Cuba Launches Own Linux Variation 494
willclem writes "According to Reuters, it seems that Cuba has launched its own variation of Linux in order to fulfill its government's desire to replace Microsoft operating systems. 'Getting greater control over the informatic process is an important issue,' said Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes, who heads a commission pushing Cuba's migration to free software."
Countries and open source (Score:2, Informative)
Well, I guess this means they aren't stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have corporate masters (Score:4, Insightful)
Our politicians aren't stupid either. The simply can't afford to piss off their backers, so they end up making all kinds of bizarre and unhelpful decisions in order to please them.
I mean... Fuck. We're well into the trillions now. How big is a trillion? 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. It's a lot of paper.
Here's a question for you... How much capital does a well run bank need?
Answer: SFA.
Under the existing fractional reserve system, banks don't need much money, as bizarre as that sounds. With 700 billion dollars and the existing 10% reserve ratio in the US, the American government could have entirely replaced the existing fucked up banks with clean banks able to lend, and the problem would largely have been solved by now. Instead, of allowing them to fail, they are propping up a bunch of what are effectively zombie banks, as the Japanese government also did. I assume they'll continue to prop them up until they can unload their toxic crap on the government.
Why? Well, have a look at the campaign contributions for that answer. I mean, jesus. Geithner; New York Fed. Do you really expect anything to change?
Oh, btw, you and your children are paying for the privilege.
Re:Well, I guess this means they aren't stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is to say, that's one of the smarter things I have heard about a government lately.
But it doesn't really require any special smarts to understand that if you buy a "black box" computer whose innards are all binary blobs that your people can't take apart and study, the computer can do anything at all with your data, and you have no defense. In particular, if you plug it into a network, it can be sending all your data off to anywhere in the world.
If someone doesn't understand this, the reason isn't usually stupidity. It's because they have some ulterior motive to not understand it. In the case of politicians, the reason is generally because they're "on the take", known in the US as "campaign contributions". This is likely to be the case with non-governmental organizations, too. After all, it has become common for organizations to let vendors know that they're looking at linux and other "free" software. The response from Microsoft and other vendors is to (publicly) offer their software at a much lower price, and (privately) offer kickback to the administrators.
You don't need to attribute great intelligence to someone who understands this. It's the way that much of the world has always worked. We can expect to read of some vaguely-specified special agreements between Microsoft and the Cuban government, and we'll know what has gone on behind the scenes.
CigarOS (Score:5, Funny)
If we are voting, I vote for Castrix (Score:5, Funny)
If we are voting, I vote for Castrix
-- Terry
Re:If we are voting, I vote for Castrix (Score:5, Funny)
Castrix does seem to go well with Unix...
Re:If we are voting, I vote for Castrix... (Score:3, Funny)
I vote "Fidelity" or "Fidelix" (Raulix doesn't sound quite right....) ... in honor of the Regime outlasting multiple US administrations...
Re:If we are voting, I vote for Castrix (Score:4, Funny)
That's good!!!
I was thinking Cubuntu.
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I watched too much I Love Lucy when I was a kid; I was thinking Babalubuntu.
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Re:If we are voting, I vote for Castrix (Score:4, Informative)
But it would make a great Slashdot poll.
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Che-buntu is the name.
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Re:CigarOS (Score:5, Funny)
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How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:4, Funny)
How did microsoft get around the embargo?
They aren't a company, man. They're their own frickn' weather system. They just need the coriolis force the tell them which way to spin.
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at the record of foreign policy, privacy, and civil liberties in this country, we also have to ask ourselves if we really have the moral high ground to make judgments about other countries like this, as well. When was the last time Cuba started an international conflict? The expression "Physician, heal thyself" springs to mind.
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The embargo affects more than just the US.
Foreign companies that do business in Cuba are forbidden to do business in the U.S.
Any ship carrying goods to Cuba cannot dock in a U.S. controlled port for a period of something like 6 months.
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am from Finland so I think I dont have your mindset. Could you explain to me, why exactly would we ever want to hope that. Cuba isnt any threat to the safety of the world or anything...
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The CIA is a worldwide agency, and collects information from most (or all) the countries. Getting information from non too friendly countries is obviously more interesting (for example, emails sent from Venezuela, Russia, etc.) And locally, what about preventing another of nuke-crisis, or some action over Guantanamo?
