Canon in Spain

Carlos Castro is one of the main reasons for which LinEX, the first regional Spanish GNU/Linux distribution, became a reference all around the world (there is a documentary in EuroNews).

LinEX was developed with the support (monetary support) of the Extremadura Government (in Spain) and a couple of years later was introduced in all the schools. At this moment, LinEX is being implemented in hospitals, administration buildings, etc. Also, LinEX was installed in some banks in Colombia.

In Spain, people have to pay a “canon” each time that they buy an electronic product. At the beginning, it was just for cds, but now Spaniards have to pay a canon when they buy cell phones, printers, computers and even for the broadband. All this was because of the Spanish Government (at this moment the PSOE, they are supposed socialists, in theory, but not always in practice) who wanted to compensate those artists who were “losing money” because of piracy.

Carlos Castro criticised this “canon” a lot because it is completely unjust: people have to pay indiscriminately because at this moment it is impossible to differentiate who is practising piracy and who is not. He said:

“…to try to reach the government with the sole support of that mediocre artists class that don’t know how to live without subsidies and grants is a shame. Most people don’t agree with those speculators who call themselves “progressives”…”

These critics where deprived of authority by the Extremadura Government (that was forced to do by the Spainish central Government), and finally, Castro decided to leave his position in the project on his own.

The SGAE (a Spanish artists association) earned up to 500.000€ (about 660.000$) due to LinEX sales (for each cd that LinEX made, 0.30 cents of € was for the SGAE because all cd’s are taxed, even when it’s sure that they are not going to be used for piracy).

Now, Carlos Castro’s blog is closed and he’s gone. And we all would like to know what is going to happen with the most important free software movement in Spain without the main ideologist.

Tags: Canon