"smaffulli@inwind.it"smaffulli@inwind.it writes:
Did VA's background as a hardware company influence this? Is their setup so tuned towards selling products that they can't sell services?
that sounds like a good point, thanks. It still leaves exposed the question ESR backing up such a move: can we consider this as the final act of the Open Source Initiative? Is OSI over now? Shall we say it? Or who else should claim the end of OSI?
OSI has always been more focused on the technical benefits of "open source" rather than freedom. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it move even further to the pragmatic point of view, possibly rewriting their Open Source Definition to include less freedom beyond being able to review the source.
What do you mean with "Linuxmanship"-style page?
There was a web page (and I seem to have lost the URL) which was basically a quick guide to marketing and public relations for people involved in the LUG movement. It included such simple things as not ranting and be careful to make the language used work for you rather than the opposition (eg closed systems are "legacy"). With the argument having both technical and social dimensions, I think some basic social engineering advice is needed. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. I know I am.
http://www.linuxvalley.it/columns/columns.php?IdCol=109 Originally i wrote that article in English to advocate the release of a specific piece of software under the GPL.
It's in English? I'll read it when I'm next online. Thanks.
On Mon, Aug 27, 2001 at 05:03:02PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
What do you mean with "Linuxmanship"-style page?
There was a web page (and I seem to have lost the URL) which was
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/linuxmanship/
Just found it ;)
Cheers,
Alex.
On Monday 27 August 2001 18:03, MJ Ray wrote:
OSI has always been more focused on the technical benefits of "open source" rather than freedom. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it move even further to the pragmatic point of view, possibly rewriting their Open Source Definition to include less freedom beyond being able to review the source.
I know that, but too many IT managers have learned Open Source better than Free Software and they don't know the difference! Many see the 2 movements as the same stuff. It's going to be hard to remove Open Source from people's minds.
What do you mean with "Linuxmanship"-style page?
There was a web page (and I seem to have lost the URL) which was basically a quick guide to marketing and public relations for people involved in the LUG movement. It included such simple things as not ranting and be careful to make the language used work for you rather than the opposition (eg closed systems are "legacy"). With the argument having both technical and social dimensions, I think some basic social engineering advice is needed. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. I know I am.
Fantastic, we need a document like that: we need to raise consciousness at many levels. We need a page to point to for journalists, IT professionals, users, developers/programmers and the like explaining our ideals to them.
http://www.linuxvalley.it/columns/columns.php?IdCol=109 Originally i wrote that article in English to advocate the release of a specific piece of software under the GPL.
It's in English? I'll read it when I'm next online. Thanks.
It's in Italian, unfortunately :( regards stef
Stefano Maffulli wrote:
On Monday 27 August 2001 18:03, MJ Ray wrote:
OSI has always been more focused on the technical benefits of "open source" rather than freedom. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it move even further to the pragmatic point of view, possibly rewriting their Open Source Definition to include less freedom beyond being able to review the source.
I know that, but too many IT managers have learned Open Source better than Free Software and they don't know the difference! Many see the 2 movements as the same stuff.
It should just take 10 minutes to read: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
It's going to be hard to remove Open Source from people's minds.
In my personal experience it just took the time to remove "shareware" and "freeware" from my interlocutor mind (it depends on the interlocutor knowledge about computer scienze and smartness :-P). And when they call me foudamentalist I just smile, and ask them: "What's wrong in being firm about freedom?". (and yes: I am one of that old and boring guys who believe that our decisions should be based upon our ideals... Am I no pragmatic?).
[omissis]
There was a web page (and I seem to have lost the URL) which was basically a quick guide to marketing and public relations for people involved in the LUG movement. It included such simple things as not ranting and be careful to make the language used work for you rather than the opposition (eg closed systems are "legacy"). With the argument having both technical and social dimensions, I think some basic social engineering advice is needed. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. I know I am.
Fantastic, we need a document like that: we need to raise consciousness at many levels.
Consciousness is a necessary condition on the path to enlightnenment. ;-) A brand new document should be wellcome, but we have so many documents right now that explains free software philosophy (http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/). Maybe the best thing we should do is to talk to as many people as possible to try to explain our point of view (hoping we have well understood and share Free Software philosophy, you know: "Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. I know I am."). If they are willing to hear, there is a chanche for us to raise consciousness.
It is not possible to have an effective "Raise consciousness HOWTO".
We need a page to point to for journalists, IT professionals, users, developers/programmers and the like explaining our ideals to them.
We have http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/ and I think contributions are wellcomed by FSF, even from "third party". And remember: "[...] if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community...if ``hard nosed realists'' say that profit is the only ideal...just ignore them, and use copyleft all the same." (from http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html)
[omissis]
CiaoG.