Cuba in on the act...

Cuba Switching to Linux

Posted by Zonk on Thursday May 19, @09:12AM
from the comrade-tux dept.
Tony Montana writes "According to several news sites the government of Cuba is dumping Windows in favour of Linux. Cuba's director of information technology, Roberto del Puerto, says that Cuba already has approximately 1500 computers running on Linux, and is working towards replacing Windows on all state owned computers."

taken from : slashdot.org

some extra info...

Actually they have quite a positive image in most countries of the world other than the US. Given that they've been US embargoed for several decades and yet still can offer some of the best healthcare and social services in the Caribbean says alot to their efficiency. Castro and the communist government aren't a walk in the park (e.g. human rights abuses, limited democractic rights for population, dictatorial powers) but its not nearly as bad as portrayed in the American media.

Linux is a good deal for Cuba, as they can't legally buy Windows given the US embargo...actually they can't buy most software under the circumstances. Also, their currency weakness doesn't allow them to trade for services very well. Given that Linux will make the every-day person's life more productive I can't see anyone reasonably opposing Linux adoption in Cuba...the government won't benefit from this directly.

I think that there is a general understanding even here in the US that the sanctions on Cuba are both counterproductive and implimented in such a way as to hurt the generally innocent Cuban civillians. I think that most Americans would favor more trade with Cuba. The problem instead however is that the ages of the past seem to lie like a nightmare on the present, and what was once a cold-war imperial policy (the Cold War was an imperial chess game between two cultural and political empires, IMO).