Cuba Says 'No More Microsoft,' Joins the Linux Bandwagon
Linked by weildish on Thu 12th Feb 2009 04:43 UTC
Linux Cuba recently launched its own answer to Windows this week, or, in the bigger picture, what the Cubans are calling "US Hegemony." Nova, the new open source OS being offered by the Cuban government, is being made to boot out US-based Microsoft products.
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Sovereignty - what does it mean?
by lemur2 on Thu 12th Feb 2009 08:25 UTC
lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the exclusive right to control a government, a country, a people, or oneself. A Sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority.

An important attribute of sovereignty is its degree of absoluteness. A sovereign power (whether an individual or an assembly such as a parliament) has absolute sovereignty if it has the unlimited right to control everything and every kind of activity in its territory.


Seems like a pretty reasonable working definition to me.

Clearly, in running Windows a government cannot really claim it has sovereignty over its own data. Much of its data will be locked away in obscure proprietary formats ...

Reply Score: 9

Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

Clearly, in running Windows a government cannot really claim it has sovereignty over its own data. Much of its data will be locked away in obscure proprietary formats ...


Yeah, that's clearly Cuba's biggest problem.

Reply Parent Score: 5

lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17

"Clearly, in running Windows a government cannot really claim it has sovereignty over its own data. Much of its data will be locked away in obscure proprietary formats ...


Yeah, that's clearly Cuba's biggest problem. "

Roll my eyes. Sigh. You are getting almost as tiresome as you are foolish, Thom.

(a) What does it cost Cuba (government) to use open source software? What risks would it involve?

(b) What does it cost them to use Windows? What risks would it involve?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty#External_sovereignty

Clear winner for the first option, from the Cuban government point of view.

Edited 2009-02-12 09:06 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 13

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jack_perry Member since:
2005-07-06

Clearly, in running Windows a government cannot really claim it has sovereignty over its own data. Much of its data will be locked away in obscure proprietary formats ...

Didn't Microsoft have a program where someone could pay to look at Windows' source code? Microsoft is a company; given the right amount of money, they'd likely be happy to do what was asked of them, the same way Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google bend over backwards to accomodate the Chinese government's "privacy concerns".

Reply Parent Score: 2

ichi Member since:
2007-03-06

Didn't Microsoft have a program where someone could pay to look at Windows' source code?


Yes, but I highly doubt you are given the opportunity to build your system out of the source code you get to see, so basically you'd have to believe that the source code you are seeing is actually the exact source of the binaries you are running.

And you might also want to check that of the compiler.

Edited 2009-02-12 22:41 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2