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."

Apologies in advance..

In communist Cuba, Stallman switches you!

Really a big win in North America?

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..."

OSS is communist?

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.

Re:

In fact, MS over the last 2 decades sold it into East Germany ...
Just in case it slipped your awareness, it is now nearly 2 decades that East Germany as a country vanishes from the world and became a part of what is now called Germany.

It's "collective property", so in a sense, *YES*

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

Somewhat

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.

Re:OSS is communist?

Well, it's been over an hour with no answer, so I'll bite too.

GNU-licensed software is analogous to communism in the same way that public streets, utilities, libraries, and schools are. To avoid effectively being a communist, you should (a) refuse to accept any benefit of civilization unless you're paying full monopoly prices for them, and (b) refuse to contribute anything to society or the public good for which you're not fully and directly compensated. There must be no motivation other than greed.

If you create something of potential value to others, it is wrong to allow them to benefit from it without compensation. If you can't sell it, perhaps because market channels have been monopolized or are inaccessible or inequitable, then the only proper course of action is to destroy it. Wipe your disks and forget about it. If you allow your neighbor to use it, you may be taking money out of the pockets of deserving corporations and their shareholders.

Only then can we stamp out communism and keep the rights to software out of the undeserving hands of those who create it.

Communists and Stallman

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.

Re:Communists and Stallman

Hitler was (supposedly) a vegetarian. So does that mean that vegetarianism is somehow tied up with facism?

Leaving aside Hitler's dubiously documented vegetarianism, it is quite well documented that Churchill was a drunk who drank a bottle of brandy before he got out of bed every day. Does this mean that being a drunk has anything to do with his political philosophy?

People with faulty philosophies do make correct decisions sometimes, and people with sound philosophies are not immune from error.

In fact, the biggest problems with any political philsophy are going to be the things it ignores or discounts. It may be the selfishness of human nature, or it may be the prevelance of preventable in the human condition. It follows that it is quite possible for a grossly faulty philosophy to recommend a worthwhile course of action that a better one would not even consider.

Re:

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 wi

Re:Communists and Stallman

I'd rather not start a debate on why communism is evil and corporations and banks having indirectly killed millions in africa are fine, so let's say al qaeda uses a linux infrastructure. Does that mean you would boycott linux for that? Why not boycott oil, arms, the CIA whom osama used to work for?

Re:Communists and Stallman

Talking about "warped ideologies", what about the millions of starving children in Africa? They are not dying because of "communism" (or even "Communism"). No, it is capitalism that is doing them in.

The issue is much broader and deeper than "capitalism". Quite seriously, I think that the monkeysphere theory [pointlesswasteoftime.com] explains this better. Regardless of the ideologies at play, when people who don't know each other and don't belong to the same community exchange goods and services, it's common not to worry much about the needs of the other party: each party is considered responsible for themselves. This is human nature, not "capitalism". There may be some relatively wealthy people who have the luxury of worrying about whether people they don't know are or aren't being exploited, but the average person really doesn't have that luxury.

What capitalism does is allow this general indifference to strangers to scale up, if you will: so that by handing over $1.99 for a pack of tube socks at Walmart, I can efficiently exploit child labor (etc.) in a foreign country that I don't know anything about, and unless I have an unusually well-developed conscience, I don't even have to think about it. So the vaunted efficiency of capitalism is also a major flaw: it's efficient, and that efficiency cuts both ways, amplifying the human attitude to people outside their own group (family, town, country, religion...)

These issues are rooted in human nature, and no ideology will overcome that on a large scale. If you want to deal with it, you have to build realistic ways of handling it into whatever system you're using. Neither communism nor capitalism does that.

Re:Don't know but sib post is perferct example!

Socialism does not exist in Africa. You're confusing Socialism and Fascism, of which there is plenty, in many forms, in many nations in Africa. Fascism does not have a social ideology other than centralized, dictatorial control over people. It can take hold in nations governed by socialism and capitalism alike. However, to be fair, the so-called Socialism which has been practiced in the world, has an easier path for Fascism to follow, as the centralized control mechanism is already in place.

