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Cuba Launches Own Linux Variation
willclem writes "According to Reuters, it seems that Cuba has launched its own variation of Linux in order to fulfill its government's desire to replace Microsoft operating systems. 'Getting greater control over the informatic process is an important issue,' said Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes, who heads a commission pushing Cuba's migration to free software."
Countries developing their own open source software? How about open source software developing its own countries?
That is to say, that's one of the smarter things I have heard about a government lately.
Gives new meaning to the term patch rollup.
Anybody want my mod points?
Seeing as you have to go through great hoops, (most of them not legal), to get anything Cuban around here, how is the Cuban government running american products? I suppose they purchased from south american, european or asian retailers, but one has to wonder, how many legit copies of windows are in Cuba? Can Microsoft go in to sue the Cuban government about illegal copies? What jurisdiction would Microsoft have to keep Cuba from enjoying their cracked copies until communism dies?
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
...but many pirated copies can pass those checks. Have been able to do that for a long time.
And they could have bought computers from some European retailer with pre-installed Windows.
What I am impressed with is a country that just made having personal computers legal is developping Linux distro.
Ever since hearing that, I have been aspiring to move to Cuba after getting my degree in CS. It will be pretty rapidly growing market there in a while.
Somehow I have a hard time picturing penguins in Cuba.
I don't.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If we are voting, I vote for Castrix
-- Terry
It is kind of sad.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Tell me I'm not the only one who expected its name to be Cubuntu.
Since when is russia a communist or socialist country?
Shit, you're worried? A friend of mine has been saying Linux is Communist for aeons.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
I dont see the big deal here. Governments would love to have direct control of operating systems, so that they can place undocumented "features" inside them. Even if they release the source code (which I suppose they have to, theoretically), 99.99% of the users who will be employing their distro will not be able to understand what source code even is, or how to interpret it.
Well, I guess there are still people (the people who are reading this message) who will be able to report any backdoors/home phoning they notice placed into the source, but that will only make a difference provided:
1- Cuba releases the source
2- The distro is popular enough to have people using it
3- People carefully examine the source code
4- Said examiners are able to spot a problem
5- Said problem is heard by the end users of the distro
6- End users of the distro have options as to what operating system they are able to use, if it is mandated by the government, they pretty much have to live with it.
I'd love to see the logo be an image of Fidel dressed-up as a penguin.
I'm pretty sure the guy has a sense of humor. When I was a kid, I was a "shortwave listener" (before I got my ham license) and sent of to Radio Havana (among others) for a "QSL" card, confirming that I had heard their station.
Besides the card, I got other periodic mailings, including a Christmxxxx New Year card one year, bearing the cartoon likeness of Fidel Castro, laid-out on the dining-room table as a pig, complete with an apple in his mouth. I kid you not. I'll bet he had a big laugh.
Wish I still had it - could probably sell it for a bundle on eBay!
(Other "interesting" material I received included a copy of the Little Red Book from Radio Peking, and a subscription to China Pictorial - a beautifully-printed bled-to-edge full color magazine with gorgeous pictures of fields and tractors...)
If it's Red Hat based, I say Sombrero!
Anybody want my mod points?
There market is about to shrink in a BIG way. If they were smart, they would jump on a couple of distros of linux and make sure that they are the standards. Adobe, Intuit, AutoCad all have programs that are in demand. If they port to this, they can quit having to compete against MS on MS's turf. More importantly, they would get a WHOLE NEW market with minimal competition.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Lunix can run on a '59 Eldorado? Impressive.
I vote "Fidelity" or "Fidelix" (Raulix doesn't sound quite right....) ... in honor of the Regime outlasting multiple US administrations...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The whole thing has been cleverly orchestrated by Microsoft. And when they defeat the red menace, they shall be seen as heroes.Beautiful plan. I wish I thought of it myself.
What?
Apparently that old story just isn't true.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I agree that the connection of open source with Socialism in peoples minds and the negative effect this could have on its adoption worries me.
Beyond this though I am sick and tired of the irrational fear of socialism in the United States. Im not saying lets become the USSR that obviously did not work out so well but we are still stuck at a point were it is impossible to have rational discussion about anything that gets labeled as socialist. Its a giant hypocritical mess. Look at public roads thats a beautiful example of socialism central to our society.
I think generations of Americans have been conditioned/brainwashed to attack at the first mention of the word socialism before considering what is being proposed. The irony of it all is that public schools the major institution doing this brainwashing is a socialist model.
I don't believe that socialist systems work everywhere. I am a fervent capitalist and believe in designing free markets with appropriate incentives. All I want to do is be able to have a rational debate about plans that might contain socialist components without people freaking out.
