Since 1999, I've been working for cuban State as Webmaster and lately as system administrator. On April 2009, I decided to stop working for cuban State due the increasing feeling of repression I experimented with the restrictions impossed by cuban State in the information area when I tried to find an alternative way to express myself different from what such restrictions impossed. This environment made me find that the cuban political system lacks of such independent alternatives for cubans 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, and what could be an alternative way for cubans inside the island that, like me, feel the same need of independent expression. Everything in the human life is directly related to information. Our actions are based on the information we have. The information is the base of education and evolution. It is the only way we can know how to do the right thing for us and others. I beleive that, in order to provide a good education, the universal information must be accessable to everyone in a transparent way, based on facts and without any manipulation (i.e., in way others can reproduce or verify what the information refers to). That kind of information is good information to based our lives on. However, there are also bad information that we need to differentiate from good information using our own conscience, not that one from others. I like the idea of structuring my life over pragmatic fatcs that I can verify together with a deep faith on what I am that help me to persist along the duty. The pragmatic fatcs provides the steps of the stair of my life and the faith, the force my body needs to climb up the stair. The years I worked for cuban State coincided with those years I began to realized myself about the steps of my stair and the faith on my movements. Lot of contradictions have been appearing in front of me since then, but a magical thing inside me (conscience) always tell me not to abandon the must pure of my self and keep going with this travel I'm still walking on; even when moving up one step in the stair feels like rasping the skin of my body against a rough wall. I know it will heal, but it hurts when happens. The only way to support the pain is to have faith on the rightness of your actions. That's the price of don't loosing oneself when walking over pragmatic facts in a confussed and unarmed society. That's the price of showing out that truth is inside us, not outside us. It is the way of showing the truth is in the one's faith, no matter what it be, but in feeling it somehow, specially when it comes from understanding what we are and the immense gift it is to have conscience of our univeral existence as part of that unknown nature we, as living humans, cannot ever have conscience of. I've experimented faith in free software and the philosophy behind it, but no possible way to manifest it independently from cuban State. The cuban State controls all the communication media and very few possibilities are available for cubans to build up independent collaborative networks using computers inside the island for sharing information apart from cuban State restrictions and conditions. One of these possibilities is the telepohne network the cuban State provides, which has national scope. Generally, cubans use the telephone network to talk among themselves, but it is also possible to use this network to transmit information that cannot be communicated using the regular method of human talking. It is possible to attach computers to the telephone network the cuban State provides to transmit whatever information a computer can produce (e.g., images, documents, programs, etc.) from one location in the island to another and encrypting the information traveling along the wire to garantee its privacy (e.g., the source computer protects the information in a way that only the target computer is able to unprotect. If the information is intercepted by a computer in the transmission middle, it would be useless for that computer since only the target can unprotect it). We'll see more about this later. In these last years (2009-2011), the cuban State has shown signs to start using free software 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? Based on the meaning of the word, independency is the lack of dependency, so the only way I see the cuban State will be able to reach such independency would be creating and maintaining an entire technical infrastructure (e.g., computers, communication devices, operating systems written from scratch, etc.) inside its political boundaries without any intervention from the outside world. Otherwise, the cuban State would be inevitably dependent from someone else that can differ at some point of the production string and that would be something unacceptable, because it would compromise the idea the cuban State had about independency in first place (i.e., no dependency). If the vision described above about what the cuban State tries to mean by reaching a technological independency sounds correct to you, 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 from people and dedicated to people who might be in need of it, with the hope of being useful and garantee the freedom of computer users paying or not a monetary price for it. The cuban State, on the other hand, introduces free software at convenience because there are entire operating systems free of charge which the cuban State can study and change as needed, not in the sense of guaranteeing the freedom it provides to people, but as a way to control what software does cubans use and the way they do that. It is another impositions cubans should comply with, no matter what they think about it. When I was working in the health sector of cuban State (2003-2007), my superior told me once that I couldn't keep using &TCD; on servers any longer, because system administrators 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 mention that this decision shouldn't be taken from one day to another without any consideration about all the time people spent studying (and working for) one specific GNU/Linux distribution. My opinion was rejected and they kept themselves showing me that it was a matter of politics one should follow, no matter what one thought about it. I couldn't accept that and fired up myself from that institution. I cannot change from one operating system to another just because someone else wants to. Some people might think that there is no problem in that because it is free software anyway. Yes, that's true, 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 by yourself, not from someone else. The free software isn't free because of its name, but the legal, social, economical and political environment it is used in. If licenses used by software producers to release their works (either freely or privatively) aren't protected somehow in that environment, software producers wont be motivated to create any software at all (either free or privative). Consider what is happening in Cuba with Windows, the operating system produced by Microsoft corporation: when someone install the Windows operating system, one of the first screens in the installation process is the License Agreement under which Microsoft corporation releases its product. This agreement relys on the copyright concept, a legal instrument that was initially created to motivate authors to create more. Likewise, the Free Software Foundation relys on the copyright concept to distribute free software. The fact the License Agreement of Windows operating system isn't complied in Cuba (e.g., no cuban pays Microsoft corporation for using its operating system) as Microsoft imposses in its License Agreement, is a clear sign of international copyright violation, no matter if Cuba can or cannot establish commercial treatments with Microsoft corporation because of the Embargo impossed by United States of America against Cuba. It is an ethical matter cubans need to comply with in order to help reducing the tension against both nations by showing respect for their creators and the way they expect their products to be distributed world-wide. Personally, I don't use Windows operating system since 2003 when I discovered the free software philosophy, I want to thank my teacher Jesús Aneiros Sosa for intructing me in the free software philosophy and for leading the Linux User Group (LUG) of Cienfuegos during so many years and transmiting the feeling of freedom. but I am worried about the legal issues cubans might face when developing free software. For example, will the cuban State treat the free software license in the same way it treats privative software licenses? If the cuban State has no legal regulation to protect the international copyright concept (i.e., letting authors to publish their works the way they want to and provide the legal protections needed to deprive people from using those creations in a way different from that one conceived by their authors), it would be very difficult to truly motivate people to create free software (or anything else) in Cuba. The main problem here is that you can write free software, but what instrument you have to protect it from others to make your code privative and forbbid you, this way, from using further improvements over the code you wrote yourself. It is important to remember that the free software movement was initiated by Richard Stallman in the United States of America, based on the legal system of that country, specifically in the copyright concept being in force. In order to use free software, in the sense of freedom thought by Richard Stallman, it is required that a similar underlaying legal system in matters of copyright concepts be present in Cuba, or an agreement be complied among all countries (e.g., The Berna Treatment) for this matters. I've heard that Cuba signed The Berna Treatment, however what is happening with Windows operating system gives the impression that cuban State is not complying with the agreement it signed on there. For cuban society to understand what free software and the philosophy behind it really are, it is required to force a strong concept of copyright in the cuban legislation, even when some authors might want to deny the cuban State from using the work they produce or use it under conditions the cuban State doesn't agree with. It is required to give that legal power to cuban authors, the people who create. I wonder if the cuban State is ready for that; and if not, why? I really would like to know in order to find a solution. Free software communities are the place where free software is produced. There are international, national and local communities grouped under the free software philosophy. In Cuba, because all the communication media are controlled by the cuban State and conceived to its own benefit, it is difficult for anyone differing from cuban State to have access to communication media where the free software communities live in. I strongly beleive that for the free software philosophy to touch the heart of cubans, all free software communities must be accessable to cubans. However, while the cuban State keeps itself being inbetween, controlling how the cubans can or cannot integrate any specific way of living, there will not be free software in Cuba, nor any freedom for cubans to make use of. Another frequent topic mentioned by the cuban State information media is the migration from privative software to free software. The migration from privative software to free software must be initiated from people's deepest comprehension of what they are doing, not from impositions of another inquestionable order everybody needs to comply with. So, cubans 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 cubans will use free software based on a lie or a distorted idea about the freedom it provides, an idea like that wont 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 officially) about introducing free software for freeing the cuban society from privative software. In fact, if you compare the privative software and the way cuban State restricts the information management, See resolution 129 emitted by cuban Ministerium of Informatics and Telecommunications (MIT). you may find them very similar. The resolutions emitted by cuban State are specific to statal instituions that use 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 cubans that has been called by the cuban State security departament to explain why they built a computer network in the neighbourhood to share information (isn't that obvious) and finally they were intimidated to stop doing so. There isn't a legal instrument in either direction that one can use as pattern to act legally. The cuban State has all the legal power to condemn you as cuban, but you are completly unarmed against it. If the cuban State really wants to be democratic, it needs to give to cubans the arms they need to fight against it without fear of being defeated. Indeed, there would be no defeating at all, but evolution into new political states based on cubans needs. It is the majority of cubans who should define how The Cuban Tree evolves, not a few minority that opresses the unarmed masses. Internet access is another obscured issue inside Cuba. Around 2008, Cuba and Venezuela signed up an agreement to connect both nation with a trasatlantic fiber optic cable for high speed Internet access. In 2011 the cuban State announced the arrival of such cable to cuban national territory, but nothing more has been mentioned since then. There is a terrible silence about it that make people woundering what happend with that millionary invertion. Some people ask themselves why to spend so much money on that if cubans cannot make use of it and others prefer to think that the entire project failed. It is difficult to know what happend exactly because, again, there isn't any alternative way of communication but those provided and controlled by the cuban State. The fact is that, at present time (2011), there isn't a legal way for cubans to contract an Internet service at home, nor even a viable way to acquire a fixed telephone line at home either. I know of people that have requested a fixed telephone line for their home and more than three years have passed and they haven't the line yet. It is also known by everyone that others don't even have to make any request to have a fixed telephone line at home. However, the same isn't true for extrangers coming from other countries who are visiting Cuba or staying inhere as residents. The cuban State permits these persons to access Internet paying a service in offices called Telepuntos or from home using different fees. Some cubans cannot understand this, nor the logic behind it either. Have cubans to change their nationality in order to have Internt access from their homes in Cuba? In Cuba there is only one telecommunication corporation named ETECSA. This organization gives the impresion of being very tied to cuban State and controlling 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 a cuban prison because the cuban State considered such action as illegal actions. At this moment I haven't more information about this case. 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 cuban telephone network is the only communication medium most cubans have direct access to, my attention is centered on it as phisical medium for exchanging information 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, it could be difficult to obtain the Modem devices inside the island, and it could be too much expencive to make international calls in order to exchange information with public services available on different networks outside Cuba's political boundaries. Besides all these restrictions, the cuban telephone network has a national scope that can be efficiently used by cubans inside the island to share information using computers at a monetary cost of national telephone calls and the electrical power consumed by computers and communication devices (e.g., modems and switches). I beleive that most of problems the cubans 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, it is needed to make available independent ways for cubans to express themselves in freedom and provide, this way, the base arguments needed to edificate the solutions of those problems we face today. That's my goal with this work: educating myself in the compromise of providing an independent space for cubans to discuss and coordinate how to create collaborative networks using the cuban telephone network Considering that I and most cubans haven't access to dedicated links or real IP addresses for data transmission at present time. as phisical medium to transmit 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.