“Gno” and “Gyes” campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning

[Matthias Kirschner]

hi there,

I wrote a short blog entry with the title:

?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593

We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

Best wishes,
Matthias

[Matt Lee]

Post by Matthias Kirschner
?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593
We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

DRM and Windows 7 are attacks on user freedom, like software patents and
proprietary file formats. It's not a negative thing to talk about these
problems, and these campaigns are positive steps against a negative,
designed to hopefully cancel it out.

--
Matt Lee
Campaigns Manager

Free Software Foundation -- http://www.fsf.org/
GNU's Not Unix! -- http://www.gnu.org/
Free Software -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html


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[Sergey Matveev]

Greetings,

Post by Matthias Kirschner
?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593
We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

FSFE is achieving that perfectly! And, I fully agreed that campaigns
must be positive.

It is psychology -- nothing more. I am not good at it at all, but
even I know that parents will fail trying to explain their children
what is good and what is bad coming from negative side of that. I
do not know why, but nearly noone will listen you very good, if you
are saying that "do not do that -- it is bad anyway", etc. One should
(I think -- must) understand the problem by himself, understand that
it IS a problem, why it is a problem and how can it be solved.

Being some kind of free software activist (spreading free software
movement among others :-)) for several years, only the last year I
fully understand that position "hey, stop! do not use that! it is
closed, proprietary, and so on" will fail nearly all the time. People
are using software for ears without any problems, and someone came
and began to cry that it is bad and unacceptible. Better way, is to
say that there is something better. One should interest people. Anyone
can say that something is bad, but can everyone suggest an alternative
solution?

Being honest, I (being the member of FSF and of course looking after it
all the time, what does it do) am not satisfacted with it at all last
time. I really do not like the idea of compaigns like Windows 7 Sins.
DefectiveByDesign is similar, but it has (as I remember exactly it :-))
several good movies describing DRM-related problems. Those campaigns
are only good and useful for advanced users, programers and hackers
mainly. Some kind of brief consolidation of negative sides. But,
I am really impressed with the work of FSFE! Really, you guys are
doing the very right things with the very right way! Last time, news
from FSF are met by me with something like "yet another, yet again"
emotions. But, unlike FSF's FSFE ones are met with something like
"whoa! another great news!". FSF has the great treasure of course --
perfect speaker RMS, but unfortunately not their campaigns.

[MJ Ray]

Post by Matt Lee

Post by Matthias Kirschner
?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593
We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

DRM and Windows 7 are attacks on user freedom, like software patents and
proprietary file formats. It's not a negative thing to talk about these
problems, and these campaigns are positive steps against a negative,
designed to hopefully cancel it out.

To answer the first question, FSFe is *much* more positive and I think
that it's probably the influence of the rank and file which encourages
that, but thanks to FSFE's workers for acting on it.

In general, I feel it is a negative thing to talk about these problems...
but that's no bad thing, *as long as* we give people help with direct
positive actions that they can do to address them. Does FSF do that?

For example Windows 7: my recent first encounter with it is described at
http://www.news.software.coop/samsung-n150-netbook-and-ubuntu-netbook-remix/940/
with a link to windows7sins.org but I found that site little help
myself. Maybe I'm thick, but the long essay overwhelmed me and I'm
not installing Sugar on the netbook of an adult who works in an office.

What would help most on windows7sins.org is:

1. obvious links to what you think I should be installing when faced
with a Windows 7 machine (I contemplated debian, but installed
Ubuntu Netbook Remix in the example, which is imperfect about
freedom but infinitely better than Windows 7);

2. links to what the current approach(es) to getting a Windows Refund
is(/are), in general, not only Amazon;

3. more social media than a signup box for an unspecified mailing list.

I feel that the essay-based approach and purity policy are two of the
biggest problems seen in FSF campaigns - and I boggle that anyone
posts that "the absence of similar antifeatures form some of the
easiest victories for free software". Features do not sell and
antifeatures doubly do not sell. We need to highlight benefits: "One
of the basics of selling is to sell on benefits rather than features."
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/articles/features_benefits.htm
and lots and lots of texts and guides and courses.

But, however, the page is the usual Stallmanesque expressions-of-
opinions-cannot-be-improved verbatim/No Derivatives/non-free rubbish
"Gno you can't" licensing, with no links to its source code or
authors, so I wrote up my experiences, which I know have helped a few
people, and then gave up on the FSF site.

Until now. Would FSF open windows7sins.org to the crowd, please?
Turn the "Gno you can't" into a "Gyes we can"? It's not like it's
shown as the expressed opinion of any one author in particular!

