still about 5 years away from taking over commercial offereings, but I believe that Linux has now found it's place and will stay where it is.
Commercial vendors love Linux servers. This is where the money is, this is where the focus will be and will stay. I have and will always love Linux as a server, but please don't claim it's free. RedHat Linux SERVER platforms are one of the most expensive operating systems available. Support contracts are expensive and the initial licenses are way expensive. Much much much more expensive than Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX. Especially since when you buy the hardware from most vendors it includes an included software license of either Solaris, AIX, or HP-UX.
On an intellectual level we can all easily accept that it's the most sensible course of action, but when it comes down to it, we all want wealth and power and we're prepared to screw our fellow man to get them, and in the end there's nothing anybody can do about that.
Fusion power, robots, and AI's will bring us unlimited energy and labor. So, we'll just be left to war over natural resources (if we don't let the AI's do that too).
Many people will be able to put a cap on their resource consumption and just live happily arguing about vi vs. emacs.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
..as they'll all spend 4-6 hours per piece of hardware getting it to work.
*spent 4 hours last night getting my cd-rom to work right in linux*
*spent 4 hours last week getting my video card to work in linux*
*spent 2 hours last night getting my video card to work again after the fix to the cd-rom broke it*
*spent another 2 hours last night getting my sound hardware to work in linux*
*going to spend a couple hours tonight getting my NDAS hardware to work in linux*
*still don't have 3d accel working 100%, or sound*
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I'm the one who convinced them to only drive U.S. cars from da 50's.
A correction regarding citizenship granted to Cuban refugees. On another forum someone mentioned that they're actually granted a green card immediately, not citizenship, and still have to do some other residency requirements before full citizenship. However - the hoops to jump through and time requirements for a Cuban refugee to become citizen are much easier than someone from Mexico, for example. And that immediate green card offering of course is a huge benefit, lets Cubans work freely without being exploited, unlike other immigrants.
make world, not war
When Microsoft does buisness with the Chinese government, it is "corporation is evil for selling OS to repressive government. When OSS does does the same thing, "oh, this is great, more countries using OSS".
Now, don't get me wrong, I think any person in any country should be free to use whatever software they want, and any company or organization should be free to give or sell anything they want to whoever they want.
But it is funny, that software that will be cheaper (and therefore leave the government with more resources for repressive activities), and better (to help them carry out their repressive activities with greater effectivness), is hailed as being "good"... while expensive, crappy software that can only hinder the repressive activities of a government is considered "bad".
Oppressed as in speech or oppressed as in beer?
Communists are more interested in free beer, certainly not free speech.
So -- when/if the license is violated -- what forum does RMS litigate in? Just as a thought experiment -- suppose Hitler adopted FOSS to run the trains to Auschwitz and Dachau on time. Think RMS would be happy more Jews were being killed with FOSS that was more capable with proprietary software. Since Cuba and Venezuela are repressive countries -- anything that makes their governments more efficient makes it capable of oppressing more efficiently. What a win for RMS. What an asshole.
...Linux open sources you!
So, how you liking the computer you typed that post on, huh? Is it pretty nice? THANKS, CAPITALISM.
How about the house or apartment you're in? Pretty nice, how it's all well-built with construction materials and designed by some house manufacturing company. THANKS, CAPITALISM.
And the car you drive to work or school? That thing has an advanced combustion engine built by friggin' robots! THANKS, CAPITALISM.
You like the clothes you're wearing? I bet they're pretty nice clothes. THANKS, CAPITALISM.
So, it appears that supposed "blind luck" and those "craptacular market failures" are doing pretty well, at least to better your life. There's always something really odd to me when someone uses a bunch of products produced from capitalism to criticize capitalism. The real reason lefties love communism is because it puts all the power into the government's hands. Instead of the people regulating their market as consumers, the government controls and regulates everything in your life as a gigantic, expensive nanny state.
"Sufferin' succotash."
This won't even be "collective property." The people won't be contributing to this. The government just wants to wrest power away from non-government entities and have even more control, and they will be controlling this as well, so even in that sense, it fails to capture the spirit of Open Source.
As for resource redistribution in the digital arena, that gets you into an argument of intellectual property rights. A skilled programmer who comes up with a kick-ass algorithm but then has it "appropriated" by a communist government would probably be just as pissed as a farmer. Either case is an example of someone's hard work being "taken" from them.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"...and the "evil capitalists" that took the risks to found it, paid the people who got it up and running, and made it a viable enterprise would simply be shoved out the door. "
On the other hand, you couldn't care less about the actual employees who would have been paid pennies an hour to do all the hard work while the fat cat owners reaped virtually all the profits and benefits. By all means, let's cry for the wealthy and powerful land and business owners who had their property unfairly confiscated from them by communist governments, but never mind the people who actually worked did all the hard work for them while barely eking out enough pay to support their poverty level standard of living.
