<section id="preface-overview">

    <title>Overview</title>

    <para>

        On April 2009, I decided to stop working for cuban State. This

        decision emerged with the increasing feeling of repression

        experimented when one, as system administrator, isn't agree

        with the restrictions impossed by cuban State and tries to

        find an alternative way to express oneself differently. In

        this environment, one can realize that the cuban political

        system lacks of such independent alternatives for cuban people

        to use.  I don't pretend to use this book to detail the

        political system I live on, but I do want to say that the more

        I got involved with the cuban political system the more

        distance I felt between the most pure of myself and the

        actions the system expected from me to do as system

        administrator. Nevertheless, it is motivating to see how

        we are able to realize about such things thank to bright minds

        like Richard Stallman with his philosophy about freedom and an

        immense free software community under constant development

        which provides the medium to express the free software

        philosophy as a way of living.

    </para>

    <para>

        In these last years (2009-2011), the cuban State has shown

        signs to start using free software distributions with the idea

        of <quote>reaching a technology independency</quote> which is

        quiet contradictory to me. What independency we are talking

        about here?  Independency for whom, and from whom? The only

        way I see the cuban State will be able to reach such

        independency (as long as I understand its political system)

        would be creating and maintaining an entire technical

        infrastructure (e.g., computers, network devices, operating

        systems written from scratch, etc.) inside its political

        boundaries without any intervention from the outside.

        Otherwise, the cuban State would be inevitably attached to

        someone that can differ from it and, that would be something

        unacceptable for cuban State, because it would compromise the

        former idea it has about independency.

    </para>

    <para>

        The cuban State is misunderstanding or trying to distort the

        real meaning of free software and the philosophy behind it.

        The free software is built by people and dedicated to people

        whom might be in need of it, with the hope of being useful and

        garantee the freedom of computer users paying or not for it.

        The cuban State, on the other hand, introduces free software

        in the sense of its price, not in the sense of the freedom it

        provides to people. The cuban State uses free software as

        another impositions to control what software does people use

        and which one doesn't.<footnote>

        <para>

            When I was working in the health sector of cuban State, my

            superior told me once that I couldn't keep using &TC;; on

            servers any longer, because the institution at central

            level stopped using Red Hat related distribution and

            started to use Debian. I don't want to enter in a debate

            why one or another distribution, that's not the point. But

            I do want to mentione that this decision couldn't be taken

            from one day to another without previous preparation of

            all system administrator personal. My opinion was rejected

            and they kept themselves showing me that it was a politics

            to follow, no matter what I would think of it. I decided

            to fire up myself. I couldn't accept that, specially

            because I cannot change the operating system I use each

            time a new guy takes control on central levels. I'm very

            sorry about that.

        </para>

        </footnote> Some people might see that it is free

        software anyway, but think that again: Shouldn't you have the

        freedom to decide what free software to use, and also what

        community you join to? No one must impose you anything about

        which social community you participate in, that is a decision

        you need to take yourself, not someone else.  Sadly, the

        medium where such free software communities live in (i.e.,

        Internet) is only available for institutions related to cuban

        State, making it very difficult for cuban people without any

        political relation with the cuban State to make decitions like

        that and integrate any free software community at all. I

        strongly beleive that, for the free software philosophy to

        touch the heart of cuban people, the free software communities

        must be accessable for cuban people. However, while the cuban

        State keep itself being inbetween, controlling how the cuban

        people can or cannot integrate any specific way of living,

        there will not be free software in Cuba, nor any freedom for

        cuban people to make use of.

    </para>

    <para>

        Another popular affair frequently mentioned by the cuban State

        information media is the migration from privative to free

        software.  The migration from privative software to free

        software must be initiated from people deepest comprehension

        of what they are doing, not from impositions of another

        inquestionable order everybody need to comply with.  So,

        cuban people need to feel what freedom is and express it in

        order to perceive a deep impact of free software in cuban

        society.  We cannot pretend that cuban people use free

        software based on a lie or a distorted idea of the freedom it

        provides, that idea won't last much before it falls itself

        into pieces.  People need a way of identifying themselves

        apart from any social or political system in order for them to

        be able of decide whether or not to be part of one.

