Re: [Fsfe-france] Re: 01net Conference (December 20)

[Richard Stallman]

The basic problem of this whole conference is that the philosophy of
freedom is entirely absent.  Our overall goal in reacting to the
conference should be to make the public acutely aware of this absence.
We would like people to feel that this conference is missing something
very important.

We cannot do this by condemning the conference for failing to focus on
philosophical issues.  That would not work, because people would
respond by feeling that we have no right to tell the conference
organizers what to focus on.  Instead, we have to convince the public
that freedom is very important, so they will feel that the conference
organizers made a big mistake by leaving it out.  We have to show that
the conference's neglect of freedom indicates their ignorance, without
*attacking* them outright for different views.

Perhaps we can use the panel which talks about "contaminant effect" to
illustrate the more general lack of awareness of the general spirit of
free software.