Gah. Are you retarded or what? The whole fucking point of the article is that the Cuban government wants to be able to look for back doors in the software. They're not relying on the open source community being "more aware and quicker to patch said vulnerabilities", at all. This is simply a case of Cubans saying "why are we running software we can't even inspect?"
How we know is more important than what we know.
In Soviet Russia, Russia is a Soviet country!
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Bill Gates??? Is that you?
Stop! Dremel time!
Well, if they aren't worshipping a god, looks like they are free already.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
Hey, Americans are dumb (and really, the only place where being "socialist" is something you have to worry about really would be the US). Many probably still associate Russia with communism, even though it was socialist when it was Soviet and hasn't been Soviet for ~20ish years now.
So now Cuba has free software but not free people? It's a strange world we live in.
-- Cheers!
CowboyNeal (former poll option) announced back in Feb 2007 that Nova was on the way.
So, as far as the GNU army marching into Havana, they're already there. Cuba and RMS are old pals.
Considering most hardware is made in asia anyway, i doubt cuba has much of a problem obtaining computers...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I know people who grew up in Eastern Europe. They had home computers, mostly C64s and the like imported at vast expense from the West. Apparently in Russia a few people had cloned machines, mostly from designs from Sinclair in the UK.
On the other hand I met someone who worked in a chip factory in East Germany. Everyone knew what they were doing was very far behind the west. In fact there was a joke that the first 1Mhz processor in the Eastern Bloc would fly in on a cruise missile.
This page reckons that the Soviet Block was 10-12 years behind the West at chip production.
http://www.cpushack.net/soviet-cpus.html
There were also CoCom restrictions on selling technology. You can see how this worked with this example
http://www.canberra.edu.au/~scott/C=Hacking/C-Hacking13/os.html
Bootstrapping was the first major problem. How do you start a new computer and debug its OS if don't have an OS on the computer? From earlier systems I already had a small monitor program - directly burned into an EPROM - able to load binaries through a serial line. Getting the MMU (74ls610) was the second problem, because it was on the CoCom list, and it was not allowed to export to eastern countries. (Although I don't live in an eastern country, this posed some difficulties...)
So if you were an Eastern Block engineer you'd have to get someone to buy this MMU on the black market somehow which cost precious hard currency. Or you could get some local factory to make a clone. Obviously either are harder than buying it from a mailorder shop.
My guess is that the Cubans set up a front company and buy PCs somewhere in the West and then probably pirate the software.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Public schools are a socialist model, as are the police, the justice system, the libraries, the firemen or the free-health-for-all (at least in Europe).
I don't see what's wrong with this "socialism" me neither!
The point here is not really about socialism or communism, but about countries that are neither free nor open embracing software that is.
(Imagine explaining 'Free as in speech, not free as in beer' in Cuba or China. Or Russia, for that matter, with its open season on investigative journalists.)
People strongly committed to the idea that there is some kind of intrinsic link between FOSS and political freedom might want to chew this over.
(Imagine explaining 'Free as in speech, not free as in beer' in Cuba or China. Or Russia, for that matter, with its open season on investigative journalists.)
Or in the USA for that matter... where you can put away without any trial, any right to contact anyone or even ask them why you were put away... just because someone did not like your name or something. You/We're not that much better. They can only hide it better here. No need for censorship, if you have FOX news.
I just hope they don't close that gap in difference soon. Because they work very hard on it.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Sorry, I just have to contribute my 2 cents regarding this statement.
In the old days, capitalists were the people who owned the means of production and simply profited from this ownership. The Forbes richest people in the world are the people we're talking about. In fact, these capitalists don't even need to actually support capitalism as a great ideal.
Now-a-days every layman who supports capitalism calls himself a capitalist. We lose an important distinction here, and I really think you might be better off by understanding this. Perhaps it will give you some more insight into each system and help you further refine your values.
In a very real sense, you are probably a socialist who happens to support capitalism. For example, do you pay Geico for car insurance (socialist) or do you own Berkshire-Hathaway (capitalist)? Do you invest in a 401k (socialist) or do you own your own investment firm (capitalist)? Do you fly commercial or in a private Lear jet? Do you go to work in the morning or do workers come to your building? I think you see where I'm going.
Anyway, I think it's an important distinction... more details here:
Capital
and here:
Capitalist
But not owning capital doesn't ipso facto make you a socialist. Buying car insurance is a capitalist, free-market transaction.
Besides, most people in the West are capitalists, as they own part of all of either a house or a car. A 'socialist' investing in a 401K with a stock aspect may become a part owner of Berkshire-Hathaway, which is a publicly listed firm.
By your definition, almost nobody is a capitalist as most firms are publicly listed and hence socially owned.
