On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 09:14:17AM +0200, mray wrote:

On 21.06.2017 12:45, mray wrote:

...

I think treating them as second class could be OK:

1. post on a free software platform
2. don't reply on twitter or facebook, just link to the original

-Robert

Following this whole thread I think I changed my mind: We can't give in to the network effect and ask people to reject it. Reaching people at the cost of being inauthentic defeats the purpuse to begin with.

I mean what is an organization like FSFE if it can't even serve as an example?

No real point here, juste adding a support increment. ++ to mray.

On Tuesday 25. July 2017 11.41.48 Max Mehl wrote:

I would love to live in a world where we could abolish all proprietary tools. But unfortunately the carefully dosed usage of some proprietary networks is important for us to fulfil our mission [1]. Especially Twitter is more or less the only channel for us to connect with many journalists and politicians at short notice.

So what is the arrangement here, exactly? I'm guessing that most journalists and politicians don't "follow" FSFE on Twitter, so the way it must work is that the FSFE presence must "#" something that those people might be tracking or "@" those people directly.

Personally, I'm rather irritated by the spread of Twitter as a replacement for basic communications. It seems that one can barely get any coherent response out of organisations these days by either mailing them or using whatever contact form they provide on their Web sites, yet all one hears about in the media is how Twitter and other such platforms "enhance" relationships between companies and their customers.

Those "enhanced" relationships mostly appear to involve people "angry- tweeting" or "sad-tweeting" in order to publicly shame another party into doing something. While going public may be a necessary step in a dispute and is often the facilitating role of traditional media, what we now have is that as the very first step. Meanwhile, the media, despite acting as the promotional arm of these platforms bemoan their diminishing influence thanks to those very platforms.

I think what people want to see is a strategy for offering an alternative to such platforms. Actually implementing such a strategy is perhaps beyond the mission of the FSFE, but I doubt that the same can be said for the formulation or promotion of such a strategy.

Paul

# Paul Boddie [2017-07-25 12:58 +0200]:

On Tuesday 25. July 2017 11.41.48 Max Mehl wrote:

...

I would love to live in a world where we could abolish all proprietary tools. But unfortunately the carefully dosed usage of some proprietary networks is important for us to fulfil our mission [1]. Especially Twitter is more or less the only channel for us to connect with many journalists and politicians at short notice.

So what is the arrangement here, exactly? I'm guessing that most journalists and politicians don't "follow" FSFE on Twitter, so the way it must work is that the FSFE presence must "#" something that those people might be tracking or "@" those people directly.

You'd be surprised! Actually, the account has quite interesting followers. Among the 8940 are 56 "verified" accounts belonging mostly to journalists, organisations, and politicians with a huge follower base. I wasn't able to filter out other highly interesting followers who are not "verified" but I'm sure our messages on this network are well heard.

For example, our yearly "I love Free Software" campaign [1] attracts ~1000 new followers each time, many of them not aware of Free Software before – and I would say the majority of them subscribes to our messages because of retweets by other "influential" Twitter users.

Again, I don't appreciate the importance Twitter has gained in public communications. But as Jonas said: apart from PR intensive events like ILoveFS we're not investing huge amounts of resources into these networks, so I think it's a fair compromise.

Best, Max

[1] https://ilovefs.org

# Daniel Pocock [2017-07-25 14:37 +0200]:

What is the value of 1000 new followers though?

Are people actually switching to free software, or are the followers, shares and likes more like monopoly money which is never converted into anything tangible?

It's a huge potential. Imagine you're giving a talk about Free Software and suddenly 1000 people more come into the (surprisingly spacious) room. Of course, 800 of them could just ignore what you say and watch cat videos instead but you also have the chance of convincing everyone.

Of course it is also worth talking in front of 20 people if they are highly dedicated to what you talk about and contribute to your activities (in this analogy, we do that on GNU Social or Diaspora). But I wouldn't ignore the 1000 people if I can reach out them with considerably low effort.

And yes, just because a user is following us on Twitter this doesn't mean that she'll instantly start using Free Software. But thanks to us, now she may know that FS exists. It's a first step in educating the public which we otherwise couldn't make.

