[okfn-discuss] Free Software tools for OKFN -- please contribute

Sat Nov 30 00:31:20 UTC 2013

Hi Gene,

The Free Software movement has now been around for over 30 years. This is
not a question of starting a new initiative. What people are asking is that
OKF align with the goals of this decades-long and continuing movement. The
struggles that the movement has had in interesting the general public are
complex and involve everything from internal debates to practical
challenges to sabotage by proprietary interests.

The issue in Free Software is *freedom*. It is the problem that when we all
rely on a technology than an undemocratic institution controls, it means
they have power over us. They can invade our privacy, influence how the
technology is used and by whom and change elements of it at will in ways
that serve their interests over the interests of the public.

The issues about whether the public cares about this are similar to the
ways they care or don't care about Open Data or other types of Open
Knowledge. Someone who doesn't understand chemistry isn't going to
immediately care about chemistry research to be open, but some people might
recognize the significance and what it means for society overall.

There is no way to make average users care about Free/Libre Open-Source
software without explaining what that means and why it matters. At any
rate, the issue *here* isn't about reaching the public, it's about reaching
the OKF community who have no excuse to remain willfully ignorant about
these issues.

I hope all this comes across as just informative; I don't mean it as a
rebuke to anything you said. Your points are all fine in essence.

Respectfully,
Aaron

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Folks will want stuff that is easy to access and is "free", that is, most
> people won't want to pay for stuff. The open part won't be very important
> to the average user.
>
> The FSF definition is okay
> "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute,
> study, change and improve the software."
> http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> As long as the software is "free", which to most folks means don't have to
> pay, then some folks will try it or use it.
>
> So I guess the question is: what is your goal? If you want lots of people
> to use the software, make it easy to find and get (and of course easy to
> use), and don't add a lot of technical stuff about what "free" or "open"
> means. It won't matter to most. Most will just want stuff they don't have
> to pay for.
>
> If you want to educate the public, maybe have a link on the side saying
> "if you want to learn more about what 'free' means, click here." There you
> can add technical stuff.
>
> Then the next question is, why do you need the average user to learn what
> "free" or "open" means? What is the end game? Do you want people to vote
> differently on something? To contribute money to okfn or fsf? To not use MS
> Office?
>
> Gene
>
>  ------------------------------
>  *From:* Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org>
> *To:* okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> *Sent:* Friday, November 29, 2013 6:54 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [okfn-discuss] Free Software tools for OKFN -- please
> contribute
>
> On 29/11/13 09:56 PM, Gene Shackman wrote:
> >
> > If you want to sell this to the public, you need a better term than
> "free" (and not "libre"). Because people will think free means free to
> use. "Free and open" might do it. Most people probably have some vague
> idea what open means. Or "free and open source".
>
> People will misunderstand Free precisely once. It's easy to explain.
>
> "Open" is also potentially ambiguous, that's why there's the Open
> Definition.
>
> - Rob.
>
>
>
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