Re: [Fsuk-manchester] The free software movement's dilemma

[Michael Dorrington]

On 23/03/13 09:03, Tim Dobson wrote:
> On 23/03/13 08:42, Michael Dorrington wrote:
>> On 22/03/13 21:41, Tim Dobson wrote:
>>> On 22/03/13 13:37, MJ Ray wrote:
>>>> Tim Dobson<address@hidden>
>> [...]
>>> The free software movement has code that powers millions of servers,
>>> that runs in space, that has connected millions of people, that has
>>> underlined millions of businesses... but we don't talk about it. Perhaps
>>> we could start doing? How?
>>
>> We do talk about it.  As an example, we had a talk about "Free software
>> advances around the world" by Bob Ham last year.  We talk about it at
>> events as it helps dispel the idea that it couldn't work.
> 
> Brutal I know, but, can I count the attendees on both hands?

What's your solution to increase the number of attendees?

[...]
>>> Find someway you're happy to watch this:
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wVn1TqUfZjc#!
>>
>> clive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVn1TqUfZjc#!
>>
>>> oops, it seems like I meant this link actually:
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc
>>
>> clive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVn1TqUfZjc#!
[...]
> Those videos are indeed, full of content you will disagree with.

I hope you disagree as well.

> But you have to agree that they are persuasive right? Why is it persuasive?
> 
> If you were to approach promoting free software, from the same angle as
> those people approached "we need more engineers" where would you come to?
> 
> The message is to inspire people. It doesn't matter how.

But it does matter what you are inspiring people to do.  We are a Free
Software group so promote the Free Software philosophy.  We are not an
Open Source group or a Coding group.  We have to be careful not to fall
into the trap of just inspiring anything as long as lots of people are
inspired.  We see many groups and events around us doing that, some even
claim to be Free Software when they aren't.

[...]
>> Tim, I would like you to help out with MFS again, you made a great
>> contribution but there is still lots to do in effectively promoting the
>> Free Software philosophy.
> 
> I don't *want* to help out an organisation that has spent most of
> January, February, and apparently, March, mainly, it would appear,
> discussing whether, or whether-not, Debian is free software and should
> be promoted.

If you get involved then you don't have to do that.  You could implement
any of your ideas you have to promote the Free Software philosophy.

> Where there simultaneously hoards of people asking people on the list
> what distro they should use, I might be a little more sympathetic, but
> sadly I feel that people round here seem more interested in pursuing "no
> you can't do that" than "yes, let's do this" dogma.

People have been making suggestions of what people can do and working
together to draw up guidelines.  I think re-examining the freeness of
the distro's we use has been useful and making us more mindful.

> I wholeheartedly agree there is more that can be done, and I wonder if
> anyone here has some ideas. It'd be a shame to spend the rest of the
> year debating whether a C# bug in Gnome made it non-free.

You are on here too.  And we need 'do-ers' more than ideas.  So having
an idea and doing it is great.  You are free to contribute.

> Anyway, I'm off hiking for a week, back in 7 days.

Literally walking away from helping. :D

Regards,
Mike.
-- 
FSF member #9429
http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429
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"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide
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