Best, Max

On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 03:10:59PM +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote:

On 25/07/17 14:56, Max Mehl wrote:

...

# Daniel Pocock [2017-07-25 14:37 +0200]:

...

What is the value of 1000 new followers though?

Are people actually switching to free software, or are the followers, shares and likes more like monopoly money which is never converted into anything tangible?

...

...

And yes, just because a user is following us on Twitter this doesn't mean that she'll instantly start using Free Software. But thanks to us, now she may know that FS exists. It's a first step in educating the public which we otherwise couldn't make.

+1

Years passed between the moment I heard about FS until I purchased my first GNU/Linux distribution. If that person I spoke to did surveys two weeks, six months and a year after we spoke for 3 minutes, he could have concluded that talking to strangers about FS at parties is not worth the effort even though he had 100% success at last.

I remain concerned about defining the reason we want or need these followers and then measuring whether that objective is being met.

We don't need these followers per se, we need to raise awareness. If we have a few among these followers who can reach a broad audience, we'll gain. Bear in mind that we feed GNUSocial _anyway_ which is then mirrored to Diaspora [1] and Twitter (and possibly others). So the feeding alone comes at no cost.

I share your desire for measurable outcomes, but getting just halfway usable data (take my example above) would exceed the effort FSFE staffers currently spend to maintain the Twitter account.

If the little time that is spent leads to one or two journalists interested in the topic and getting aware of FSFE's existence per year, I'd see it already as a benefit.

Now on the con side: how do we measure the harm our presence on Twitter and Facebook causes? How many (potential) supporters turn their back/stop their donation when they learn that FSFE maintains these accounts?

I acknowledge that there is a harm and know that these people exist. I know one personally.

Though I guess metrics are even harder to get [2] than in the case mentioned above.

But even if we had resilient numbers, how would we insert them into the equation?

Those turning their back to FSFE because of its presence on Twitter will remain FS advocates regardless, won't they?

FSFE is a vehicle to promote Free Software. Somewhat like a legal hack to collect money/resources for the cause of Software Freedom.

FSFE as an organisation may lose, but the community of Free Software advocates won't get smaller.

Best,

Guido

[1] BTW: I don't see GNUSocial and Diaspora as "mass surveillance", but I'd call them social media. [2] Let's try. To those who spoke against FSFE's presence on Twitter in this thread who own a Twitter account: How likely is it that you compose a tweet on your own versus the likelihood of retweeting a post from FSFE's account when you see it in your timeline?

I remain concerned about defining the reason we want or need these followers and then measuring whether that objective is being met.

To give another example: Greece's government successfully mobilized enough of their citizens to vote against a bailout in a referendum[1], but then the result of the referendum was simply ignored. Getting 1000 people in a room or 3,558,450 in a ballot box is potentially a lot of wasted effort if nothing actually changes.

That's actually a good example. Since I live in Greece let me emphasize something. Yes, in theory the referendum didn't change anything. But for most of the people who participated (regardless what they voted), this was their first time they got politically active. They engaged in political discussions, participated in rallies, challenged mainstream media propaganda, etc. And most of them continue to be active. So, regardless of what the government did, everything changed.

The word "followers" is a bit misleading, because it's hard to track/measure what these people do with our message. Some of them probably nothing. But some of them may act upon it.

~nikos

On 27/07/17 14:05, Nikos Roussos wrote:

...

I remain concerned about defining the reason we want or need these followers and then measuring whether that objective is being met.

To give another example: Greece's government successfully mobilized enough of their citizens to vote against a bailout in a referendum[1], but then the result of the referendum was simply ignored. Getting 1000 people in a room or 3,558,450 in a ballot box is potentially a lot of wasted effort if nothing actually changes.

That's actually a good example. Since I live in Greece let me emphasize something. Yes, in theory the referendum didn't change anything. But for most of the people who participated (regardless what they voted), this was their first time they got politically active. They engaged in political discussions, participated in rallies, challenged mainstream media propaganda, etc. And most of them continue to be active. So, regardless of what the government did, everything changed.

