[Fsf-friends] FREEDOM, PHILOSOPHY and FREEDOM SOFTWARE

[Tarun Gaur]

Hi Harish,

Great to have an enthu response to my mail from you.

On building the masses ... atleast we agree that masses need to be built. 
Let agree to disagree. You build the mass your way, i will build it my way; 
with mutual respect for the philosophy.;)

I repeat again and again. You and many others are misquoting me. I never 
mean to say that Free Software is not good or it is not tending to be good.

Still,
Philosophically speaking it sounds great talking about the fact that 
"promote the philosophy and good software follows" .... Its like saying 
promote the brand name and products will follow. Sell promises the action 
will follow. Show rosy pictures stuffed with philosophy, the dreamland will 
follow. An idealistic society with FREEDOM for all and everyone will 
understand on their own.

Social Change ... on its own. History is witness ... aggressors gain 
resources, promote philosophies, accumulate knowledge and are remembered. 
REST are a part of never existant idealistic society of Socrates. A 
PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY.

No friend, the actions speak louder than words. Give them free good 
software, you will not need to support the philosophy. The philosophy will 
travel on its own.

I will give you an example here ... Linux happened and people saw the 
potential and RMS was able to push the philosophy, first in a very minority 
community writing some "GOOD" software, then they were able to promote their 
philosophy because of their work with some GOOD Software and attain wider 
acceptance.

Lets agree to disagree here. I strongly believe that philosophies are duds 
without followers and philosophies turn into mass revolutions only when 
promoted to show an effect on masses. I am not saying Linux and other Free 
software projects are not doing that; neither i have anywhere said that Free 
software philosophy is flawed. Both can be promoted concurrently and you 
cant ignore either of them. Still statistics dont support that philosophy is 
seeping in. (I dont mean i dont understand the philosophy)

When this thread started, it was because there was this respected end user 
called Mr Rammanohar Reddy (Editor, The Hindu); who genuinely tried working 
with Linux and dumped it for Windows after 1 month of frantically trying to 
set his Display of KDE right.

The moment i tried to put his mail across to the list ... we had responses 
like "I dont Care" ; "Who cares till i am happy" ; to hell with what Mr 
Rammanohar thinks". What a way to promote a philosophy.

Another wonderful hilarious way is .. I am happy, my friend called Mr. NASA 
and Mr. ISP is happy. Now i dont care whether kids are following it or not; 
whether schools are teaching it or not; whether journalists, doctors, 
lawyers and each one of them out there is using free software or not. I am 
happy till philosophy is realised but i wont use good free software as an 
agent to promote the philosophy. My question is friend ... then how will you 
do it ... Come on lets do 10,000 road shows singing the philosophy. Lets see 
how many switch. [ ;) though i dont mind doing 1 or 2 .. lol ]

Whenever i come across ancdotes and examples of being happy with Free 
software, they are from our highly enlightened friends (FSF evanglists and 
Open Source guys - Primarily techos). I am yet to see very happy masses.

Good Free Software is the ambassador for our philosophy.

Just to add to your experience with Laptops, 2 months back i bought a Sony 
and got Linux preinstalled on demand; i succeded where you failed.  But i 
really dont care about my own experience or your experience with Linux and 
free software because you and me are a MINORITY - a small drop in the ocean.

What is important is that the masses start thinking what you and me think. 
The philosophy is not promoted by "I dont care" attitutes. A sad thing is 
that from so many days we have been discussing this issue ... Everyone seems 
to catch the FREE vs GOOD debate but manages to miss the point. The point is 
that ..... An end user is not happy. Lets get togather and help him out. By 
doing this we are not hurting the philosophy but supporting it by our 
actions.

The RED HAT thing, i will explain again .. they are launching servers ... 
price range $1000 to $3500. It just the start, then comes the services bug 
in terms of more software. Though open source, completely open source. Is 
this what Free sofware all about ... RMS please comment !! Who are they? the 
Red Hat people .. how did they start? Who knows it better than RMS?

As per you billions will never be affected by "free/non-free nonsense"; 
Friend there are thousands of philosophies that are born and die every 
single day, the ones who attain critical mass are the ones which evolve and 
are fiercely promoted ... For how many more years are we going to hide under 
the garb of saying  ... "It is just a start" .... GNU project was launched 
in 1984 .. its already 20 years ... Its not a start anymore.

ITS TIME TO GAIN CRITICAL MASS !!

hail fsf,
tarun

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