Regards,

[Kostas Boukouvalas]

Post by MJ Ray

Post by Matt Lee

? ?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
? http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593
We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

DRM and Windows 7 are attacks on user freedom, like software patents and
proprietary file formats. It's not a negative thing to talk about these
problems, and these campaigns are positive steps against a negative,
designed to hopefully cancel it out.

To answer the first question, FSFe is *much* more positive and I think
that it's probably the influence of the rank and file which encourages
that, but thanks to FSFE's workers for acting on it.
In general, I feel it is a negative thing to talk about these problems...
but that's no bad thing, *as long as* we give people help with direct
positive actions that they can do to address them. ?Does FSF do that?
For example Windows 7: my recent first encounter with it is described at
http://www.news.software.coop/samsung-n150-netbook-and-ubuntu-netbook-remix/940/
with a link to windows7sins.org but I found that site little help
myself. ?Maybe I'm thick, but the long essay overwhelmed me and I'm
not installing Sugar on the netbook of an adult who works in an office.
?1. obvious links to what you think I should be installing when faced
? ?with a Windows 7 machine (I contemplated debian, but installed
? ?Ubuntu Netbook Remix in the example, which is imperfect about
? ?freedom but infinitely better than Windows 7);
?2. links to what the current approach(es) to getting a Windows Refund
? ?is(/are), in general, not only Amazon;
?3. more social media than a signup box for an unspecified mailing list.
I feel that the essay-based approach and purity policy are two of the
biggest problems seen in FSF campaigns - and I boggle that anyone
posts that "the absence of similar antifeatures form some of the
easiest victories for free software". ?Features do not sell and
antifeatures doubly do not sell. ?We need to highlight benefits: "One
of the basics of selling is to sell on benefits rather than features."
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/articles/features_benefits.htm
and lots and lots of texts and guides and courses.
But, however, the page is the usual Stallmanesque expressions-of-
opinions-cannot-be-improved verbatim/No Derivatives/non-free rubbish
"Gno you can't" licensing, with no links to its source code or
authors, so I wrote up my experiences, which I know have helped a few
people, and then gave up on the FSF site.
Until now. ?Would FSF open windows7sins.org to the crowd, please?
Turn the "Gno you can't" into a "Gyes we can"? ?It's not like it's
shown as the expressed opinion of any one author in particular!

I think that attacks on (computer users) freedom are the non ethical
(or say ground) state. Yes, positive campaigning is always good, *but*
its very important to react when some people have already done so much
positive work on a subject and wake up one day and see that they are
threatened.

We cannot - or we should not - reinvent the wheel every time we are
threatened. What if tomorrow Oracle decides to stop OpenOffice from
being free software? We' ll say, "wel, its ok, lets write another
OpenOffice from scratch?". I don't think so.

Basically I believe that this is the very meaning of all the Free
Software effort. That there *was*, in late 1970s, computer freedom,
there *was* free exchange of programs and files between hackers, but
one day this freedom was threatened and the hole story began.

These are just my thoughts, I'm in to support every "Gno" or "Gyes"
campaign. I don't think that we should compare them.

[MJ Ray]

Kostas Boukouvalas <boukouvalas at fsfe.org> wrote: [...]

Post by Kostas Boukouvalas
We cannot - or we should not - reinvent the wheel every time we are
threatened. What if tomorrow Oracle decides to stop OpenOffice from
being free software? We' ll say, "wel, its ok, lets write another
OpenOffice from scratch?". I don't think so.

Assuming various things (which I've not checked), maybe Oracle could
decide to stop OpenOffice from being free software tomorrow, but they
could not stop it from being free software yesterday. Writing another
"from scratch" doesn't come into it. Freedom is forever.

So, if Oracle OpenOffice is threatened, the community could have a
G-yes campaign to continue its free software development instead of
only a Gno campaign against Oracle's action.

If every cloud has a silver lining, then every Gno campaign could be
replaced by a G-yes one if there was the vision and will, couldn't it?

It's much easier to encourage action with dreams than nightmares!

Regards,

[Mailing-Listen]

Post by Matthias Kirschner
hi there,
?Gno? and ?Gyes? campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593
We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am
intersted in your opinion.

What I was really missing for a long time is a site that easily explains
to newbies what GNU/Linux is about and why they should use it.
I found such a campaign, but it doesn't come from one of the FSF's.

English:
http://www.getgnulinux.org/

Deutsch:
http://www.linuxfueralle.de/