It is worth looking at impact on people's lives, three things come to mind:

1. Youth unemployment - down a little bit, but still obscenely high:

https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/youth-unemployment-rate

2. Using the Euro: Greece is still using EUR (no change)

3. Long term solution to debt problem (e.g. redistribution of taxes between Eurozone countries or debt write-off): No, no change

Those are the things that matter and the mobilization of 3.5 million people to successfully vote against a bailout hasn't fixed any of those things.

In free software advocacy, what are the outcomes we should really be measuring?

Regards,

Daniel

On 28/07/17 10:26, Nikos Roussos wrote:

On 07/28/2017 10:07 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote:

...

On 27/07/17 14:05, Nikos Roussos wrote:

...

...

I remain concerned about defining the reason we want or need these followers and then measuring whether that objective is being met.

To give another example: Greece's government successfully mobilized enough of their citizens to vote against a bailout in a referendum[1], but then the result of the referendum was simply ignored. Getting 1000 people in a room or 3,558,450 in a ballot box is potentially a lot of wasted effort if nothing actually changes.

That's actually a good example. Since I live in Greece let me emphasize something. Yes, in theory the referendum didn't change anything. But for most of the people who participated (regardless what they voted), this was their first time they got politically active. They engaged in political discussions, participated in rallies, challenged mainstream media propaganda, etc. And most of them continue to be active. So, regardless of what the government did, everything changed.

It is worth looking at impact on people's lives, three things come to mind:

1. Youth unemployment - down a little bit, but still obscenely high:

https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/youth-unemployment-rate

2. Using the Euro: Greece is still using EUR (no change)

3. Long term solution to debt problem (e.g. redistribution of taxes

between Eurozone countries or debt write-off): No, no change

Those are the things that matter and the mobilization of 3.5 million people to successfully vote against a bailout hasn't fixed any of those things.

These are not the only things that impact people's live though. Despite the above facts, people are fighting to improve their lives more actively than before. For instance, solidarity networks are many more and much more active these days. Even for things that are not directly related with the country's crisis (eg. refugees free shelter & food squats). This is a direct effect of people being more active and politically engaged. Trying to measure change by debt relief policies you actually miss the actual change that is taking place.

...

In free software advocacy, what are the outcomes we should really be measuring?

That's a good question. But same as above, small victories matter. If you are measuring change by only looking at the immediate outcome (eg. how many of our followers switched to free software) or only at highest institutional levels (eg. has the EC software policy changed over the past years), then you are missing most of the impact that our message may have. Does a FOI request changes that same decision or policy? Probably not. It has already happened. But it still has impact for people to know the answer, in a way that you can't easily measure.

~nikos

I agree, I read the other day that the EU are looking in to the legality of employers using facebook to research potential job applicants, it seems their ruling could be against the practice, which is a good thing as employers should be making judgments based on information in the application pack.

what happens if you don't use facebook, they can't look you up they then make assumptions usually against the applicant.

If we are promoting alternatives to mainstream social media then EU rulings such as this will benefit those of us who are not on fb, as employers won;'t be able to assume we have something to hide for not being on these networks.

Paul

On 25.07.2017 21:44, mray wrote:

Reaching people isn't the end goal. Just like market share isn't. We are about freedom. What if I asked FSFE to tweet its take on using twitter? Wouldn' the honest tweet be:

"You should not use twitter as it is a walled garden and proprietary software."

Maybe that tweet should never reach 1000 people. Let alone more.

Turns out I don't have to wait for this as the FSFE website says: "Some services may be Free Software unfriendly and harm your privacy."

I guess the unfriendly harming refers to twitter and facebook, less to GNUsocial and Diaspora. My impression was there was **no doubt** about harm being done. Aren't we framing it a bit opportunistic here?

On 25.07.2017 22:22, Max Mehl wrote:

# mray [2017-07-25 22:02 +0200]:

...

On 25.07.2017 21:44, mray wrote:

...

Reaching people isn't the end goal. Just like market share isn't. We are about freedom. What if I asked FSFE to tweet its take on using twitter? Wouldn' the honest tweet be:

"You should not use twitter as it is a walled garden and proprietary software."

No doubt, Twitter is a proprietary product, and people shouldn't be forced to use it (if they choose to do so it's their free decision but they should know about the consequences). I hope I never implied that the FSFE might have a different opinion.