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Cuba openly supports a violent over-throw of Capitalist economies, and vows to not rest until world wide communism has been achieved.
http://www.newworker.org/athens.htm [newworker.org]
In the 1970's, the popular thing for upwardly mobile Communists was to hijack US airliners and divert them to Cuba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings [wikipedia.org]
In Cuba, attempting to flee to the US is a crime punishable by death.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=cuba+escape+execute&btnG=Search [google.com]
Cuban re
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm in no way defending Cuba's government acts here, but I really don't get this "Cuba is evil" mindset that people in the US always state and that always only shows one side.
One need to remember that besides what Cuba did, the US supported a dictator in Cuba (Batista) before the was overthrown by the "revolution", supported a tentative to invade Cuba (Bay of Pigs), and supported terrorist and sabotage acts in Cuba.
The US (biggest economy and military in the world) also imposes an economic embargo in Cuba (very small country) for some 40 years. And at the same time the US has a law that allows any Cubans who reach the US to become a US citizen. Do you want any bigger incentive than these two for people to live a country with a struggling economy?
And then they claim that people just want to run away from the bad bad Castro because he is the devil or something. :-/
Let's at least present both sides.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still the same AC here... I hope you arent referring to Cuba Missile Crisis, because that indeed was very long ago. Even if you arent and there has been something later than that, it is hardly a valid argument. Doesnt USA target numerous countries with nuclear missiles? And support more countries that have those?
I can tell that there are a lot of people who are more worried about Israel than Cuba, seeing Cuba isnt even very militaristic country. Why in hell would they fire a missile to a country they cant invade? Just because they are (nearly) communists and thus evil?
If you wish to not answer because of it would take this too far offtopic, I can understand that and not automatically assume that you somehow lost. Just felt the need to mention that at least over here, I have never heard that Cuba would have somehow threatening imago.
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Israel will not get peace unless it's stops it's policy of stealing Palestinian land. Steadily expanding settlements, "security areas" and the like is just stealing by another name.
On the other hand Palestinians will not get peace unless they stop being the world's biggest morons. Shooting rockets at someone a thousand times more powerful gets you invaded and your infrastructure destroyed? Huh, imagine that.
The refugees are all Palestinian (Score:3, Insightful)
That says pretty clearly who removed people from where ....
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:5, Informative)
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The U.S. was the aggressor. If it hadn't tried to invade Cuba, this crisis would have never happened. Cuba's decision to allow the Soviets to put a missile base in Cuba was a result from the Kennedy administrations attempt to destabilize them. The Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba because we had them next door to them in Turkey.
The "grudge" the US right holds towards Cuba has to do with the fact that they hold the belief that because Cuba is next door the US has the right to determine the type of govern
Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why did this post get labeled troll? Honestly? The US has admitted to sneaking code into valve controllers made by a company that the US knew that the russians were discreetely and secretly buying, that would cause them to go wonky when certain circumstances happened, leading to a huge explosion on one of their main siberian gas pipelines. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA-plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html [telegraph.co.uk] Why would it be different for cuba?
Replace Microsoft? (Score:2)
US companies aren't supposed to be doing business with Cuba in the first place; shouldn't their computers not even have MS products? And what make are these machines they have? Given other recent news, I assume they're HPs...
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Considering most hardware is made in asia anyway, i doubt cuba has much of a problem obtaining computers...
Vive Cuba ! Linux? (Score:2)
Cuban Linux distro name (Score:5, Funny)
Not if it's Red Hat based (Score:5, Funny)
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If it's Red Hat based, I say SombrerOS!
There, fixed it for you.
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Ramiro Valdes for President of Cuba (Score:2)
Sounds like the smartest Cuban leader I've heard about in awhile...
I vote for.. (Score:2)
Castrate Linux
The big deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I guess there are still people (the people who are reading this message) who will be able to report any backdoors/home phoning they notice placed into the source, but that will only make a difference provided:
1- Cuba releases the source
2- The distro is popular enough to have people using it
3- People carefully examine the source code
4- Said examiners are able to spot a problem
5- Said problem is heard by the end users of the distro
6- End users of the distro have options as to what operating system they are able to use, if it is mandated by the government, they pretty much have to live with it.
2 years on... (Score:3, Informative)
So, as far as the GNU army marching into Havana, they're already there. Cuba and RMS are old pals [youtube.com].
