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. In these last years (2009-2011), the cuban State has shown signs to start using free software distributions with the idea of reaching a technology independency 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, See resolution 129 emitted by the cuban Ministerium of Informatics and Telecomunications (MIT). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Considering that I and most cuban poeple haven't Internet access at present time. to share information using computers in freedom. The motivation for this work was taken from the free software philosophy exposed by Richard Stallman in his book Free Sofware Free Society and my personal experience from 2003 to 2009 as active member inside &TCP; international community.