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Stallman Convinces Cuba to Switch to Open Source

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the digital-emissaries dept.

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."

3 of 582 comments (clear)

  1. Re:An Old Canard . . . by chaoticgeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They will probably spin it as "Hey Cuba uses Linux and Free Software. Do you want to be a Communist too?" Reminds me of the picture that says something along the lines of "When you pirate music you help communism." Or something like that.

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  2. And Just How Did They Acquire MS Software? by xsbellx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  3. Re:Politically and PR tone-deaf by cpu_fusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > I think its an exceedingly poor idea from a PR perspective.

    I completely disagree. The world is NOT the United States. The opinions of the citizens of the world about the fortunes of Cuba do not necessarily align with the opinions of the Republicans in America.

    Many in the world believe that Cuba has been hurt more by the actions of the United States than by Castro. If you travel to Europe, you will likely hear a very different opinion of Castro and the history of Cuba.

    And even in this country, many are changing their minds about who has caused the Cubans to suffer most.

    So please don't confuse the PR perspective of the World from the PR perspective of the G.O.P.