Fidel Penguin? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see the logo be an image of Fidel dressed-up as a penguin.
I'm pretty sure the guy has a sense of humor. When I was a kid, I was a "shortwave listener" (before I got my ham license) and sent of to Radio Havana (among others) for a "QSL" card, confirming that I had heard their station.
Besides the card, I got other periodic mailings, including a Christmxxxx New Year card one year, bearing the cartoon likeness of Fidel Castro, laid-out on the dining-room table as a pig, complete with an apple in his mouth. I kid you not. I'll bet he had a big laugh.
Wish I still had it - could probably sell it for a bundle on eBay!
(Other "interesting" material I received included a copy of the Little Red Book from Radio Peking, and a subscription to China Pictorial - a beautifully-printed bled-to-edge full color magazine with gorgeous pictures of fields and tractors...)
Commercial apps are in for REAL trouble. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Commercial apps are in for REAL trouble. (Score:5, Interesting)
I said something similar [slashdot.org] regarding the Russian decision to use Linux. It wasn't received too well. I think that this sort of event truly does mean trouble for MS and proprietary software in a rather large way.
I think that it is more likely that F/OSS developers will beat large proprietary vendors to the punch though. There will be a new market for proprietary Linux software though. When Adobe does port to Linux it doesn't have to be Free or Open Source to run on Linux, but it will be hard to sell software to people that are happy to use the F/OSS alternatives.
It should be interesting times.
Re:Commercial apps are in for REAL trouble. (Score:4, Interesting)
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A start-up can make a killing by not having commercial competition.
One thing I am concerned about is that Linux is a moving target. Will an app developed today work on a distro 10 years from now, without having to rewrite it to match the modern libraries? (Wouldn't that lead to linux dll's?) Something like Gentoo's ability to have multiple versions of the same package would be useful...
More diversity at the distro level too. (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I am concerned about is that Linux is a moving target. Will an app developed today work on a distro 10 years from now, without having to rewrite it to match the modern libraries?
The good thing it that nothing will stop distro-makers from packaging several libraries or several generations of them.
In fact most installed Linux around have both QT and GTK2 installed, because these are use by lot of software. As a similar example, during the KDE3-4 transition you're bound to find both QT3 and QT4 installed on lots of machines. Up until recently you had GTK1 and GTK2 installed together because lots of legacy application didn't make the move.
Also if some legacy interface is *that much* po
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There market is about to shrink...
err... Sorry to be a grammar Nazi, but... since your sig is:
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It seems timely to let you know that you should have used "their".
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Re:Commercial apps are in for REAL trouble. (Score:4, Informative)
All commercial software I have ever written runs on Linux. Almost all companies I've worked for ran Linux on some or all of their computers. All customers I've worked with ran Linux on some or all of their computers. And most of these computers running Linux ran commercial software.
Linux is already big. Linux is already receiving major commercial support.
The only reason people think Linux isn't big is that it isn't big on the desktop.
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But Linux on the desktop is about to take off. And when it does, all the other types of areas (servers, large embedded, small embedded, even hard
Where do you get the parts? (Score:3, Funny)
Lunix can run on a '59 Eldorado? Impressive.
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Yeah, but the newest version they could get was 0.98. They are still maintaining it, though!
Its! Its! Not it's! (Score:2, Flamebait)
If only we could invent a version of Linux that had a spellchecker which would shoot the user in the head for not one but two typos of "it's". Jesus Christ folks, YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING CUT AND PASTE THE CORRECT SPELLING FROM THE ORIGINAL FUCKING ARTICLE!?
Nova, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Chevy had some trouble in Mexico and South America with it's 'Nova,' because the name is a play on no va, or it doesn't go.
Funny that Cuba would pick such a name for their new OS.
Re:Nova, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently that old story just isn't true [snopes.com].
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Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table.
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"Nova" is a perfectly fine word in Spanish, meaning "new" in the feminine gender. It is also pronounced /'nova/, while "No va" would be /'no 'va/, with accent on both words; it is therefore written and spoken differently. Obviously if they end up with a crappy distro, people will start making that sort of puns.
lowering the expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
Free people (Score:4, Insightful)
So now Cuba has free software but not free people? It's a strange world we live in.