Capitalism IN Africa is not what is killing its people, but rather the disposition at which capitalism places African nations with little in the form of natural resources to exploit and export.

We, as a wealthy nation, don't bother ourselves with an African nation unless it produces something we want. In fact, we have no problem buying from them, as long as it's cheap and profitable for us (e.g. the monstrous diamond industry). Conversely, if it has nothing to offer us, we couldn't care less even if their illegal government is committing genocide against its own people (e.g. Darfur).
No, that doesn't bother us. What does bother us however, is a crime we didn't care about when happened 30 years ago because at the time ignoring it suited our business interests, but now we do because the dictator who did it wasn't co-operating any more, and was harming our business relationships in the region. I speak of course of Iraq's Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds 30 years ago. We not only "forgave" him, we propped him up, because he was co-operative and good for our business interests. When he changed his mind, we killed him and took over his country. But I digress...

Now, to bring this tangent back to the original discussion, I think what Stallman is doing is admirable.
He's bringing free software into nations where the average annual income is less than the average monthly income for a minimum wage earner in the United States, sometimes even far less. Does that mean those people should simply be left behind on the technological ladder? If you're a giant corporation, your answer would be yes, because it would keep you at the top. If you're a giant corporation like Microsoft, they're an opportunity. A "gift" of say, 3000 Microsoft Office licenses, looks good on paper, can even be tax deductable, and yet at the same time, in order for the recipient to actually use them, they have to shell out for those Windows licenses. That means, your gift was actually a trojan horse designed to fatten your bottom line.
Stallman however, doesn't have a bottom line, although I'm sure he gets paid for his time. He doesn't make money off software licenses, and he doesn't make money as the shareholder of a major software company. That means he's actually doing this because he believes in it, which is admirable.

While I understand that communism has a bad name, on paper it is a beautiful thing. But only on paper, as it doesn't work when humans are added to the equation. If only we could somehow hold on to the "equal opportunity" part and the "you deserve to get what you need" part of socialism, while throwing away the "you can't have more than that - we will decide what you need" part that has always been added to it where it's been practiced, while at the same time holding on to the "excel if you can" part of capitalism, we'd have a much better world. Of course, I also know that I will never see that world, as it would actually require us to stop being so damn selfish all the time.

Free Software

Stallman speaks about Free Software, the writer of the article has obviously no clue regarding the distinction between Open Source and Free Software.

Politically and PR tone-deaf

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...

Re:Politically and PR tone-deaf

> 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.

Re:Politically and PR tone-deaf

I've been to Cuba twice, and what is the biggest factor keeping Fidel Castro so popular and in charge is the embargo itself. The embargo prevents the people from getting access to certain necessities, such as light bulbs or medicine, and only helps further their support of Fidel. In spite of the trade embargo it's amazing just how advanced Cuba is for being a third world country, and one where they can't buy anything directly from their huge nearest neighbor. The streets of Havana are filled with old cars from the 50's, still working, with people using their ingenuity to find ways to use replacement parts, due to the embargo.

The embargo is utterly ridiculous, it's an obsolete relic from the days of the red scare. Somehow the Republicans in the USA say how important the embargo is to force the end of communistic regimes, but they don't mention that we have absolutely no qualms about trading with China or Viet Nam, especially exploiting those countries for cheap labor.

Republicans also like to claim that the many Cubans trying to get out of the country to the shores of the USA prove how bad it is there, so we must keep the trade embargo up. Yet the fact we have Mexicans illegally trying to cross the border for the same reasons means we can maintain full economic and diplomatic relations with Mexico.

It's also ridiculous how hypocritical the right wingers are regarding illegal immigration. They think Mexicans coming in illegally must be deported, illegals here should be deported, yet Cubans that make it to shore should be granted immediate citizenship! And finally, just to prove how ridiculous our double standard is regarding Cuba with other nations - If anyone reading this knows of an illegal immigrant who wants to become a citizen, just have them wander over to Miami and claim they're a Cuban who just came off the raft, and they'll be granted citizenship within a few days!

And Just How Did They Acquire MS Software?

Unless I am mistaken, the United States has one of the most restrictive trade embargoes [wikipedia.org] 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.

Cuba, communism and stupidity

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".

