I find it very interesting for me to know the history behind my country, how we got to where we are as well as those personalities who changed the course of our history as a country and society.
Great personalities such as Miguel Hidalgo, Morelos, the Flores Magón brothers, Madero, Lazaro Cardenas among many other great leaders who shaped this great nation.
Today, after listening to the president’s morning conferences, I met an actor in our history that I knew little about and I am surprised by the vision that this president had, who for a long time was in historical anonymity for me.
We are talking about Adolfo López Mateos and his letter addressed to the people of Mexico once the Nationalization of the Electrical Industry was concluded in 1960, during the month of September, one of the most patriotic months in Latin America.
His achievement as well as his vision for the future gives us new generations a point of reference to be able to understand the challenges and dangers that we face in the face of a policy of privatization at a global level and in which it only makes inequality more marked and oppresses the many for the benefit of the few.
Without further ado, here is the text, a translation of it actually:
“People of México.
I give you back the electricity, which is the exclusive property of the Nation, but do not trust because in future years some bad Mexicans identified with the worst causes of the country will try by subtle means to hand over the oil and our resources to foreign investors.
Not a step back, was the speech of Don Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, when nationalizing our oil. Today it was fortunately its turn to electric energy. People of Mexico, I excuse you from all obedience to your future rulers who intend to hand over our energy resources to interests outside the Nation that we make up.
One obvious thing is that Mexico requires several years of technological evolution and administrative efficiency to achieve our energy independence; It would be foolish to affirm that Mexico does not require technological training in electrical and oil matters. But to do this, no foreigner needs to become a shareholder in public companies to support us. Only a traitor gives his country to foreigners; We Mexicans can do everything better than any other country.
When a foreign ruler asks me if there is a possibility of entering the energy or electricity business, I answer that we are just becoming independent from the foreign invasions that emptied our country.
But in the meantime, we Mexicans do want to invest in American oil or in its electric energy production, in case they want a foreign partner. In Mexico, the Constitution is very clear: energy resources and oil fields are in perpetuity the sole and exclusive property of the Mexican people. The rest of the speculations in this regard are treason.
Industrializing the country does not imply a public auction of our natural resources, nor the indiscriminate delivery of the country’s heritage.”
Adolfo Lopez Mateos – September 27, 1960
With the current government, control of the energy industry has been regained, which was in a rapid trend of disappearing in favor of foreign, as well as national, private initiative, and the issue is that energy sovereignty is too important to be handed over to a private sector.
In the Free Software topics that I like to comment on so much, I think we can easily make the parallel, the freedom of the software we use in an era that increasingly depends on digital interaction is too important to give it up with our eyes closed to private industries.
In 1991 we were given the GNU system with the Linux kernel, the first complete free software operating system. And over time with subtle means little by little the integration of more and more proprietary software has been granted in the main GNU/Linux distributions throughout the world, with only a handful that continue to strive to maintain complete freedom of the software they distribute , Trisquel being one of them.
Hence, it is important to know and support the vision of the GNU project through support for the FSF and sister organizations such as the FSFLA, to defend digital freedom, sovereignty and human rights in this new era, over the subtle trends that attempt to convert users into dependents/servants of their will or of the “invisible hand of the Market“.
Today is the time to take action and be responsible for our freedom!
The more people resist, the more people will be Free, and the more people will be free to be Free. For your own good, and in solidarity to all, choose freedom.
I have recently read news about the Debian project, one of the largest and most important distribution projects of the GNU system with the Linux kernel, and in the case of Debian specifically with other kernels, being one of the “original” distributions and father of all the debian offspring and its powerful APT package system.
For a long time Debian GNU/Linux could boast of being a completely free system, which by maintaining a non-free repository earned it not to obtain the recommendation of the FSF. However as long as only the main repository was used, then you could have a free system, now with this change, Debian will start including proprietary firmware within its installation disks and will use that firmware at will.
Similarly, projects like Fredoombox, based mainly on Debian, will now include the non-free repository enabled by default.
This shows that over time the principles that are not pursued end up yielding, Debian despite being a massive institution in the development and distribution of free software and one of the largest variants of the GNU system with Linux/Hurd/etc. in the world, still maintaining a high standard of ethics and social commitment to its users, is losing traction on the principles that once put it above the vast majority of distributions ethically and technologically.
I wonder if this is the first step in a spiral that is forcing decisions related to the path Debian will take, just as Firefox has fallen by integrating more and more anti-features, gradually diluting the last drops of “Free Software” and falling completely into the rhetoric of Open Source seeking to retain a share of users compared to other browsers.
It seems to me that Canonical could bear a bit of responsibility for this change, since Debian is used as the seedbed for Ubuntu distributions, and having developers vote on Debian development is a good thing for Canonical, I could be wrong, or maybe not.
Regardless of the above, I believe that this is a clear indicator of the continuous ethical and social erosion in the face of technology, of the culture of consumerism as well as of the “success at all costs” promoted around the world, where the interests of a few can overcome the well-being of the many, in the same way the lack of recognition of the truly important things in the world.
A quick exercise, in the following situation,
If you were granted access to an all you can eat buffet, hypothetically with all the healthiest salads in the world, the best vegetables, as well as the best cuts of most succulently prepared meats from the world’s most exotic regions, all kinds of fruit waters, soft drinks/sodas and alcoholic beverages as well from anywhere in the world unlimited.
The questions that this situation generates could be,
Would that be a nourishing experience for your body? Or would we end up hurting one self?
would we have touched the salad table?
come on, would we get out walking?
conscious?
I don’t buy the lies that any negative result is “human nature”, that’s complacency and mediocrity speaking.
Deep down, when everything stops, we know what is best for us, what suits us as the complex organism that we are, and although we can make mistakes, it is important to see the long term and teach us to make the best decisions for us, as individuals and eventually as a collective.
The principles and ethical discussion that the Free Software movement promotes could be far ahead of the social reality in our regions, cities, prefectures, states, departments, even countries, but if it is in your hands, talk about Free Software, put the weight of freedom over functionality, since the latter can eventually be resolved as long as the former is present,
Choose more lettuce over meat, take care of yourself and others in the process.
I could not condemn the Debian project for these changes, it seems sad to me that this happens and I hope that better times will come for the project, where they can recover the shine of the principles that they defended for many years.
I would like to conclude by citing the campaign Be Free! of the FSFLA that I consider is very ad hoc,
The more people resist, the more people will be Free, and the more people will be free to be Free.
For your own good, and in solidarity to all, choose freedom. Be Free!
A little late, but I would like to join in the celebration of the 39th anniversary of the GNU project which officially kicks off the Free Software movement.
Beginning with the publication of The GNU Manifesto on September 27, 1985, by the Richard Matthew Stallman founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
As a celebration, here is one of the most distributed RMS talks,
Introduction to Free Software and the Liberation of Cyberspace – Spanish subtitles.
Our best wishes and for another 39 years.
Let us have the fortune to be here for another year and celebrate 40 years in a big way.
![[ Celebrate 40 years of GNU! ]](https://ark.switnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/GNU40_badge.png){kind=icon}
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