...

Turns out I don't have to wait for this as the FSFE website says: "Some services may be Free Software unfriendly and harm your privacy."

For reference: this text links to the wiki page https://wiki.fsfe.org/Advocacy/ProprietaryWebServices

...

I guess the unfriendly harming refers to twitter and facebook, less to GNUsocial and Diaspora. My impression was there was **no doubt** about harm being done. Aren't we framing it a bit opportunistic here?

Good point. While I'm certain that Facebook and Twitter are harmful to its users' privacy, I'm not sure about Reddit or HackerNews. That's why at the top of the wiki page there is:

*Attention*: This page is far from perfect and it needs your help to improve it. Furthermore, the lists of alternatives are incomplete probably. So please help us gathering more information about these services. But even if we had more information we could never be sure that using Diaspora or GNU Social doesn't harm a user's privacy because much of it depends on a pod's administrator. And in my opinion, the "may harm" wording provokes some kind of critical thinking: a social network user should never feel too confident, even if an organisation like FSFE told her that service A or B is safe. Would you understand the current wording the same way? If not, what would you propose instead?

Best, Max

Services that could potentially be harmful aren't the issue. It is about not explicitly stating that we know some of them *are definitively* harmful. Yet all we say is: "Be vigilant, somewhere danger is lurking!"

Doing the right thing and call out the "bad players"would reveal the issue at hand: We literally show alternatives but refuse to give up using the harmful ones. What message does that send?

-Robert

Hi Max,

Some services are Free Software unfriendly and harm your privacy.

Are there any services we list which don't work with Free Software? If so, I think it's best to state that:

Some services don't work with Free Software or harm your privacy.

If all services we list can be connected to with Free Software, then we might well just shorten it to:

Some services harm your privacy.

While installing these buttons we also thought of somehow marking problematic services. But we felt uncomfortable of defining a measurement for good and bad services, also because we don't have enough information.

There is that, and we also don't do negative campaigning overall. We tell people they should use Free Software; we don't tell them what software they should not be using. That's also why I think campaigns like the FSF's Respect-Your-Freedom mark makes sense: it tells you what hardware you should be using if you want it to respect your freedom; it doesn't try to name ever other technolog which does not.

Hi Max,

Good point but not easy to answer. All services can be viewed with a Free Software browser but e.g. Facebook tries to convince you of downloading the non-free Messenger app (you cannot even write FB messages on your mobile browser anymore IIRC). LibreJS may also warn its users with most of these services' sites. Is this already Free Software unfriendly?

If there's a way to connect to the service with Free Software and it gives you access to the features the service offers, then that's fine for me, as long as it's not overly burdensome to do so. I know, it's not a black and white :-)

But that some services work *better* with non-free software, I wouldn't pay much attention to, nor that they offer non-free software for download. The same applies to a lot of Free Software, where the developers would be really keen for you to "upgrade" to the proprietary "enterprise" version.

On 26/07/17 10:42, Max Mehl wrote:

# Jonas Oberg [2017-07-26 11:27 +0200]:

...

...

Good point but not easy to answer. All services can be viewed with a Free Software browser but e.g. Facebook tries to convince you of downloading the non-free Messenger app (you cannot even write FB messages on your mobile browser anymore IIRC). LibreJS may also warn its users with most of these services' sites. Is this already Free Software unfriendly?

If there's a way to connect to the service with Free Software and it gives you access to the features the service offers, then that's fine for me, as long as it's not overly burdensome to do so. I know, it's not a black and white :-)

You convinced me :)

So in this case, the sentence under the social sharing buttons would be:

Some services harm your privacy. [Learn more].

Anything to add? If not, I'd make the change soon.

Best, Max

If a service is harming my privacy, but also restricting me by forcing the use of a specific piece of software (which is non free) surely that is also harming my freedom of choice, so perhaps

Some services harm your privacy. [Learn more] and in some cases also harm freedom [learn more]

You cover 2 areas there,

Paul

About this phrase:

"Are there any services we list which don't work with Free Software?"

I would extend it to:

"Does they make the visitor/guest/user use non-free software through JavaScript?"