I'm no fan of communism, but I recognize that our country's capitalist system is no gem either. Each system has its pros and cons, and zealots who think otherwise are either ignorant or selfish liars. Those who are most emphatically critical of the slightest mention of communism and socialism are the same sort of people who create and support the political, economic, and social conditions that foster support for communist revolutions - and are therefore to blame for the consequences they like to criticize so much.
If you're the type of person who resents every penny paid in taxes, every social welfare program, every economic, health, and educational endowment for the needy, then you're the type of bastard truly responsible for the root causes of communism. Stop cursing Castro and Chavez and take a good look in the mirror for a change.
I think the joke is supposed to be north of his head.
The AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro.
That would be CommieRed Linux, wouldn't it?
I think the whole corn ethanol craze will crash in the not so distant future. It's surviving because of the subsidies and mandates, but if left alone it would not survive. At some point the cost of the subsidies and the cost of other goods will force the government to stop wasting money.
(This is not to say he dislines - or likes - communism, capitalism or any other ism. My point is that it doesn't matter. What matters is whether he honors the very standards he sets, and this shows that he does so. What's wrong with that?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/02 /free_as_in_cuba.html
Bye,
Oliver
...commies!
when you're programming open source, you're programming communism.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Necessity did. Capitalism is just the midwife. This world turned long before Capitalism came along, and will turn long after it is gone.
The fact that you have electricity and drinkable water is because of Government nanny state interference in capitalism.
Here's a news flash - you will never, as long as you live in your mother's basement, see real capitalism. Nor will you see it when you're kicked out. America is a mix of capitalism, socialism and communism, and if you don't like that, I suggest you move to Somalia and live out your dream life there. Nothing you say or do will ever, ever, ever bring real capitalism to America. It ain't gonna happen, son. No, really, it ain't gonna happen. Move, or drink the purple kool-aid. Those are your choices.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
As long as he's there convincing people of stuff, do you think we could get him to convince them to renounce communism as well? Free Software is largely meaningless without a Free Society to use it in.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Hmmmm. Please explain to me how having a gov. across the ocean "stealing" my work is worse than having a company such as MS stealing it and then having my gov. protect their right to do so? In fact, MS can then sue me and claim that they own the tech again backed up by our courts and govs?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Cuba went through rough times after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but recovered after having made changes to their food production. In any case, it's much better than those countries where the US spread "democracy" (ah aha ah good ones) in terms of security, education and health. In fact, in those areas, it's comparable to what the US middle clas. (Sure, the top 1% in the US can afford top of the line medical service, send their kids to expensive universities, and live in gated communities)
I've often observed that the archetypical Slashbot is a brighter shade of red than the average radish; unfortunately, they are also normally extremely reluctant to admit such.
I have no real problem with people being Commies if that's what turns them on, but get out of the closet, guys. If you are demonstrably and visibly Communist, have the courage to admit it.
I probably have a few socialist tendencies left myself, but I've moved a lot further towards the right in recent years, and ironically it's been the behaviour of groups like the FSF that has caused most of that. They've made me realise that in reality, leftist collectivism of the type that FOSS is generally associated with is just another form of centralised authoritarianism...the FSF have set themselves up as the controllers of a mountain of code, and they expect to be able to grant or deny access to that code to people based on whether or not you're doing something that they don't like. Hence, I might as well be right wing...because at least the right are direct about their tyranny. Stallman is a tyrant who constantly tries to make out that he is the opposite...and I'm very, very sick of that.
Stallman isn't an anarchist...he isn't anything remotely close, and while a lot of other people might have been fooled on that score, I never have been. The FSF is a centralised heirarchy with leaders and formalised philosophies and all the other usual monolithic crap, and it issues decrees and in other ways tries to behave as much like a sovereign government as it can. That is not anarchy...it's the exact type of system that real anarchists throughout history have wanted to abolish.
If anyone here is truly dumb enough to believe that FOSS has anything to do with genuine anarchism, go to debian.org and study the beurecratic nightmare that is their "policy" sometime...then come back and try telling me that that is decentralised. Ditto for Ubuntu...you don't need to look very far through their site to start finding references to the word "governance" at all.
