On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 09:59 +0200, David Picon Alvarez wrote:
Back to open source, just towards a different direction, then? Now instead of selling FS to CIOs it's selling FS to non-programmers? Genuine inquiry here, not accusation.
Not exactly what I meant to say. Let me try with one example: when I started my involvement with Free Sw I tried explaining to my mother what I was doing in my spare time. She didn't use computers at the time, and I had as only reference Richard's basic speech and the GNU Manifesto. Well, my mother didn't understand anything, and it was that bad for many years. Then I read Lessig's 'Code is law' and I happened to hear one of his stunningly good presentations. I went home and explained to my mother her everyday world of DVDs, cell phones, credit cards and all digital things she had around. Now she starts understanding what I mean with "freedom in digital society".
So, we still have to talk to CIOs but mainly we need to address the whole society because what we have at stake is not in the basement anymore: we won there, Free Software is already in everybody's basement powering business. We need to convince our dads and moms that digital citizens risk of being governed by technology companies instead of elected parliaments. The battleground is now what they call the 'consumer' and what really is a citizen: we need to prepare, otherwise citizens will get used to HDMI and other DRM, surrendering freedom without fighting.
Software isn't like in the 60s, a province of a few. Almost everyone uses software one way or the other these days. While I don't see the average person becoming a kernel developer, it seems clear that the level of ignorance about software and computers is unsustainable and cannot continue into the future indefinitely. People have learned what electricity is, after all.
Exactly, this is a good point. Culture is important, so we have one important point here: advocacy of free software should start from culture of the digital world. How would you start the lesson about Free Sw to a class of high school students? Lets find practical suggestions and examples so that the values of our community spread within younger generations.
cheers stef