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Finally (Score:2)
Finally, this confirms it.
2009 will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Viva la revolución!
Rather Ironic Considering their Previous Stances (Score:2, Insightful)
I find this rather ironic considering that up until May of 2008 it was illegal to own a personal computer in Cuba and even now, almost a year later, the prices remain out of reach for ordinary Cubans. This excerpt from a CNet article [cnet.com] at the subject really sums it up nicely:
"don't expect to start surfing Cubans' blogs about what it's like to collect a state monthly salary of about $20 anytime soon; most of these PCs will not be allowed connections to the Internet, according to the report. Only trusted offici
Not that I had used those... *cough* (Score:3, Funny)
...but many pirated copies can pass those checks. Have been able to do that for a long time.
And they could have bought computers from some European retailer with pre-installed Windows.
What I am impressed with is a country that just made having personal computers legal is developping Linux distro.
Ever since hearing that, I have been aspiring to move to Cuba after getting my degree in CS. It will be pretty rapidly growing market there in a while.
Re:Not that I had used those... *cough* (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, in stark contrast to the politically flawless United States, having no record of any government involvement with production of open source or proprietary software. Pleeeeeaaaaassssssssseeeee.
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It would be quite simple, really, for Cuba to go 100% legit.
Instead of an entry tax, every foreign national must declare on arrival a boxed copy of Windows. I'm not sure how many visitors Cuba receives a year but if that happened for a year, the rate of adoption for Windows 7 would be higher than most western countries.
Whether the MS EULA has explicit clauses on "this software may not be installed in regions for which the US has an embargo", I dunno.
Now if, instead of Windows, they modified that scheme to O
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Somehow I have a hard time picturing penguins in Cuba.
I don't. [wikipedia.org]
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It is kind of sad.
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, Russia is a Soviet country!
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:4, Insightful)
And being "a liberal". Apparently in the U.S. it's best to be a selfish extremist. No room for moderation, tolerance or love for your community.
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You really should learn to separate what should be imposed on others (legality) from how should I live my own life (morality). The opposite of the political liberal is not the "selfish extremist", but rather the person who seeks to apply these principles in their own life without employing force (via legislation) to make everyone else do the same. Liberals are not despised for their "moderation, tolerance or love for [their] community", but rather for their attempts to codify these principles as legal oblig
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I don't know if you read what Putin told Michael Dell in Davos [channelregister.co.uk]?
You are probably also aware of the plans in Russia and Uzbekistan for a National Operating System. Cuba now joins the club.
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:4, Funny)
Since when is russia a communist or socialist country?
1917. Just wait a few weeks, I'm sure that kdawson will post it.
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(Imagine explaining 'Free as in speech, not free as in beer' in Cuba or China. Or Russia, for that matter, with its open season on investigative journalists.)
Or in the USA for that matter... where you can put away without any trial, any right to contact anyone or even ask them why you were put away... just because someone did not like your name or something. You/We're not that much better. They can only hide it better here. No need for censorship, if you have FOX news.
I just hope they don't close that gap in difference soon. Because they work very hard on it.
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You forgot your hat (Score:4, Funny)
The whole thing has been cleverly orchestrated by Microsoft. And when they defeat the red menace, they shall be seen as heroes.Beautiful plan. I wish I thought of it myself.
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that the connection of open source with Socialism in peoples minds and the negative effect this could have on its adoption worries me.
Beyond this though I am sick and tired of the irrational fear of socialism in the United States. Im not saying lets become the USSR that obviously did not work out so well but we are still stuck at a point were it is impossible to have rational discussion about anything that gets labeled as socialist. Its a giant hypocritical mess. Look at public roads thats a beautiful example of socialism central to our society.
I think generations of Americans have been conditioned/brainwashed to attack at the first mention of the word socialism before considering what is being proposed. The irony of it all is that public schools the major institution doing this brainwashing is a socialist model.
I don't believe that socialist systems work everywhere. I am a fervent capitalist and believe in designing free markets with appropriate incentives. All I want to do is be able to have a rational debate about plans that might contain socialist components without people freaking out.
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Public schools are a socialist model, as are the police, the justice system, the libraries, the firemen or the free-health-for-all (at least in Europe).
I don't see what's wrong with this "socialism" me neither!
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I just have to contribute my 2 cents regarding this statement.