Interesting take. Thanks.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
He spent all those MIT funds developing blueprint for IT communism --MIT is private, communism is protected speech. But doing business with Cuba, even not-for-profit business, without a permit --can we finally arrest this mother fucker?
Sweet, now BOTH computers will run linux!
-Styopa
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Aren't you answering your own question? Google decided to *filter results in the China market*. Stallman didn't change the GPL to comply with Cuba's laws. Stallman is continuing to expound the same sorts of beliefs he's always expressed. The fact that Stallman isn't going out of his way to be champion to fight *all* the bad things that happens in the world is mainly a choice by him, realizing that one can't find everything bad in the world at the same time as pointing out the evil of copyright and be seen as a serious pusher of the evil of copyright--you become too deluted. One might as well complain that the NRA doesn't take up free speech cases enough or that the ALCU doesn't do enough when it comes to the environment. Stallman is consistently pushing his message about the need for free software. The problem with Google was their inconsistent of "do no evil" while *actively helping* China to block free speech.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Glancing around, it looks like myths that Hitler built up around himself.
>>students are working on creating a Gentoo-based distro
Who else read this line as "creating a Gentoo-based Castro?"
Great - another MS Windows would be great if everyone used the fantastic hidden features post.
The reality is most MS Windows systems are a liablity on a network - Vista or Longhorn (the upcoming professional version) may change this - but for now things are far far worse than they were in 1998.
How did Stallman go to Cuba without running afoul of the embargo? Did he get some sort of special permission from the State Department or is he just running the risk of being thrown in jail?
Here the beginning of the 'how the US appropriated the term American to mean citizen-of-the-United-States' thread/flame war.
While I agree that free software fits well with marxism (but they're not the same and the former doesn't imply the latter), the most important alleged reason for the switch is something that every government (other than U.S.?) and every business/individual (U.S. citizens included) should focus:
We're not talking about Linux being less prone to viruses than Windows, here. It's a deeper flaw:
Suspicions?And he's damn right. It scares the hell out of me how many people, and even governments, are blindly putting their lives in the hands of one single corporation which even boasts its ties with an espionage agency.
There's a browser safer than Firefox, it is Firefox, with NoScript
Communism may not work, but socialism, in the form of socio-democracy applied in countries like Sweden or Germany, works fine.
I do not understand why we have to go from one extreme to the other (from extreme capitalism to communism). The middle ground is usually the best way.
one could conclude that by using linux the government is serious about homeland secuirty.
The poster places Cuba in North America. It's a Carribean Island. Historicly, Ethnicly and Politically it's part of Latin America (generally Identified with South America).
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
This is just more Slashdot propagandizing.
There are probably 30 computers in Cuba, but the Lunix nerds are drooling all over their bibs because Castro is going to put Ubuntu on them. Big whoop.
Lunix will just be another facet of the outdated way of thinking which will sadly keep Cuba behind the rest of the world.
Both are Dictators (I'm vezuelan and I live in venezuela), both promoted FOSS (linux) as the panacea of the c.science blah blah blah... But the reality is very different, FOOS is kept on the public affiars dept. and MS Windows on the backstage, both venezuelan and cuban FOSS initiatives are pure hipocresy, are only part of a propaganda effort to minimize the colective image of the capitalism. FOSS is to Communism as Patents to Capitalism, is the point held by they. Pure hypocresy. more on, last year linux on venezuelan desktops decreade presence by about 10% or more. Personally I dismised Linux because I don't agree with the GNU patological anti-patent anti-drm philosopy and because on desktops Linux still a shame (on servers is really shinny).
Indeed. The irony when more-or-less communist regimes adopt free market solutions like open source while supposedly capitalist countries revel in state-granted monopoly production is palpable.
Using the fruits of free markets by Communists is not really unusual. Tyrants pillage whatever they can. The Soviet Union routinely coppied western designs, which you could call an adoption of free market solutions. I'm looking at this as more of a case of Castro wanting to be the Bill Gates of Cuba than him wanting to be RMS.
What's unusual is the willingness of people in supposedly free markets to surrender control of their information by using non free software. Government protection and promotion of non free software, even when combined with market manipulation by M$, does not really explain the continued dominance of non free software. Free software offers all classes of computer owners both lower costs through competition of suppliers and more control of their work. It is surprising that companies like Verizon and Viacomm do not follow the lead of companies like IBM, Chrysler and Lowes. It's even more surprising that more individuals have not sought out free software. In the case of a big dumb company, bad decisions can be forced from above.
