<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
I experimented when one, as system administrator, isn't agree
with the restrictions impossed by the State and try to find an
alternative way to express differently. In this situation one
can realize that the cuban political system lacks of such
independent alternatives for anyone 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. However, it is motivating to see how people could realize
about such things thank to bright minds like Mr. 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 way of
living.
</para>
<para>
In these last years, the cuban State has shown signs to start
using free software distributions with the goal 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 for the cuban State to reach the independency it looks for
(as long as I understand its political system) would be
creating and maintaining an entire 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 is something unacceptable for the cuban State
because would compromise the former idea it initially had
about its independency.
</para>
<para>
The cuban State is misunderstanding or confusing the real
meaning of free software. The free software is made by people
and dedicated to anyone whom might be in need of it, with the
hope of being useful and garantee the freedom of computer
users. The cuban State introduces free software because it is
free in the sense of price, not in the sense of freedom. The
cuban State uses free software as another impositions to
control what software does people use and which one doesn't.
Some people might see that it is free software anyway, but
think again: Shouldn't you have the oportunity 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.
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 to reach cuban
people, free software communities must be accessable for cuban
people first, so the cuban talent can be added to free
software philosophy. However, while the cuban State be
inbetween controlling how the cuban people can or cannot
integrate a specific way of living, there will not be free
software in Cuba, nor any freedom for the cuban people to make
use of.
</para>
<para>
Another popular affair frequently mentioned by the cuban State
information media is related to 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,
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 people will use a free software distribution
based on a lie or a distorted idea of freedom, that idea won't
last much before it fall itself into pieces. People need a
way of identifying themselves apart from any social/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 defend freedom if one doesn't have felt
what it is. The cuban State never talks (at least on the
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 sharing, based on the resolution 149
emitted by the cuban Ministerium of Informatics and
Telecomunications (MIT), you may find them very similar. This
resolution is valid to the statal sector only and regulates
what can and cannot be done inside that area when using
computers to share information. There is not any estipulation
about using information 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 way for cuban people to contract an Internet service at
home, however, the same isn't true for extranger people with
passport from other countries that visit Cuba or are resident
inhere. It is almost unbelievable how the cuban churches
along the island have limitations in this area, too.
</para>
<para>
In Cuba there is only one telecomunication organization named
ETECSA. This organization is very tied to the cuban State and
controls everything related to telephone networks and
dedicated links for data transmistion in the island. 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 transfering 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 interdependent human beings. 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 on. 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 inside &TCP; community.
</para>
</section>