In the old days, capitalists were the people who owned the means of production and simply profited from this ownership. The Forbes richest people in the world are the people we're talking about. In fact, these capitalists don't even need to actually support capitalism as a great ideal.
Now-a-days every layman who supports capitalism calls himself a capitalist. We lose an important distinction here, and I really think you might be better off by understanding this. Perhaps it will give you some more insight into each system and help you further refine your values.
In a very real sense, you are probably a socialist who happens to support capitalism. For example, do you pay Geico for car insurance (socialist) or do you own Berkshire-Hathaway (capitalist)? Do you invest in a 401k (socialist) or do you own your own investment firm (capitalist)? Do you fly commercial or in a private Lear jet? Do you go to work in the morning or do workers come to your building? I think you see where I'm going.
Anyway, I think it's an important distinction... more details here:
Capital [marxists.org]
and here:
Capitalist [wikipedia.org]
Re:Tux cant handle the Cuban heat. (Score:5, Insightful)
But not owning capital doesn't ipso facto make you a socialist. Buying car insurance is a capitalist, free-market transaction.
Besides, most people in the West are capitalists, as they own part of all of either a house or a car. A 'socialist' investing in a 401K with a stock aspect may become a part owner of Berkshire-Hathaway, which is a publicly listed firm.
By your definition, almost nobody is a capitalist as most firms are publicly listed and hence socially owned.
In short, I think the reason the distinction has blurred in usage is because it has genuinely blurred in reality. And a socialist is certainly not the same thing as someone with no money. Just see Polly Toynbee.
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But not owning capital doesn't ipso facto make you a socialist. Buying car insurance is a capitalist, free-market transaction.
True, being broke does not (in and of itself) make you a socialist. I don't think I said it does, my apologies if I did. However, you could be considered a socialist (albeit an unknowing or reluctant one) if you need to participate in these co-operative organizations (like an insurance policy holder or 401k investor or job holder) because you don't profit enough from your capital to cover your costs.
Besides, most people in the West are capitalists, as they own part of all of either a house or a car. A 'socialist' investing in a 401K with a stock aspect may become a part owner of Berkshire-Hathaway, which is a publicly listed firm.
This is where the distinction is important IMHO. Simply owning some s
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Likely, decision to use open systems is security one rather that any other.
Government computers running on closed source OS that is basically made by enemies is huge security risk. It is nothing you just ignore. Your own OS on the other hand ...
USA has no reason to pursue "usaOS" - MS must play nice with them, so they have usaOS by default (It is Windows.)
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... strongly labeled as Communist/Socialist...
First the lecture: Communism and Socialism are ideologies - that is, ideas about how society should be run. The may or may not be good ideas, but that is all they are, and as such neither good nor bad. There are two groups of people in particular that insist that those ideologies can never, ever change: one is the wild-eyed reactionaries who use "communism" as another word for "evil", to whom any for of dissent is simply "communism". The other group consists of those that believe, or rather Believe, in One
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the countires adopting Linux in the first place are rthose where people cannot afford the price of retail Microsoft software [...]
You [cnet.com] don't [wikipedia.org] read [wikipedia.org] much [computerworld.com] news [www.osor.eu], do you?
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From your link:
"It is the only penguin to live on the equator and can survive due to the cool temperatures resulting from the Humboldt Current and cool waters from great depths brought up by the Cromwell Current."
I don't think that Humboldt Current brings cold water to Cuba.
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Gah. Are you retarded or what? The whole fucking point of the article is that the Cuban government wants to be able to look for back doors in the software. They're not relying on the open source community being "more aware and quicker to patch said vulnerabilities", at all. This is simply a case of Cubans saying "why are we running software we can't even inspect?"
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Bwahaha.. that'd be all of them.
Please, do tell us these other ways of discovering back doors, we'll wait.
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name me one case of a trojan being detected via open source.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/linux-backdoor-attempt-thwarted [freedom-to-tinker.com] (admittedly, that's giving a URL not naming, but I think it was defeated so quickly it wasn't even given a name).
Now, name me one case of a trojan that wasn't created because the source code was closed.
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By "black hole" i think he means "something unknown", like a black box... Which you don't have if you are in possession of the source.
Re:I can hear the cries now... (Score:4, Insightful)
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They aren't worshipping God because they are under restrictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Cuba [wikipedia.org]