Things are fortunately changing. As Vista shows, there's also a performance hit to slavery. This performance difference may finally create enough free software demand to loosen M$'s vendor lock and things will be downhill from there.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I mean, with Cuba's decades of involvement in Africa.
Sorry, just popped into my head. I'm not sure _how_ sarcastically I mean it myself because they have countered the cold war soldiers with some good done by their physician outreach.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows
Since the US forbids any export from the US to Cuba due to the embargo, I can easly see the drive for another OS.
The truth shall set you free!
If Microsoft were a soviet state-owned company, and most of the world were communist by now, Linus would have been probably incarcerated. ....
People's General Prosecutor - Shut up you traitor! You are only allowed to answer the questions this court makes to you! We won't allow you to transform this court in a circus!
People's General Prosecutor - So, Linus, you say you're not a revisionist, but at the same time, you're telling me that you could build an operating system more efficient and secure than "People's Windows". So, following your reasoning, comrade Bill Gates is really a people's traitor? linus - No I mean that
Magistrate! The court has just seen the attitude of this man that tried to bring doubt and delay the advancement of computer science in the Soviet State. His actions clearly indicate that he has been a victim of brain wash by foreign spies working for foreign powers.
He tried to bring FUD over a outstanding product of proletarian computer science, and therefore he is guilt of contra-revolutionary activities.
For his own good, we demand this court to send him to Siberia for reeducation for no less than 20 years. We also recommend that during his reeducation he should be allowed to work as a way to speed up his reeducation.
Your ad could be here!
It had to be that their tech evaluators tried installing Vista and immediately saw the writing on the wall: the mother of all costly hardware upgrades. Having to choose between computer upgrades for a large government sector or a working transportation system for a major city, the central planners must have opted for letting people get to work. A lot of choices in a third world country are stark like that.
The central planners didn't have much choice except how they should present this change to the world. They could have griped that they were too broke to pay for 3D windows but somehow that doesn't sound very heroic. It sounds much more rebellious to say that you are purposely turning your back on it because it is part of some evil plan (the funny thing is that for once they may be right).
So, thinking quickly, they cobbled together an international computing fair, waited for RMS to show up, whereupon they made it look like they made the decision at his prompting.
This is in the same style as in the summer of 1959, when few people thought Fidel was anything other than a liberator, he pretended to resign. By hindsight we know he had no intention of doing so, but his followers were outraged and staged demonstrations. This commanded press attention. When he was finally brought to the mike and everyone tuned in, he explained that it was because of the treachery of President Urrutia (a democratic moderate who he himself had appointed after the overthrow of Batista.) Without proof, the masses were thus prompted to decide, involuntarily, that Fidel should stay and the traitor should go, and that's all the press showed on television. Once Urrutia saw this spectacle, he fled the country. Not coincidentally next in line for succession, Fidel became acting president. He then aligned with the Soviet bloc, shunned the U.S., controlled the press, things that would have seemed a bizarre overreach had this spectacle never happened, but what with so many traitors running around, and at high levels, desperate measures were necessary... Fidel's near half-century of rule was possible because "the people decided it," at least long enough for him to consolidate power.
In both cases it was pre-ordained. The leaders orchestrated it, and then "the people decided it." This time I think The People decided on practicality, with ideology a distant second, and the fact that RMS has a beard came in third.
As to whether they are doing it to spite the U.S., either decision could have been spun to appear that way.
For MS and its OEM partners, this is another disturbing sign that the planned obsolescence approach doesn't fit third world needs very well.
Much as I like open source software and all, it's a shame that Stallman decided that the ends justifies the means and has reached out to oppressive regimes to push his free software agenda.
And I realise you're that this will be a case of Godwin's law, but would he have pushed free software to Nazi Germany? And yes, I realise this is very hypothetical.
You just ignore the little elephant in the room: there is no recognition of copyright or intellectual property in socialist or communist countries.
The GPL is based precisely in copyright, and since you don;t care to read what the GPL is all about, in many places it is fully documented that people areencouraged to make shitloads of money using GPLed software at the heart of their bussiness model.
But you can't ignore the facts and ejaculate as much propaganda as you want, I am sure that will make you feel better.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You want to have your cake and eat it matey.
Socialist countries do not recognize copyrights and intellectual property.
Copyright granted to individuals or private organizations is abhorrent to a socialist or communist state/
You are chosing to ignore the flipping obvious: if the GPL is based in capitalistic institutions like copyright and Intellectual property it is impossible to equate it in any sensible way with a socialized organization of any kind, the comparision is particularly inept when using communist or socialist states as a point of reference or allegory.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
IP laws, as you ingonratnly call them, are the foundation of the GPL licensing model.
