Dear Technologies that I Love
One cold afternoon in 2010 I was in a classroom of the college where I graduated as a Software Engineer, attending a Discrete Mathematics conference. The professor, with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, asked if anyone knew a decent framework for PHP. One student, in a volume of voice that showed his conviction that he would be congratulated, mentioned the name Zend. However, the teacher responded with something like a grimace, and my classmate fell back on himself like a mollusk. Then, someone in the back of the room, said in a much more discreet tone a humble Symfony. What was recorded in my mind that afternoon wasn’t so much the name, but the pleased face of the professor.
(I thought) Everything was good
At that time, access to the Internet from Cuba was much more restricted. It was only available in some institutions, especially in educational and research ones, and with a lot of government censorship. In 2014, when I was working on the software of my thesis — developed in Symfony of course, in its epic version 2 — , the Cuban government took the decision to enable public access to the Internet through WiFi zones. The price was astronomical: $ 2.00 / hour. Even so, for many it was an oasis, especially for technology fans. I spent many early mornings in a park near my house with my old Acer Aspire laptop — to take advantage of the little bandwidth just for me — and thanks to this the completion of my project was a little less painful, although it does’n lack of risks.
By the time I graduated I had already discovered a couple of things about my profession: that I was passionate about web development, that I felt comfortable writing code in PHP, and that I loved Symfony.
I started working on some projects for private clients while having fun with one of my favorite toys of all times: Git. The height of pleasure came the day I discovered GitHub, life could not be better after years of hard study. It did not bother me to spend a good part of what I earned on paying the Internet costs, as long as I could do git push origin master as the rest of the world does from the tranquility of their home — in my case from the bustle of a park. My professional development cost me a little more than the others, but for this very reason I enjoyed it much more.
My Symfony skills improved every day: I consulted much less documentation, I no longer copied / pasted pieces of code, and I accepted increasingly complex projects. Then I saw clearly before my eyes the next logical goal in my career: to obtain the certification in the framework to which I had dedicated so many hours. I began to delve into more theoretical aspects and made a study guide covering each recommended topic on their certification page. I was convinced that I could achieve it at the first attempt and that this money would be one of the best investments of my life, besides that I wanted it with all my heart.
It was then that, with immense pain and astonishment, I discovered that my online life until that moment had been only a dream, a very good and pleasant one that you do not want it to end, but a dream soon or later you have to wake up. It turned out that I lived in a dictatorship that supports international terrorism and that it was dangerous for me to access certain technologies. Come on, that with a few lines in PHP I could cause world democracy to collapse.
My first reaction was disbelief. I thought, with the best of wills, that I had done something wrong: simply click on the incorrect link. But after repeating the process several times I realized that no, that the error itself was me. Then I thought that this was an isolated case and that the framework that I loved so much was leaded by a fascist monster that hated Cubans (sorry @fabpot, I felt a lot of anger at that moment). I gave myself the task of verifying that my paranoid theory was correct, however the truth began to be revealed before my eyes. Here is a small sample:
- Docker
- Oracle
- Google Developers
- PHP.net (WTF!!! It was available until 2017)
What happened in my life at that time was the most natural and expected reaction: I fell into a deep professional depression. Why so much effort and years of studies? Did my career end right where it was supposed to start? Would I be condemned to work the rest of my life in dark projects for a few dollars? That was not the dream I had the first day I set foot in college. I spent weeks without opening a code editor, or reading any documentation, or even without accessing the Internet. I seriously thought about dedicating myself to something else and throwing away the years that I spent studying the profession that I love so much, but that apparently does not loved me.
Although the limitation to these technologies were the ones that affected me the most, they were not the only ones. I have always been a fan of the ecosystem Google / Android, however, my old Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus — yes, that old — is full of suspicious apps downloaded from obscure sites that offer non reliable APK’s. But I love Google, even though the Play Store kindly reminds me that its content is not available in my country. Maybe Google Photos in my hands is a destabilizing entity of world peace — sorry, but I can’n stop repeating this joke over and over again.
I don’t live under a rock
Of course, I do live in a dictatorial system, which throughout its history has been involved in wars and destabilizing processes in other countries, and many other issues that mere mortals will never get to know. More or less like the rest of the countries. However, the real and biggest affected of this failed experiment called Cuban Revolution are the Cubans themselves. I’m not going to talk here about the hardships suffered by this people over 60 years, because there’s plenty of it on the Internet and is not the subject of this article. I just do not understand the logic followed, which in my opinion, is something like:
“You are well fucked, but the only way to make one day you stop being fucked is to fuck you even more”.
Excellent point of view, very clever.
I know that there is an embargo law on Cuba — just or not, I do not know — , but I think that this has a legal effect on economic transactions that include the dollar, US investments in the island, visits, etc. I suspect, and I would like to be corrected if I am wrong, that no law would prevent SensioLabs — which otherwise is not an US company — from opening a certification office in Cuba. I know, with total security, that many Cubans will go to spend their money there. Or how is it that Netflix is fully functional on the island? However, Docker Community Edition doesn’t. Both are commercial US companies.
I may be missing a lot of data, especially because politics has never interested me, nor that of “there” nor here, but I think that with a little willingness on the part of these companies, many Cubans could have a digital life a little more decent.
A people who can’t elect their rulers shouldn’t be responsible for the acts of these rulers either.
I can affirm that Cuba will not get its democracy earlier because I can’t install Google Photos from the Play Store — yes, I love that app.
Epilogue
Of course, I have continued developing applications in Symfony for obscure private clients. I continue spending huge amounts of money on connectivity time just to feel that I am part of this world. I use Twitter and respond to the Stack Overflow surveys with the same carelessness as those who don’t sweat for the price of their connectivity. And possibly continue doing it.
But there’s something wrong with all of this, and it’s not my people.
Notes
- At the time of writing this article, the Internet price in Cuba is $ 1.00 / hour. The number of access points has not increased, the connection speed either. The Cuban government has announced that navigation will soon be implemented via mobile data network over an obsolete 3G infrastructure.
- Dear Medium, is there any way I can give you my humble $ 50.00 for an annual subscription? With pleasure I do it, because you are part of the technologies that I love.
- I don’t even know if it’s legal for me to use the English language to write.
- Sorry for any typo, I think, speak, write and make love in my beloved birth language: Spanish.
