[Fsf-friends] FREE SOFTWARE THAT IS GOOD ...

[Tarun Gaur]

Hi harish,

You are missing the point here again. It is not the words that matter.

I, like you also believe that software has to be free but i strongly contest 
the fact that people who do not embrace it dont matter to us. They do matter 
and we have to make them understand why FREEDOM, FREE software and FREE GOOD 
SOFTWARE (is important). Just because we believe in freedom does not mean 
that we do not listen to what they have to say.

Now, Please read my previous note again and tell me where i have said that 
end user is unintelligent, does not understand or does not value freedom 
....

The very fact that he is intelligent is an indication enough for us to 
convince him rather than show "I dont care, they will learn by themselves" 
attitude.

We need to educate - rather make them aware; of our philosophy and i am sure 
each one of them feels as strongly for Freedom as you and I do.

Sometimes as an analyst you have to keep yourself away from your own beliefs 
and philosophies and try and compare and criticize what you think might not 
be correct ...

And here what i feel is that we need to value the opinion of " Intelligent 
end users" and be our own ciritics at every point as that would help us plug 
the holes and evolve.

You took the discussion to "Intellectual Property Rights" and Free Software 
and morals and ethics of it. I think we all ... we all understand freedom, 
FSF and Free software very well.

As per me the entire IT community put togather is not more than 2% of the 
world's population. We need to come out of the technical closet and think 
about the rest 98% of the world and how we can make them adopt our 
philosophy and software.

And trust me for that, we dont have a choice ... WE HAVE TO BE GOOD and we 
are good, then why not be supportive rather than being dismissive to the 
"Intelligent End Users".

I can also say ... I like Free Software because .... Reason 1 ...... to 
Reason 100. But i dont because i am more concerned and focussed to see that 
Free Software Philosophy penetrates to the masses. Once it does, you will 
see it everywhere.

I again highlight; whenever we see someone saying that I have a problem with 
Free Software ... rather than shooting the guns at him, ask him if we could 
help restore his faith and then go and help him. This is in the best 
interest of our philosophy, cause philosophies are duds without followers.

Remember, It is not you and me that decides what is good ... it is the 
majority and the facts.

We are good, brilliant people ... we write amazing codes ... we just need to 
make them a bit more simple. We are doing it slowly but surely.

I am not contesting here on Freedom or good or bad. I am contesting that we 
cant ignore 210 million people and more. We need to make them understand, 
enlighten them, educate them and we cant do this by shooing them away.

In the proprietry world, companies like IBM, RED HAT and numberless others 
used Free Software Fundamentals to manouvere against Microsoft and another 
entry is Novell. Now these companies are also people and look at how others 
and Red Hat moved to take a big market share, riding on open source. What 
are we doing sitting and allowing them to manouvere and criticizing people 
cause they say that free software evangelists are deaf if not dumb.

Its a simple thing friends, entertain criticizm, consult, discuss and do 
something about it; even if it means contesting RMS opinion. He sure started 
it but its freedom what it is all about .. right?

Bottomline, BECOME A MASS MAJORITY RATHER THAN PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY.

hail FSF,
tarun

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