> [...]
> help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle?
> [...]
> As well as blocking, does it give the user any encouragement to use
alternatives?
> is there a way a plugin could reward people for doing the right thing? Rewards are more effective at bringing about change than criticism.
The anxiety and zeal around the adoption (or failure to adopt Free software) among some programmers in the FS movement is I think a problem worthy of a discussion itself since it seems to resemble the problems with over-protective parenting. In Robin Norwood's 'Women Who Love Too Much' (1985) we see:
'In Praising and encouraging are very close to pushing, and when you do that you are trying again to take control of his life. Think about why you are lauding something he’s done. Is it to help raise his self-esteem? That's manipulation. Is it so he will continue whatever behavior you're praising? That's manipulation. Is it so that he'll know how proud you are of him? That can be burden for him to carry. Let him develop his own pride from his own accomplishments.'
There is, in short a similar potential for culture problems in the FS movement which is about manipulation, control and influence over the lives of computer users.
My complaint then, is what I would describe as the 'FUNDAMENTALISTS COMPLAINT' as in MOZERT V. HAWKINS.
Discussions about software freedom don't always result in freedom for the user in the same way that the local school board in Hawkins County, Tennessee in this case ended up being charged with denigrating a families religious views.
This type of complaint in the context of software is that an individuals or corporate's right to develop proprietary software is being 'drowned out' or 'silenced' by all this talk of software freedom.
The argument is advanced by showing how exposure to free software either by blocking non-free, not providing non-free alternatives actually goes against the free exercise of computers users freedom to use proprietary software through denigrating it either from technical, moral, political, social, economic or philosophical perspectives.
It seems timely to issue a reminder that all computer users must be allowed to opt out of Free Software too, to avoid the charge of contradiction or hypocrisy?
Making Free Software mandatory for all and to victimize users who refuse to participate in Free Software is not only contradictory but will only marginalize users we are trying to educate.
Facebook users are not seeking to impose their ideas on the FS movement and generally do not have a problem with FS in principle or in practice.
These objections are at the heart of the Free Software movement and it's important to keep in mind that Free Software will only grow if computer users are exposed to it without being asked to give up proprietary software entirely.
It's astonishing that the possibility of the ideal predicated on the complete annihilation of proprietary software is so prevalent and is misinforming so many FS activists.
It seems to me we should pay attention to the gains we have already made and concentrate on those, and worry less about facebook users and the like and trying to 'convert' them to a particularly disagreeable form of software freedom which is more about computer user manipulation than computer user freedom?