Originally posted by raom
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The Free Software Foundation Is Trying To Figure Out Its Future
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I think the FSF should be rebuilt and centered primarily around PR, and I mean actually doing PR. Increase public awareness of free software and how awesome it can be, decrease ramblings about how bad everything that's not free is (how is that even supposed to help?) focus on pulling people in to the free software world for all the things that are good about it (especially the ones that are good from a non-developer/end-user perspective), rather than trying to scare them into disliking what they already like and use. It's not gonna work, it sounds like fanaticism to anyone who isn't invested in the idea (and maybe it actually is).
If they're not gonna base themselves around PR, then rebuild to base themselves around building actually useful software, like hell, compete (or even join hands) with GIMP, make proper printer frontend to replace the obsolete and shit CUPS. Try to fix the things that are broken on linux desktop. It's just that I don't have a lot of faith in FSF as developers, so I think they should try to be a friendly face instead of workforce, hence, PR for free and open source software. (That's a tough enough job already)Last edited by rabcor; 09 January 2016, 11:10 PM.
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Originally posted by buzzrobot View PostIf free software cannot attract users on its own merits, apart from its ethical status, then it doesn't deserve success.
The Free Software Foundation fights a tremendously difficult battle, by choice. Copyleft software licensing makes profitable business models built on software difficult. There are tens of thousands of successful companies based on proprietary software sales and services, and only dozens of successful companies built on completely free software. But that's the whole point of the FSF, to prioritize maintaining the freedom of the source code over a business model. It just has the inevitable side effect of making it hard to get contributors. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Oracle, Intel, IBM, Cisco, Comcast, Verizon, Samsung - they have billions of dollars to spend hiring developers to work on their code. The FSF probably doesn't even have a million dollars in total assets.
Fighting an almost impossible battle can still be the right thing to do. If American abolitionists in the 1820s had given up, the chain of events leading to the 13th Amendment would have never happened. They were trying to do the right thing, and it took decades. The cause of the FSF isn't anywhere near as serious as slavery, but the same principle applies - if you're doing the right thing, patience and persistence matter even if your current situation is terrible. You don't have to win quickly or easily for your cause to be worthwhile.
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Originally posted by rabcor View PostI think the FSF should be rebuilt and centered primarily around PR, and I mean actually doing PR. Increase public awareness of free software and how awesome it can be, decrease ramblings about how bad everything that's not free is (how is that even supposed to help?) focus on pulling people in to the free software world for all the things that are good about it (especially the ones that are good from a non-developer/end-user perspective), rather than trying to scare them into disliking what they already like and use. It's not gonna work, it sounds like fanaticism to anyone who isn't invested in the idea (and maybe it actually is).
If they're not gonna base themselves around PR, then rebuild to base themselves around building actually useful software, like hell, compete (or even join hands) with GIMP, make proper printer frontend to replace the obsolete and shit CUPS. Try to fix the things that are broken on linux desktop. It's just that I don't have a lot of faith in FSF as developers, so I think they should try to be a friendly face instead of workforce, hence, PR for free and open source software. (That's a tough enough job already)
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> > Have you contributed towards doing it? Do you report bugs that impact you, do you
> > perform quality assurance (like beta testing)?
> Yes, I've done my share. Debugging and beta testing really isn't the point, though. It's more
> about product conception, design, execution and marketing.
The situation is also improved because of the future-conscious people writing documentation, "are you an English native speaker and spot writing errors on first sight?", tutorials, doing art like icons and logos, helping other users in mailing lists or IRC, spreading the word, packing, donating, joining local user groups, writing usability reports, etc.
Last edited by Nth_man; 10 January 2016, 05:56 AM.
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