    </para>

    <para>

        It is impossible to truly defend freedom if one doesn't have

        felt what it is. The cuban State never talks (at least on its

        information media) of introducing free software for freeing

        the cuban society of privative software. In fact, if you

        compare the privative software and the way cuban State

        restricts information,<footnote>

        <para>

            See resolution 129 emitted by the cuban Ministerium of

            Informatics and Telecomunications (MIT).

        </para>

        </footnote> you may find them very similar.  The resolution

        129 was emitted to instituions in the statal sector only and

        regulates what can and cannot be done inside that area when

        using computers to share information.  I don't know of any

        legal estipulation about using information and communication

        technologies by nautural people outside the statal sector and

        spite of it, I've heard of people that has been called by the

        cuban State security departament to explain why they built a

        LAN in the neighbourhood to share information (isn't that

        obvious) and finally they were intimidated to stop doing so.

        There is no legal instrument in either direction one can use

        as pattern to act legally. The cuban State has all the legal

        power to condemn you, but you are completly naked against it.

        The most you can do is to break relations with it as long as

        it be possible so you are not helping him in that policts of

        condemning you any more. 

    </para>

    <para>

        Internet access is another affair obscured by cuba State.

        Around 2008, Cuba and Venezuela signed an agreement to connect

        each nation with a trasatlantic fiber optic cable for high

        speed Internet access. In 2011 the cable toched the cuban

        territory, but nothing has been mentioned about it after that.

        There is a terrible silence about it. Some people wounder why

        spend so much money on that if no cuban can use it, other

        think that the hole project failed and it is impossible to

        transmit data through it. It is difficult to know exactly

        because, again, there is no alternative way of communication

        but those provided and controlled by the cuban State.  The

        fact is that there is no way for cuban people to contract an

        Internet service at home. It is almost unbelievable to see how

        the cuban churches along the island have limitations in this

        area as well. However, the same isn't true for extrangers with

        passport from other countries that visit Cuba or are resident

        inhere. The cuban State permits these persons to pay the

        Internet service, in offices called Telepuntos or for

        accessing it at home using different fees. Some cuban people

        cannot understand this, nor the logic behind it either.

    </para>

    <para>

        In Cuba there is only one telecomunication organization named

        ETECSA. This organization is very tied to cuban State and

        controls everything related to telephone networks and

        dedicated links for data transmistion in the island.<footnote>

        <para>

            I heard of a case where someone tried to establish an

            independent connection from Cuba to another country using

            the air as phisical medium for data trasmission and that

            person is pressently suffering years in prison for doing

            that.  At this moment I have no more information but this.

            It is very difficult to be accurate about such things

            without an alternative information medium apart from those

            under cuban State control.

        </para>

        </footnote>Based on the fact that the telephone network is the

        only communication medium most cuban people have direct access

        to, our attention is centered on it, as phisical medium to

        exchange data using computers.  It is important to remark

        that, when using the telephone network as medium for data

        transmission, there are limitations in the number of

        simultaneous connections it is possible to phisically

        establish between computers, the way of obtaining the required

        communication devices, and the way information might be

        exchanged with public services available on different networks

        outside Cuba's political boundaries.  Nevertheless, the

        telephone network has a national scope that can be used by

        computers to transfer data all over the island at a cost of

        telephone calls.

    </para>

    <para>

        I beleive that most of problems the cuban people presently

        have are caused by a lack of information we need to face in

        order to understand what we are and where we are going to, in

        the sense of an interdependent human being's society.  To face

        the information problem, we need to provide independent ways

        for cuban people to express themselves in freedom and provide,

        this way, the routes needed to work out most problems we face

        today. That's my goal with this work: educating myself in the

        compromise of providing an independent space for cuban people

        to discuss and coordinate how to create collaborative networks

        throuth the cuban telephone network<footnote>

        <para>

            Considering that I and most cuban poeple haven't Internet

            access at present time.

        </para>

        </footnote> to share information using computers in freedom. 

    </para>

    <para>

        The motivation for this work was taken from the free software

        philosophy exposed by Richard Stallman in his book

        <citetitle>Free Sofware Free Society</citetitle> and my

        personal experience from 2003 to 2009 as active member inside

        &TC;; international community.

    </para>

</section>