On 22-Sep-2007, Carsten Agger wrote:
(http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9350) ...
"How would you respond to those who suggest that free software activists lack a sense of proportion? Given the vast scale and suffering of war, invasions, occupations, poverty, doesn't the freedom to use computers pale to insignificance?"
I like Richard's response in that interview, and agree with it.
Everyone has their particular talents; it falls to those who have talent in a particular area to use those talents rightly. To dilute one's efforts among too many areas, especially areas one has little or no talent for, is also indicative of a lack of proportion.
My own background before being interested in free software was that of social activism, and one thing is definitely true: Free software may be a prerequisite for a free society, but does not in and of itself guarantee a free society.
I'd say that's true of pretty much any element of freedom. That it is true for some particular element of freedom doesn't imply that focus on it is disproportionate.
Corporations and states might give us free software while tying our hands in other ways,
That merely implies that we must fight against them tying our hands in any manner. It doesn't mean that free software — software that actually respects the freedom of all its recipients — is somehow less free, or that fighting to achieve it is disproportionate.
and we might want to work against wars, censorship, corporate domination of the media and of the media agenda, etc., before working for software freedom.
I reject the implied dichotomy here as false. I would replace "before" with "while also".
So is software freedom the wrong place to put the emphasis in the light of all the other problems we might fight, or might it be?
That depends on the individual. If someone's abilities allow them to do more good promoting software freedom than by fighting some other cause, I'd say that's a decision both rational and beneficial to themselves and society.