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

[Tim Dobson]

On 22/03/13 13:37, MJ Ray wrote:
> Tim Dobson<address@hidden>
> > http://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/comments/1ankl5/the_free_software_movements_dielemma/
> >
> > ->  thoughts?
>
> First thought: I won't use reddit because it only allows people who
> pass a javascript-powered eyetest to register and the contact form has
> another eyetest, so they can't even beg Mister Bwana to let the poor
> cripples onto the site.

oops, well, try 
http://blog.tdobson.net/2013/03/the-free-software-movements-dielemma/

> There are largely two ways of furthering the movement:
> Communication of the message and Contributing to a software project.
>
> The ideological free software advocates are focused on the first
> point, with people who are doing the second point falling into a much
> larger and vaguer group of people who happen to find various things
> convenient.
>
> The problem is that nothing remotely interesting has developed in the
> field of free software advocacy in a long time – probably since the
> release of GPLv3. There have been no new approaches.
>
> It is an activist movement of techies: outward communication is not a
> skill that comes naturally. Outward communication must be the skill
> the movement is best at.
>
> [END SUMMARY]
>
> Hmmm... was posting a bare link an attempt to show we're also bad at
> inward communication? ;-)

Not exactly. ;)

> Good conclusion.  Not sure I agree with all of it.

One thought is that communication skills are quite a "known skill" - 
persuading people is not really cutting edge - people have been 
persuading other people about $stuff since forever.

The question, therefore, is how we can be better at communicating free 
software, given we know how things have been done historically.

For instance: the open data movement.

The open data movement is not the same as the free software movement, 
but *is* much younger.

The open data movement has had considerable success in various fields, 
and considering that in 2008, barely anyone had heard of it, has had a 
meteoric rise to popularity. Why is that? What has it done that we can 
copy and emulate?

Example 2: Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia is not, in essence, a free software project: it's a free 
knowledge project, but it communicates better than the free software 
movement:
Find someway you're happy with to watch their videos and tell me it's 
not powerful:
http://www.youtube.com/user/WikimediaFoundation/videos?sort=p&view=0&flow=grid

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?

Example 3: Coding as standard for schools.
In the UK we've seen massive boosts in young people coding - there's a 
massive push to get young people not just to be passive consumers but to 
be creators. This is the proverbial, "everyone plays games, but only a 
few people know how to make them" or "everyone uses apps on their phone, 
but how can you personally make one?". With the rPi and all that that 
brings, we have free software, for the first time ever, being pushed 
into the hands of school children. This is tremendous news - and a 
massive opportunity. How can we communicate better about this?

Find someway you're happy to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wVn1TqUfZjc#!

It's 2013. From that video, go back and look at how many people in that 
video, work for organisations that *aren't* businesses primarily based 
around free software infrastructure. I count, two, arguably soon, one? 
In 2013, to have a job, *how can you afford* for it *not* to be free 
software? how can we communicate that if you're looking for work in 
today's world, employers are crying out for experience with free 
software systems? I mean, really, seriously, ASP.net isn't a threat, 
it's a joke. How can we get that across to people?

Fwiw, here's how that code.org video above got the views:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/13/how-code-orgs-learn-to-code-video-starring-zuck-and-gates-surpassed-12m-views-in-2-weeks/

Basically, I think better things could be done, and the people who do 
those things, are the ones that will choose which way the future goes.