<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 &TCD; 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
&TCP; international community.
</para>
</section>