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February 12, 2009

In a bold and unexpected move, Cuba last week launched its own replacement to the Windows operating system, what the Cubans are now calling "US Hegemony".

Cuba's government is now offering Nova, its own version of Linux, and is done to kick out Microsoft products. It's never been a secret that Cuba was never in love with the U.S. anyway... (!)

Cuba, following in the footsteps of Russia and China, wishes to get rid of Microsoft products alltogether and for several reasons.

One of the most prominent of those being that the software giant is based in the United States and that the Cuban government now fears that U.S. security agencies might have access to Microsoft code.

Additionally, and due to the Cuban embargo by the U.S. government in the mid-sixties, Microsoft software is now harder to come by, legally that is, and just about almost impossible to update due to all those pirated copies of illegal Windows software.

Hector Rodriguez, dean of the School of Free Software at the University of Information Sciences in Cuba, says that several Cuban ministries as well as many universities in Cuba have now switched to the Linux platform.

But he was quick to point out that there has been a lot of struggle with other government sectors that are worried that the Linux operating system won't be compatible with some in-house-developed software.

Rodriguez added he expects that about 50 percent of all computers in Cuba will be running Nova in time when 2014 rolls in.

The open software movement is closer to the ideology of the Cuban people, above all for the independence and the sovereignty it can provide them psychologically.

Cuban residents apparently need independence from Microsoft and the world at large, and just what Rodriguez means by "soveriegnty" could be interpreted as anything from having a superior system to Windows in taking over the world by nuclear force (!)

In the past 12 months, there's been a growing number of other underdeveloped countries that have embraced Linux. Some of them are schools in Pakistan as well as in Portugal.

Source: OS News.

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