Matt Lee wrote:
On 06/23/10 10:58, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
“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/... 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,