In short, I think the reason the distinction has blurred in usage is because it has genuinely blurred in reality. And a socialist is certainly not the same thing as someone with no money. Just see Polly Toynbee.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Since when is russia a communist or socialist country?
1917. Just wait a few weeks, I'm sure that kdawson will post it.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Likely, decision to use open systems is security one rather that any other.
Government computers running on closed source OS that is basically made by enemies is huge security risk. It is nothing you just ignore. Your own OS on the other hand ...
USA has no reason to pursue "usaOS" - MS must play nice with them, so they have usaOS by default (It is Windows.)
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
the countires adopting Linux in the first place are rthose where people cannot afford the price of retail Microsoft software - due to much lower wages in terms of PPP - and find a good opportunity in other software that is (mostly) free-to-download and incidentally, open to have a look at...
Microsoft is "fighting" this back with giveaway deals with these countries (the list is too long to be included here, and the ones that you mention are simply those which didn't come to an agreement (yet?)
whether you want to label anything non-american as anti-capitalistic, it's your freedom, and let me remind you how corporations deal with (unimportant) customers: "please hold, your call is important to us"
having a community out there ready to help (I agree that "you must ask the right question" to it) is nothing less than helping the old lady with her VCR (ehm, DVR these days...) so surely Open Source mustn't be compared to a dangerous gang of mutants (TECH: unless you think that "forking" a project is a mutation...)
Can I put a spell on those who can't spell?
Your wheels are loose and they're losing their grip, good you're there.
Our politicians aren't stupid either. The simply can't afford to piss off their backers, so they end up making all kinds of bizarre and unhelpful decisions in order to please them.
I mean... Fuck. We're well into the trillions now. How big is a trillion? 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. It's a lot of paper.
Here's a question for you... How much capital does a well run bank need?
Answer: SFA.
Under the existing fractional reserve system, banks don't need much money, as bizarre as that sounds. With 700 billion dollars and the existing 10% reserve ratio in the US, the American government could have entirely replaced the existing fucked up banks with clean banks able to lend, and the problem would largely have been solved by now. Instead, of allowing them to fail, they are propping up a bunch of what are effectively zombie banks, as the Japanese government also did. I assume they'll continue to prop them up until they can unload their toxic crap on the government.
Why? Well, have a look at the campaign contributions for that answer. I mean, jesus. Geithner; New York Fed. Do you really expect anything to change?
Oh, btw, you and your children are paying for the privilege.
Deleted
But not owning capital doesn't ipso facto make you a socialist. Buying car insurance is a capitalist, free-market transaction.
True, being broke does not (in and of itself) make you a socialist. I don't think I said it does, my apologies if I did. However, you could be considered a socialist (albeit an unknowing or reluctant one) if you need to participate in these co-operative organizations (like an insurance policy holder or 401k investor or job holder) because you don't profit enough from your capital to cover your costs.
Besides, most people in the West are capitalists, as they own part of all of either a house or a car. A 'socialist' investing in a 401K with a stock aspect may become a part owner of Berkshire-Hathaway, which is a publicly listed firm.
This is where the distinction is important IMHO. Simply owning some small part of a company or a house or a car doesn't make you a capitalist (given the distinction). You must own enough capital where you can profit without exchanging your time and labor for money. So, I may own my house and my car and even have some money in the bank... but if I need to go to work in the morning in order to pay for my mortgage, the car loan and my meals... then I'm not a capitalist (even if I subscribe to the ideal).
By your definition, almost nobody is a capitalist as most firms are publicly listed and hence socially owned.
Correct. By the definition I've chosen to adopt, very few people are truly capitalists. I would say you need at a bare minimum of 1/2 million dollars without having any debt in order to remotely qualify as a capitalist in my world. Relatively speaking, not many people have this kind of money. Most people need to trade their time and labor in order to pay for the things that they require to live. I.E. the interest from their investments alone is not enough to survive. Naturally, I'm not a final authority by any means so feel free to disagree.
In short, I think the reason the distinction has blurred in usage is because it has genuinely blurred in reality.
The above is a good point, and I won't argue either way. I think it may just be a matter of how deep we want the analysis to be. My point was simply that if we choose to re-focus the blurred image we may become more enlightened.
And a socialist is certainly not the same thing as someone with no money.
Again, I don't remember making this claim. If anything, I wanted some people to consider the possibility that (after some critical thought) what works best for them may actually be socialism, not capitalism. By no means do I think it should become a holy war. After all, we are each entitled to our own beliefs. Invoking the critical thought process is what I believe to be truly important.
Just see Polly Toynbee
I'll check it out, thanks for the recommendation ;-)
... and Desi Arnaz was Cuban. Certainly not off-topic.
... strongly labeled as Communist/Socialist...