If the answer to the above question is "yes", then mark the button with a special color or symbol, with a nearby note on the issues. No need to entirely block/remove the button, just mark it specially. I think even the FSF does this if one clicks the "Syndicate" links in each blog publication.

On 07/26/2017 04:26 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:

Why not put the buttons in separate groups, e.g. Facebook and Google under a heading "CIA approved industry partners"?

maybe not all are catching the fun in your sentence ... I often hear 'I have nothing to hide' and sure I use facebook and WhatsApp but I don't care that three-letter-agencies know what I do tomorrow and during the day. It's just someone told them to use WhatsApp because they use it and it costs you nothing to get in there and to send and receive messages. And if everyone is using it why should I move to something else and risk losing information? People tend to inform other via WhatsApp or facebook only and if you are not in the bubble your are not informed. It's stupid but unfortunately it's that simple truth. In this situation it's a clear black or white for 'newcomers'.

I personally experience this with two totally separated user bases. In both cases I can reject using non-free software for me but I understand everyone who does not. I had a hard fight with Signal until I got it back to work (sometimes) and my family gets really angry sometimes asking why I don't respond to there messages. I just tell them that I haven't received them yet which is disappointing for both of us, but a different story. Sorry I drifted away!

Back to topic: Who knows that e.g. Hackernews[0] won't be part of it some day, although they might not be part of it right now? How do we react if we find out and people ask us why we haven't informed them earlier so they got used to it and learned to live with it? Then it's literally the same situation they experienced with e.g. facebook because nobody told them the risk of using 'US based proprietary services'[1].

just my two cent.

Best Regards,

Thomas

[0] Just an example with is not meant to be an instruction manual...! [1] Someone might argue here that people have read and accepted the 'Terms of Service' and so on... But most of the time people are not forced to do the first part, they're just forced to do the 'accept' part and so they don't care.

On 26.07.2017 10:05, Max Mehl wrote:

# mray [2017-07-25 22:36 +0200]:

...

Services that could potentially be harmful aren't the issue. It is about not explicitly stating that we know some of them *are definitively* harmful. Yet all we say is: "Be vigilant, somewhere danger is lurking!"

I get your point and start to believe that we could rephrase it to:

Some services are Free Software unfriendly and harm your privacy. [Learn more].

While installing these buttons we also thought of somehow marking problematic services. But we felt uncomfortable of defining a measurement for good and bad services, also because we don't have enough information.

...

Doing the right thing and call out the "bad players"would reveal the issue at hand: We literally show alternatives but refuse to give up using the harmful ones. What message does that send?

I don't know if I understand you correctly but these are two separate issues: informing the users, and limiting the connection to problematic networks. We don't blame people who use proprietary software or services but they should know about the consequences. And I don't consider these buttons as advertisement for FB or Twitter but for D*, GS, Reddit, and HackerNews mainly – internet users see (privacy-unfriendly) buttons to non-free networks all the time.

Best, Max

You're right, there are those two parts to it. I just think the connection between them is the issue.

We *could* also silently be present on the problematic networks and not speak out about issues. But that seems out of the question.

If we come clear with the problem and *then* have to admit we are part of it - we rightly lose credibility. How can we encourage people to leave walled gardens when WE as an organization don't? They share our same dillema, staying because the rest is there. Lots of people would prefer to use an alternative if it was just up to them. The FSFE being in that position and deciding to stay would be an "official blessing" even for me as an free software advocate!

Also, lets not forget - individuals may talk and tweet all day long on facebook or twitter about FSFE activity without us having an account!

Cheers, -Robert

For that wiki page, I would add another article against Facebook, more to the side of the privacy: [[http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/2/1/140/pdf]]. It's an article under CC BY 3.0.

Morever, all the sites listed there, even Reddit (if I'm not mistaken, per [[https://fsf.org/campaigns/freejs]]) and Hacker News, forces the average visitor/guest/client to use non-free software through JavaScript.

