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Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers
ianare writes "The first legalized home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. The desktop computers cost almost $800, in a country where the average wage is under $20 a month, but some Cubans do have access to extra income. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island which the government claims is due to low bandwidth availability. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean, but it remains unclear whether once the connection is completed, the authorities will allow unrestricted access to the internet."
What's new, though, is that [startin soon], they are going to be sold without operating systems... No more windows pre-installed. Or so I've heard. Now we only need tons of Ubuntu disks to give away at the sotre.
According to Cuban supporters, there is no restriction to visit websites, the real problem is that the whole country have a very limited bandwidth so most pages doesn't load at all. And this limitation is thanks to the US who put a ban on export of goods and services to Cuba.
The main problem I see is that they are using mostly unlicensed copy of windows, since Windows licenses can't be acquired in Cuba.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
The main problem I see is that they are using mostly unlicensed copy of windows, since Windows licenses can't be acquired in Cuba.
Hey, how come Cubans can order PCs and not have to pay for Windows? Heck, they are already once step ahead of us.
If the US was smart, strike and agreement with Cuba, given them decent pipe access via Florida so long as they put 1 million uncensored PCs on it in say 2-3 years. That will reach 1 in 11 Cubans. Free flow of information is a true friend of democracy.
Cuba has multiple satellite uplinks which are capable of internet traffic, though it's *very* expensive, and as anyone whos ever tried to use satellite connections knows, it can be slow as hell. Couple with that the single T-3 (probably still channelized---demuxers are evidently "sensitive" equipment), and yeah, there are some major bandwidth issues. So settle down and lose the McCarthy bullshit, thanks.
You of course are aware that Cuba has way better medical care for its citizens than the US does?
Think they'll like to pass on getting US style medical.
I imagine that there will be copies of Microsoft windows on pc's, and the dvd's will have a fee paid to hollywood licensing body at the mpiaa. Will Steve Balmer find himself in American prison for selling to Cuba ? Since no doubt some of this money comes from outside Cuba, are not the citizens of America helping propping up Fidel and his cronies. Will the bank records be used to hunt down these people. The US Treasury should be vigilant and like it did with the cuban inspired domain names enforce the laws to stop trade with Cuba (and covered here on Slashdot). Theres also the patent aspects, somebody in Cuba must be in breach of some us pto patents.
They don't have better care. Somewhat ironically, they have more democratic care, but that's about average availability, not level of quality.
The US probably even delivers more care per person on average, it just gets concentrated more.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I would say, both parts are true. Cuban bandwdith is severely limited, thus, it is obviuous that certain key areas are prioritized (oddly enough, universities aren't - we have a 1mbs for 10 thousand users at mine).
On the other hand, that doesn't explain why don't we have conectivity even within our countries (it is faster to download Debian from the internet that it is to download it from the cuban mirrors). There is even one law to address this issue, that has been largely ignored except on the part of giving monopoly-like powers to our phone company. And it even seem they find cheaper to use satellite to connect two places within the city, than to lay a couple hundred metters of fiber to the nearest hub.
With that, though, I'm willing to call (the ministry of informatics and communications, the phone company, whatever), ignorant rather than evil. I do accept that the reason for that is technical (that we are forbidden to hook to the fiber optics that go around my country). But, there is censorship. Over time, I've collected a set of domains that seem to be banned. No one never confirms it, and the banning works as if the remote server was not working, but routing the request through a proxy server, you find out that it is indeed working. And more recently, we got this other law, that was publicly mentioned by this guy, and forbids chats, formus and mailing lists.
So, we have everything. We have serious technical difficulties caused by the US (internet access). We have serious technical difficulties caused by who-knows-who (intranet access). And, we have censorship. I have high hopes that if the first one is solved, the rest will follow. However, for the sake of my country and our socialism... I do wish that the last two are solved first.
I'd be happy to send them every copy of Vista that I own, but that might scare them back into severe isolation.
Invenio via vel creo
There are no American restrictions on Cubans. The American restrictions are on Americans (with a few even more bullshit extensions attempting to extend the embargo to non-American companies who deal with Americans; even Canada won't put up with that shit) . And calling an embargo "imperialist" is pretty rich... what would you call it if the US had normal relations with Cuba and there was a Starbucks and a McDonalds on every corner in Havana? Oh, right... you'd call it "cultural imperialism" or something similar.
You are sadly misinformed. i have relatives in Cuba an the medical care there is very bad. yes the doctors and free but there is no medicine or supply's to help the public, my nice had a baby just recently and we had to actually provide all the sutures and thread to close her c section, not to mention when your taken to a hospital you need to bring your own sheets towels Etc. the only ones that get quality and cheap treatment are foreigners which pay. By far the worst care here is 10x better than what they have there.
Stop believing the Lies a few socialist nut jobs are perpetrating.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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