First the lecture: Communism and Socialism are ideologies - that is, ideas about how society should be run. The may or may not be good ideas, but that is all they are, and as such neither good nor bad. There are two groups of people in particular that insist that those ideologies can never, ever change: one is the wild-eyed reactionaries who use "communism" as another word for "evil", to whom any for of dissent is simply "communism". The other group consists of those that believe, or rather Believe, in One True Communist Ideology as written in the Holy Scriptures of Marx, Engels and Lenin, to whom "capitalism is another word for "evil"; they view any form of dissent as "capitalism". Both of those groups are enemies of common people.
And then of course there is everybody else, who realises that the world changes as time passes, and that our world view has to change with it. Some of them are Communists, some think Capitalism is best, but they all know that something in the middle, with elements from both is what makes real society work; we have to take care of the weak and protect them from harm to some extent, and we have to allow some degree of free trade and what have you. Politics in the real world is simply about figuring out what the balance should be.
So much for the lecture - so why would it be of any significance whether communists of one sort or the other use Linux? Are we suddenly going to see the Red Screen Of Death a lot? I think we should be generous enough to be glad that our favourite OS is a success everywhere.
Do you actually think that America would join them, even if it is in America's best interest?
I certainly expect so - Americans are no dumber than the rest of us, and I doubt Americans in general are going to let their misgivings about other world-views keep them from doing the right thing. I mean, would you stop eating beef if you found out that people in Cuba just love a good steak?
the countires adopting Linux in the first place are rthose where people cannot afford the price of retail Microsoft software [...]
You don't read much news, do you?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
name me one case of a trojan being detected via open source.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/linux-backdoor-attempt-thwarted (admittedly, that's giving a URL not naming, but I think it was defeated so quickly it wasn't even given a name).
Now, name me one case of a trojan that wasn't created because the source code was closed.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
One thing I am concerned about is that Linux is a moving target. Will an app developed today work on a distro 10 years from now, without having to rewrite it to match the modern libraries?
The good thing it that nothing will stop distro-makers from packaging several libraries or several generations of them.
In fact most installed Linux around have both QT and GTK2 installed, because these are use by lot of software. As a similar example, during the KDE3-4 transition you're bound to find both QT3 and QT4 installed on lots of machines. Up until recently you had GTK1 and GTK2 installed together because lots of legacy application didn't make the move.
Also if some legacy interface is *that much* popular, newer version will include wrapper code :
- pulse-audio has lot of interface plugins to communicate with applications targeting only ALSA or ESD or ARTSD.
- latest GTK2 version has a GTK1 wrapper for legacy applications
- etc.
So even if Linux is a moving target, its modularity gives you a lot of room for maneuvering.
(Even if I personally think that, once in a while, restarting a project a fresh and including latest input between the original version and now isn't bad. As long as you make your users aware that the new version won't be as good as the old one for the first duration. cf. KDE3 vs KDE4).
The only point where Linux is a moving target is when writting driver code, because you can only have 1 single kernel to target and thus only 1 single API (mostly). For example, you can't (easily) mix 1.x, 2.x and 2.6 driver models.
But that's not what most applications developpers have to worry about.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And being "a liberal". Apparently in the U.S. it's best to be a selfish extremist. No room for moderation, tolerance or love for your community.
There is a nice video on nova on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTXIzaxfox4 It looks like the Cubix is a Gentoo clone. This is really a strange choice for a end-user Linux. While Gentoo might be fun to play with, it is definitely not designed for every tom, dick and harry. However, when all Cubans now start to play with Linux on this level, they will become the future hacker, cracker, and sysadmin elite, while in other countries people get stuck with their toasters and the cryptic toast manual.
From your link:
"It is the only penguin to live on the equator and can survive due to the cool temperatures resulting from the Humboldt Current and cool waters from great depths brought up by the Cromwell Current."
I don't think that Humboldt Current brings cold water to Cuba.
I don't know if you read what Putin told Michael Dell in Davos?
You are probably also aware of the plans in Russia and Uzbekistan for a National Operating System. Cuba now joins the club.
If open source software is socialist, that means the UK Conservative Party has taken a very sharp turn to the left. Or maybe they've just realised it makes good sense?
That says pretty clearly who removed people from where ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You really should learn to separate what should be imposed on others (legality) from how should I live my own life (morality). The opposite of the political liberal is not the "selfish extremist", but rather the person who seeks to apply these principles in their own life without employing force (via legislation) to make everyone else do the same. Liberals are not despised for their "moderation, tolerance or love for [their] community", but rather for their attempts to codify these principles as legal obligations.
Casting your opponent as some ridiculously amoral caricature is an example of the strawman fallacy, and undermines your own side of the debate. Conservatives are not "selfish extremists" -- and liberals at least have good intentions, for the most part, however much I may disagree with their methods.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat