| Cuba launches Gentoo Linux distro |
Feb. 13, 2009
 The Cuban government has launched its own version of Gentoo Linux, dubbed "Nova." The distribution was developed in response to embargo hassles in updating and acquiring Windows, as well as concerns over U.S. government spying via the OS, says an industry report.
Developed by the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas (UCI), Nova was launched at the recent International Conference on Communication and Technologies, says the story in Reuters. Despite ongoing trade embargoes from the U.S., and what would seem to be a natural fit between open source technology and socialism, Cuba is still primarily a Microsoft Windows-centric country, according to the story. Yet, the government has come to believe that Windows could be a threat because it believes U.S. security agencies have access to Microsoft codes, says the story. Plus, the trade embargoes make it difficult to get legal, supported copies of the software for regular updates, says Reuters.
Computers sales to the Cuban public have only been allowed in the last year, says the report, and currently about 20 percent of the Caribbean island's computers run Linux. The story quotes Hector Rodriguez, dean of the School of Free Software at Cuba's University of Information Sciences, as saying that the Linux share is likely to rise to 50 percent within five years. This would seem to suggest that the country will not mandate the use of its Nova Linux distro. Yet, even with signs of loosening restrictions now that Fidel Castro is on the backburner, the authoritarian regime led by his brother Raul certainly has it within its power to strongly recommend the distro.
The Chevy Nova |
And what of the oft-repeated cautionary tale of the poor sales of Chevy's Nova sedan in Latin American countries due to the translation of its name? Nothing but an urban myth, says The Register, in its own retelling of Reuters's Nova story. The publication points to a Snopes.com page that claims that not only did the car sell just fine, but that Spanish speakers would no more interpret "no va" as "does not go" as English speakers would believe a dinette set branded "Notable" might be missing a table. In fact, Pemex has sold a brand of gasoline for years in Mexico under the Nova brand, and the name continues to be used frequently in the technology world. Palm, for example, recently used the name for the pre-release version its new Linux-based WebOS distro incorporated in its Palm Pre phone
The story in The Register also suggests that Nova may have been inspired by an address by open source pioneer Richard Stallman at the previous year's International Conference on Communication and Technologies. If true, the story suggests, the country should have instead named the distro "Fidelix" or "Raulix."
Gentoo Linux received its last major release last July with the "2008" edition, with an updated installer, improved hardware support, reworked profiles, and a switch from Gnome to Xfce for its LiveCD,
Availability
The Reuters story on Nova should be here. A search for Nova on the UCI web site appears to indicate a crashed server, probably due to too much traffic.
In other words, "no va."
-- Eric Brown
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