I was able to visit Cuba on late past June. Maykel Moya, my
main contact
with the Debian and free software community, had invited me
several
times to the island, trying to build a bigger effort on free
software
initiatives there. So I accepted telling I was going to ask
for some
financial support to the DPL himself.
So, I came to the DPL asking for sponsorship and he briefly
came with
the 2IC, Steve McIntyre, to try to make it happen. The money
couldn't
get out from SPI because of the US embargo issues, so they
sponsored my
flight from Mexico City with Debian UK Society support. I
paid for my
lodging on a well-placed hotel, since, in any case, I
couldn't get to be
hosted by some local because it's illegal for Cuban
citizens. Maykel and
his very nice friend, Medardo Rodríguez, agreed happily to
feed me
during my staying.
The first idea I conclude from my visit to Cuba is that most
of the
things are not as they are expected. Most of the things and
life itself
is widely different than what we have been told, mainly by
the US
government. I had a fake idea on how the people live, on how
the people
feel about the revolution and on how they think about it. I
enaltecer
the innocence of people, Cubans are some of the nicest
people I have
ever met on my whole life, without prejudges, well informed
on what's
going on with the outter world and artistically and
scientifically
sobresalientes.
The first day I was in Cuba I had the chance to meet some of
the active
members in the free software community, precisely and as it
was
expected, at least as I know it, most of them are a bunch of
good and
big friends. We had the chance to drink some rum and to
taste to nice
black Cuban coffee, besides that Medardo cooked his
worldwide famous
spaghetti with a sauce which I still keep a wonderful memory
because of
its incomparable aroma.
Because my visit would be short, the next day we already
have some
scheduled activities and in the afternoon I offered a
workshop on
package creation and maintenance, with the participacion of
around
twelve or fifteen persons. It was held on the Mathematics
and Computing
Faculty in the University of Havana. With examples such as
Liferea, I
tried to guide the assistants on how a Debian package is
created and
what are the important parts to have present. The people
became
interested and intervened several times, having the chance
to clear all
doubts present. I have to admit that I thought people in the
room would
have a very basic level on free software matter, but I was
certainly
with a malformed image on Cuban prejudges, which are
sometimes present
if you haven't visited the island: Lots of the people are
really
immersed on the free sofware world.
We changed rooms the next day, because the heat was
unbearable in the
Maths Fac. rooms and we achieved a room in the Philosophy
Faculty, where
we had air conditioning facilities and which became a very
nice place to
work and chat in such a hot weather, for most of us. Because
of the
great interest that there is in Cuba on bringing Debian in
some
government dependencies, Maykel had planned some talk about
Custom
Debian Distributions, since that'd be where some work,
which has been
intended until now, would go on. I had the chance to talk
about what I
know in the matter and about SimpleCDD, on which the guys
became greatly
interested.
In the afternoon, we had a talk on translation,
internationalization and
localization. Most of the current initiatives of the Debian
community in
Cuba is to bring more people collaborating in the project,
and from some
sort of point of view (which I share), translating is a nice
way to
begin to be involved on Debian, obviously, by non-native
English
speakers, like us in Latin America, and also when not having
strong
technical skills on packaging or on Unix in general. We
showed how the
website is organized from the CVS, so that it happily
coexist with
translation teams, and things like that.
A dinner was organized the next day, where Medardo cooked
his fabulous
spaghetti again and a cake was baked with the Debian swirl
in it. I
really thank you all guys for such a nice detail, it is
really beautiful
to see how a project like Debian can get so inside in
hearts' people, no
matter if they are Chinese, blondes, black, Latin,
Europeans, Africans
or whatever, only a few times we realize of such a thing.
Enjoying some
nice black tobacco and some strong Cuban coffee we started a
discussion
around mathematics (since most of them were involved with
them) and how
they impact on our ordinary life. In the gatherings of free
software
folks in my country what we mostly do is to get drunk or
something
similar and we forget about real-life discussions, not only
around free
software but of life itself. It's wonderful for me to get
into these
kinds of social circles with a great knowledge level and
where the
analysis of life is an everyday thing.
The very last day, I had an small health problem, which
didn't allow me
to assist to the last of our meetings: May this report be
helpful for me
to apologize for the people waiting for me on that day,
these were
issues a bit against my will which made me remain in bed.
Cuban free software effort and community, just as most of
the
communities around Latin America, is going up. Everyday,
more free
software has been adopting on government instances and
interest is
rising on urban communities. Lots of Cubans are into
computing careers
and building even stronger social bows while using free
software and
adopting Debian. This has been being a reality on Latin
America, which
is expected to keep going up.
In the afternoon I took a taxi saying goodbye to Havana by
visiting
Plaza de la Revolución (where you can see the image of Che
Chevara in
the Ministerio del Interior main wall). I said goodbye
watching the
revolution in the streets and smelling the beautiful perfume
of the
Cuban freedom.
Thanks, really thanks to all the nice people I met in Cuba.
You guys,
rock, and are rocking from my heart. Thanks also to aj and
Sledge for
supporting this (and others) proposals (I owe them an
apology since this
report took several "manyanas" to be released).
If you are curious on
looking at some pics, have a look at my gallery (with
Spanish captions,
though): http://www.damog
.net/gallery/v/cuba/
Cheers,
--
David Moreno Garza
<damog damog.net>
http://www.damog.net/
<damogciencias.unam.mx>
Yo mastico algoritmos.
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