Re:

As you well know, political discussion is all about word association; the realities behind the labels we use only matter to thinking people, and they represent only a wee minority.

What matters is that there is a clump of neurons in our brains that encode "

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Stallman shouldn't be dealing with thugs

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 [storytelle...lugged.com].

"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"

Re:Stallman shouldn't be dealing with thugs

Oh, I didn't know the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba uses Linux.

Investigate before posting

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." [informaticahabana.com] as well as 14 other International conferences. First hand experience from Marc Eisenstadt's [open.ac.uk] 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.

Silly recipe-sharers, jail is for dissenters!

Middle-aged communist bureaucrats and ponytailed young Cuban programmers applauded as the computer scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology insisted that copyright laws violate basic morality; he compared them to laws that would threaten people with jail for sharing or modifying kitchen recipes.

Is there anybody else who finds this deliciously ironic, considering that he's preaching this particular line of rhetoric to the government of Cuba, which regularly and freely represses dissent, jails opponents, and maintains a completely monopoly on the media? Perhaps a better comparison would be Stallman saying that laws on copyright violate basic morality, because it would be like threatening people with jail for sharing unapproved thoughts & news. [hrw.org]

Stallman also warned that proprietary software is a security threat because without being able to examine the code, users can't know what it's doing or what "backdoor" holes developers might have left open for future entry. "A private program is never trustworthy," he said.

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 [hrw.org]... 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?

Re:An Old Canard . . .

I wonder how RMS is going to spin this victory to his States-side detractors?
 
not only the existing ones- but all the people who don't know anything about open source. i think this could be a good thing for linux globally, but for those of us in the u.s. this is going to be the source of a mountain of fud.

Re:An Old Canard . . .

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.

Re:An Old Canard . . .

Reminds me of the picture that says something along the lines of "When you pirate music you help communism."

Gosh, maybe Stallman is pitching GNU/Linux to Osama bin Laden in his cave right now, and we can bring the War on Terror into this.

Re:An Old Canard . . .

I wonder how RMS is going to spin this victory to his States-side detractors?

He could say, "Wait a minute ... Microsoft replaced 'My Computer' with 'Computer' and 'My Documents' with 'Documents' ... and Gates says it's open source that's communist?"

Re:

Of course it is. Friend Computer would never consort with evil mutant commie traitors. To think otherwise would be the height of treason.

Comical Indeed, Bill Gates Inspired Them!

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:

Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes, [imagined non free software might contain bugs and backdoors and ] also noted that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates once described copyright reformers - including people who want to do away with proprietary software - as "some new modern-day sort of communists" - which is a badge of honor from the Cuban perspective.

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 [slashdot.org]. 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?

Re:Comical Indeed, Bill Gates Inspired Them!

"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)).

Re:

It's a misnomer to associate the GPL with proletariat or Marxist ideology. That's not at all what it's about.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.

A lot of capitalists are making a lot of money off Linux. I work for a

Re:An Old Canard . . .

"A lot of capitalists are making a lot of money off Linux. I work for an Internet company that runs on a +2000 Linux cluster. We were recently sold for $4 billion. Linux is not about socialism, it's *not* anti-capitalist anymore than Google or IBM is"

Do you even know the meaning of socialism? Here it is (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism) :

"a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."

This would fit the definition of linux and the GNU, except for the fact that the Free Software foundation is at the top (many people give all of their IP rights to the GNU..as described in the license), so, this fits more in this definition:

"a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state"

Which is communism.

I guess you can decide which one applies to linux, but I feel it is somewhere in-between.

If I buy 2000 machines and put linux on them, will someone buy them for $4 billion? I didn't think so. The purchase for 4 billion had nothing to do with linux. It was more about your customers, IP, and work that was put into the company.

"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. He can sell and profit from writing code, and be as much a capitalist as he wants. The GPL doesn't prevent that in the least."

It's not about social equality, it's about software equality. A business does not want to put thousands of hours into R&D (which costs lots of money), sell a piece of software, and then allow anyone to sell it or give it away for free (without having to put any R&D into it). From this aspect, it does not make sense as a business model. It does, however, if the business selling it is not the original developer or they are using it to somehow save money in licensing fees.

