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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."
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.
Stallman's position on intellectual property is a moral one, not a legal one. Note that he does not recommend you treat claims of IP by others a void, he recommends you get your softwrae from somebody who doesn't make claims on controlling what you do with it. Thus the Free Software position is one that respects property.
Here's another way of thinking about it. Suppose you have a great program you've written. I know you've written that program. Are you morally obligated to give it to me? Most Free Software advocates would probably say no. Your unpublished program is your property.
When you publish the program, the issue changes. The question is can you claim all kind of superiority in the control over my use of that program by virtue of it having been your property?
The basic Free Software philosophy seems to be that software embodies ideas, and what goes on in your skull is nobody's business. So once you have been given software, the ideas are in your head, and you can't allow people to become private thought police.
It's a philosophy that I'm not altogether ready to endorse, but it makes consistent sense and is certainly consistent with the concept of property.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The Trade Embargoes are not worth the hot air they generate.
When Russia opend up and western companies were allowed to setup shop there the real scope of how inneffective so called trade embargoes became very apparent.
I was working for DEC in those days. We got lots of business servicing old PDP-11's and VAX 11/780's that were doing sterling duty in many Government and Educations establishments. They had all been imported from the west in violation of the Trade Embargo that had been in place on high tech stuff since the early 1950's.
Cuba is just the same. There is lots of pretty new kit in use there. I was there last October on Holiday and it was easy to see modern PC's in use all over the place. Most were generic beige boxes but the CPU's were often >2.0Ghz P4's. XP was in use everywhere.
Hitler was (supposedly) a vegetarian. So does that mean that vegetarianism is somehow tied up with facism?
Uh, gee lets see...ever spend five minutes talking to a member of PETA?
"So, how's a dose of reality for a spin?"
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.
Looking at the economic history of communism and western economies it's more blind luck and communist incompetence and mismanagement than actual free markets that had the western democracies outperforming the soviet block eventually and for long enough to matter. Our own craptacular market failures like intellectual monopolies could very well have been enough to tip the balance the other way (and, heck, are part of what is tipping the balance the other way compared to China (despite Chinas own economic deficiencies)).
You pitch a product as being in-line with the ideological tenets of two dictatorships and you think you have a victory?
My thoughts exactly. I mean, just how hard could it be to get communist countries to switch from the American, proprietary, capitalist operating system to the public, owned by nobody, people's effort operating system??
Not a single person walked out with a shred of respect for him.
There is one huge difference in character between RMS and you:
RMS says what he thinks, and says who he is. Whereas you are only an
Anonymous Coward on 18-02-07 0:26
Sure, we are greedy, competitive and mistrustful. We are also giving, co-operative, and trustful. Both pure capitalism and pure socialism suffer from the same weakness: not fully taking into account the actual variability of Man. (I don't know if a communist system could do this or not.) For most of our history sharing, co-operating, and acting in the common interest (in some areas) have not only been practicable, but necessary for survival. And sure we all want power and wealth, but many don't want more and more of it, or screw each other to get it.
So, basically, I'd dispute that it is contrary to our natures, more accurately: it doesn't take our natures fully into account.
Res publica non dominetur
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.
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
Your obviously a troll, but I can't resist pointing out I spend much more time and money on my one windows box than I do on my three linux boxes combined.
Standard Windows experience. Buy a new piece of supported hardware, install the drivers, nothing works. If your lucky, a total reinstall will get your system working. Often, tech support will tell you to disconnect all your other hardware and uninstall all your other software. Then if you are lucky, you can reinstall everything and maybe your new device will continue to work for awhile. If you are not lucky, nothing will work.
On Linux, I can install unsupported hardware and usually it just works. If not, I can find out how to get it working on the net, maybe tweak the system a bit and then everything works. Once it starts working, it doesn't stop working at random times for no apparent reason.
Windows only works if you never touch your system after unpacking it from the box. Add one piece of hardware, one piece of software, or even a security update and your are SOL.
Linux is only free if your time is worthless. Windows only costs hundreds of dollars if your time is worthless.
- The embargo as we know it was first enacted via executive order by John F. Kennedy
- The embargo was codified into US law in 1992 in a bill authored by Robert Torricelli, a democrat from New Jersey, and passed by a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate
- Bill Clinton is responsible for one of the larger increases in the scope of the embargo in the last ten years (in part to make for his botching of the Elian Gonzales fiasco)
Source.While I agree with you that embargo is hypocritical and should be lifted, it's not an issue that cuts across party lines. As long as Florida is a key state in Presidential elections, and as long as Cuban voters in Florida vote as a block, neither party is going to touch the embargo.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
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."