Hi !
I have drafted the scond press release of PDFreader to be sent out on the 18th of October, the guideline to contact the institutions (with schedule, model letter and FAQ (one item missing) and the new campaign page after removing the form.
Can you give me your comments on what I should change there ?
All three item are attached
Thanks !
Hello Maëlle,
Thanks for all your preperations! I already commented on the press release.
Notes for the guideline: - better talk "software" instead of "product" - we should change it so our goal is 1) that they remove the advertisement 2) that we give pdfreaders.org as example that there are others. 3) explain why Free Software is vendor neutral.
Notes for the letter: - The letter is too long. It also starts a bit boring... so people might not read it until the end. - We should start with something like "we got a report that you are doing advertisements for companies on your websites... an example can be found on http://..." Than make clear that this kind of commercial for gratis software is nevertheless commercial (perhaps we could use the car analogy with the testdrive). - Make clear that Free Software is also about buisiness - Explain Open Standards and that it should not be necessary to have commercials for PDFs.
Notes on campaign page: (this can be a bit more about the issues for society) - First we want to commercial from governments for non-free software. If they do commercials they should advertise Free Software which is better for society. - Do not use formulations like "We think", "We believe", etc. it weakens the point. - We should aim to make the campaign page text shorter.
Regards, Matthias
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Hi Matthias, thanks for your comments !
Before I work on including then in a second proposal, here some remarks : On 09/29/2010 05:04 PM, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
Notes for the letter:
- The letter is too long. It also starts a bit boring... so people might not read it until the end.
I agree, I really have to work on my synthesis skills...
HOwever, I took the example of the Open letter there : http://www.fsfe.org/projects/browserbundling/letter-20091005.en.html
And it is exactly as long, and I thought that perhaps it would make sense to have both : a long letter online, as a manifesto, and a short version sent out.
- We should start with something like "we got a report that you are doing advertisements for companies on your websites... an example can be found on http://..." Than make clear that this kind of commercial for gratis software is nevertheless commercial (perhaps we could use the car analogy with the testdrive).
- Make clear that Free Software is also about buisiness
ok.
- Explain Open Standards and that it should not be necessary to have commercials for PDFs.
How do you mean that ? that you don't have to have commercials for standards ? Or that there should be an open competition for it is a standard and all are equally able to deal with it ?
Notes on campaign page: (this can be a bit more about the issues for society)
- First we want to commercial from governments for non-free software.
If they do commercials they should advertise Free Software which is
better for society.
- Do not use formulations like "We think", "We believe", etc. it weakens the point.
Ok.
- We should aim to make the campaign page text shorter.
In my view of the next campaign page, we would have the most circumstancial explanations there to counter all the criticisms that we have recieved per mail. For me it is the very place where we can explain our vision of the advertisings, of the role of government for free competition and the role of Free Software for society, so it would be in that sens more harmful to have a short but incomplete page rather than a long one... HOwever, the length of it makes it perhaps unclear.
Best regards - -- Maëlle Costa Free Software Foundation Europe - intern im : maelle@jabber.fsfe.org
Hello Maëlle,
* Maelle Costa maelle@fsfe.org [2010-09-29 17:19:15 +0200]:
Notes for the letter:
- The letter is too long. It also starts a bit boring... so people might not read it until the end.
I agree, I really have to work on my synthesis skills...
As most of us have to do constantly :)
HOwever, I took the example of the Open letter there : http://www.fsfe.org/projects/browserbundling/letter-20091005.en.html
I have no online access at the moment, but just because we send out long letters in the past, does not mean we have to repeat it ;)
And it is exactly as long, and I thought that perhaps it would make sense to have both : a long letter online, as a manifesto, and a short version sent out.
What would be the advantage of that?
My reasoning for shorter version is: We want other people and groups to use our template and contact the institutions. So they might also want to add a paragraph from their own with some addition information. The more they have to shorten / modify it themselves, the more work for them. We want to make it easy for them.
- Explain Open Standards and that it should not be necessary to have commercials for PDFs.
How do you mean that ? that you don't have to have commercials for standards ? Or that there should be an open competition for it is a standard and all are equally able to deal with it ?
Government should not have to do adverstisment for a standard. They should use formats and protocols which are widely used. Do governments recommend browsers on their website (I hope this is not the case any more)?
A good standard should enable competition. If you use a standard and than do advertisement for one company this is +1-1 :)
- We should aim to make the campaign page text shorter.
In my view of the next campaign page, we would have the most circumstancial explanations there to counter all the criticisms that we have recieved per mail. For me it is the very place where we can explain our vision of the advertisings, of the role of government for free competition and the role of Free Software for society, so it would be in that sens more harmful to have a short but incomplete page rather than a long one... HOwever, the length of it makes it perhaps unclear.
I agree that we should address all the critisms we got. So let's work on that and try to make it as clear, well structured and precise as possible.
Regards, Matthias
Hello !
I tried to include here also your comments...
On 09/29/2010 05:04 PM, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
Notes for the guideline:
- better talk "software" instead of "product"
Done
- we should change it so our goal is 1) that they remove the advertisement 2) that we give pdfreaders.org as example that there are others. 3) explain why Free Software is vendor neutral.
Included it in the 2nd paragraph.
*There is still a need to draft the paragraph on why Free Software is better for society...*
Notes for the letter:
- The letter is too long.
I attached a (slightly) shorter version
It also starts a bit boring... so people might
not read it until the end.
- We should start with something like "we got a report that you are doing advertisements for companies on your websites... an example can be found on http://..."
Done Than make clear that this kind of commercial
for gratis software is nevertheless commercial
Done (perhaps we could use
the car analogy with the testdrive).
Not sure where to put it, and even if it is clear, I think it is not formal enough for one letter to one institution. Furthermore, I have too much difficulties to keep it short to have the possibility to include it ;)
- Make clear that Free Software is also about buisiness
I'm not sure it is better in the second version, can you tell me your feeling about this and if it is not, point where I should best elaborate on this point ?
- Explain Open Standards and that it should not be necessary to have commercials for PDFs.
This I have great difficulties to do...
Notes on campaign page: (this can be a bit more about the issues for society)
- First we want to commercial from governments for non-free software. If they do commercials they should advertise Free Software which is better for society.
- Do not use formulations like "We think", "We believe", etc. it weakens the point.
Removed :)
- We should aim to make the campaign page text shorter.
I already ommented this point... and didn't see how to make things shorter now. What could be good however would be to have a possibility to link directly to the list of reported bugs, skipping the explanation for when we need to refer only to the list, and not necessarily to the campaign (namely in the letter)
Comments are, as always, welcome !
Best