When anyone can do something (or in our case, download it), the value of it starts approaching 0.

Re:What victory?

You missed the point entirely.

I don't care if your government is democratic, communist, fascist, socialist, or a monarchy - running a modern government requires an assload of elements, systems, and processes to be in sync and dependable.

The ideology has nothing to do with it - the issue is that a complete government switch is taking place, and just because you disagree with the politics has nothing to do with the fact that if linux is suited to run these governments, chances are its well-suited to run many other governments.

Of course, the anarchists would have to do something like switch to an abacus or whatever.

Re:Not surprising.

I'm more surprised that Microsoft was allowed to sell Cuba copies of Windows in the first place.

MicroSoft sells copies of Windows to OEMS, see, maybe in Hong Kong, and it's the OEMs who sell them to Cuba. Stallman probably got Castro to switch to Linux by pointing out the new "feature" in Vista that lets M$ revoke driver priveleges at their pleasure. Imagine if GM had a lever in Detroit that could make all those mint-condition classic '57 Chevys in Cuba stop working.

Re:Not surprising.

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that 99.99% of Cuban software is pirated anyway. This switch is more of a big "fuck you" to capitalism and the US than it is about saving money.

Re:

Yes, I'm sure the loss of the Cuban goverment will badly damage Microsoft's bottom line.

Re:

wikipedia seems to disagree with you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America/ [wikipedia.org]

Re:Since when was Cuba in 'North America'?

wikipedia seems to disagree with you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America/ [wikipedia.org]

Don't worry: we'll have it fixed in a jiffy!

The number of Cubas in North America have tripled in the past six months...

Since the Triassic Period

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.)

Re:Since the Triassic Period

You're wrong on 2 counts. First, even if you wanted to define North America along political lines, there are more then 2 countries included in North America. Hint: NAFTA includes 3 countries. Second, South America starts south of Panama. In the area called the western hemisphere, there are 3 (major) tectonic plates, South American, North American and Caribbean and 4 descriptive areas, North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Cuba is on the North American plate and in the Caribbean ocean. It would ether be described as North American or Caribbean, usually the latter. South American however is just plain wrong.

Re:Can we get another spokesman?

You pretend anyone in the USA is going to care about this. They won't. But I'll tell you who will: Everybody else in Latin America. You might not realize it, but Cuba is the most literate country in Central America, and there is no small amount of admiration for Cuba in that part of the world. Add to that the economic muscle of Venezuela, as well as Chavez's almost dictatorial resolve to make things work, and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world will be watching carefully whether this succeeds. If it comes off well, it wouldn't surprise me that Linux would be the OS they would all use.

There are many smart and patriotic people in Cuba and Venezuela, and I suspect they will mess with Linux until it really works right for the purposes that the government has in mind. This is a far more honorable course than piracy of MS, which is what most other developing countries choose.

In summary, this is incredibly good for Linux, and only people who think the USA is the entire world could think otherwise.

'almost dictatorial' ?

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.

Re:Can we get another spokesman?

I don't have to pretend, as I noted above I compete with MS solutions every week. I _know_ people in the US will care because the MS spin machine will make it an issue, they already attempt to make the association between OSS and communism and this will make that link much easier to make. I'm glad that people in Cuba use and hopefully improve Linux and other OSS products. What I'm not happy about is that the father of FSF feels that he has to go make a sales pitch to the government of Cuba.

Lets reverse the situation, if RMS stood up with George Bush, or high ranking members of his administration, that would negatively impact the adoption of GNU and other OSS projects in countries where GWB or current American policy is unpopular.

In summary, people using Linux anywhere is good for Linux but having RMS stand with political leaders isn't. Do you really believe that PR machine in Cuba won't use this or that the propaganda they produce won't trickle back into the US?

Re:Can we get another spokesman?

I _know_ people in the US will care because the MS spin machine will make it an issue, they already attempt to make the association between OSS and communism and this will make that link much easier to make.

Bah.

Just counter "Cuba is going OSS" with "IBM is pushing OSS". If there's one thing IBM is not associated with, it's communism.