Stop spinning things matey, the more you defend your baseless argument the more uninformed you look.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... but they teach in school that South America starts in Mexico... I, as a humble citizen of the land of the snaked and the cactus, laugh at it quite often.
They obviously haven deciphered the NAFTA moniker....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The US enforces its ludicrous embargo in more sinister ways than just "nothing to do with a country".
Companies with offices elsewhere can't make bussiness in the US if they trade with Cuba, executives of companies dealing with Cuba have been detained in the US for questioning even if they have no bussiness in the US, citiznes from other countries, for which the US has no jurisdiction, are stopped to enter the US if they have a visa from Cuba stamped on their passport.
The above is just the tip of the iceberg, the only countries that can about get away with things were sworn US enemies or nemesis (like China, who is getting closer to Cuba by the day) or Mexico, because we can (the US is not going to piss off one of its biggest bussiness partners just because Mexico is the best friend Cuba has had on the Western hemisphere).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I used to work for a company in Mexico whose HQ is in the US.
:-)
Since the embargo does not apply in Mexico (what a surprise) the local office was advicing freely the Cuban government. This is a US company we are talkiing about.
I saw the representative of the Cuban embassy coming and going several times to our offices and discussing bussiness with the general manager of our office in Mexico City. This is perfectly legal (of course) in Mexico, and companies operating in Mexico could (and have been) brought to account for enforcing US embargo law while in Mexican soil. SO basically US companies with offices in MExico are between the rock and a very hard place
How our accounting department worked that one out is beyond me, it would not surprise me if clever triangulations of payments where used (in which the Cubans paid a third party, with offices only in Mexico, and this third party would contract services form the US company).
The embargo is almost impossibly to enforce fully, since the US can't also go after companies traindg with companies that trade with Cuba. You can use several levels of indirection and the US government simply can't apply the law, because what would be happening would not be illegal under any sane interpretation of US law.
Oh yes, the other one. I knew a friend in Yucatan that would buy white PCs in Mexico and sell them to Cuba. He only had to "export them" by boat in the short trip between Youcatan an Cuba (on clear nights you can see Havana's lights from the coast in Yucatan's northern beaches).
There are many examples of tribal societites that can't be described in those terms.
Maybe when humans associate in big conglomerates certain valued of solidarity dissapear, but it is not in our genese to be egoistic motherfuckers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Repressive regime? Yes.
Murderous? Show us your numbers and your sources.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... it is almost impossible to pirate software.
We all know all those copies of software, in uncountable countries around the world, sold on street stalls, are all the real deal.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When MS (or any other company for that matter) deals with repressive regimes, they profit from it.
By sharing knowledge (what is what FOSS is all about) nobody is profiting, Cubans are perfectly capable to do their own development and deployments, Red Hat or Novell are not going to go there any time soon.
And just for your information, there is no embargo when it comes to certain things, educational and cultural cooperation being one of them, which I think is what FOSS is all about (not a product, but technological education and cooperation).
I do not know how much of their budget Cubans use for repressive activities. What I know is that they devote a substantial amount to health and education (health standards are comparable to those of rich, developped countries, embargo and all), so the hope would be that some of the money saved by using FOSS would also go to those activities.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Then we can compare equal with equal.
Stallman is promoting freedom in a country that has precious little of it.
If you can't see why that is a good thing, we have very little else to talk about regarding this topic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You are repeating things becuase you have not got the point. There are design flaws in MS Windows that have directly led to the net being a dangerous swamp as far as security is concerned - and that is today and not in 1998. Even the bizzare SF situation of getting a virus by displaying an image has occured due to one of many bad design decisions, along with things just connecting to listening ports that never should be exposed on a network and then getting code executed. Firewall software is there because the system does not meet the standard - which also applies with antivirus software and spyware removal software. Don't take it from me - look at the archives of any sysadmin mailing list for people that work with MS Windows systems or consider where all that spam is coming from and how that virus gets sent to your mail server. I can only keep a few MS Windows systems secure by putting them under the adult supervison of other systems to keep anything nasty from the net from coming in and clobbering them - lucky so far, and I do mean lucky, someone has to be hit first with the next unidentified threat - but you would not believe how much of a mess other systems I've been called in to fix are. Seeing the Bagle worm get Win2k PCs to run all the printers in a small office until they ran out of paper was a sight - and that was an environment with up to date virus definitions on every PC.