I hope this helps. :)

+1

Il giorno mer 21 giu 2017 alle 16:47, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro ha scritto:

• systems like facebook are made by the establishment, for the

establishment. Zuckerberg is a regular at Bilderberg these days. This brings me to the age old question: can you change the system by using the rules the system gives you? People like the Bolsheviks and Gandhi didn't exactly think so.

This reminds me a recent discussion I had with a quite popular blogger here in Italy. He wrote a blog post complaining that Youtube automatic filters put his video under "restricted mode"¹. The video is about a "controverse" and hot topic in Italy in the last months, but the content itself is far from being dangerous or controversial at all.

I commented that we cannot expect real free speech in a walled garden and these events should encourage video bloggers to start using alternative platforms. He replied that there's no big audience in alternative platforms, so he cannot migrate until an alternative platform reaches the "critical mass". Well, true but nothing will change if everyone, especially opinion leaders, adopts this mindset. It's a complicated matter.

¹ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/174084?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop...

Hi everybody!

On 21. Jun 2017, at 17:20, Federico Bruni fede@inventati.org wrote:

Il giorno mer 21 giu 2017 alle 16:47, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro mailto:daniel@pocock.pro> ha scritto:

...

• systems like facebook are made by the establishment, for the establishment. Zuckerberg is a regular at Bilderberg these days. This brings me to the age old question: can you change the system by using the rules the system gives you? People like the Bolsheviks and Gandhi didn't exactly think so.

This reminds me a recent discussion I had with a quite popular blogger here in Italy. He wrote a blog post complaining that Youtube automatic filters put his video under "restricted mode"¹. The video is about a "controverse" and hot topic in Italy in the last months, but the content itself is far from being dangerous or controversial at all.

I commented that we cannot expect real free speech in a walled garden and these events should encourage video bloggers to start using alternative platforms. He replied that there's no big audience in alternative platforms, so he cannot migrate until an alternative platform reaches the "critical mass". Well, true but nothing will change if everyone, especially opinion leaders, adopts this mindset. It's a complicated matter.

It appears to me as if we conduct this discussion based on what we wish the world would be, instead of based on what the present world is like. In the perfect world, everybody would be using free software, and everybody would know that it is about freedom, not free beer.

There would however not be a need for FSFE in this scenario. Our mission is to advocate software freedom. On one hand this means protecting the freedoms we already have, which targets mainly those already using free software. These we may well reach on GNUsocial. Or via an RSS feed. On the other hand, it means educating people and lobbying to politicians that do not use free software, and do not yet understand the need for software freedom. These we won’t reach on free platforms, by definition.

Based on this, I would argue that FSFE needs to be present on proprietary platforms to be able to achieve the second part of it’s mission.

Best,

Mirko.

Hi,

On 22. Jun 2017, at 21:31, Roland Häder roland@mxchange.org wrote:

...

Based on this, I would argue that FSFE needs to be present on proprietary platforms to be able to achieve the second part of it’s mission.

There is an idea circulating in the fediverse about writing a free-libre open source "youtube" ([s]of course, with an other name which I don't want to name here to not fuel domain sharks[/s] na, they already took the .org domain ... :-( ). But it remains only like that, no actual development took place after that. Mostly because of low human-resources (hackers willing to write it).

If the FSFE could put their resources more into such projets, it would be more helpful than setting linkings to Youtube, Facebook, Linked-In, Instagram (FB again) and all of these high-walled coorporate "networks" (not really a network, compared to GNUSocial/Friendica).

But what now? There is no FLOSS-Youtube (you should not name it that way) and nobody seem to have enough time to do it?

This is again the “world as it should be” point of view. Sure we can write a new video service. But how do we get those who are not in our network to know about it?

I am all for the idea. But it is important to keep in mind that FSFE is foremost not an organisation that facilitates free software development. Not that we could not, but it is not our mission.

Best,

Mirko.

Il giorno gio 22 giu 2017 alle 21:31, Roland Häder roland@mxchange.org ha scritto:

On 06/22/2017 08:51 PM, Mirko Boehm - FSFE wrote:

...

[--- CUT ---]

Based on this, I would argue that FSFE needs to be present on proprietary platforms to be able to achieve the second part of it’s mission.

There is an idea circulating in the fediverse about writing a free-libre open source "youtube" ([s]of course, with an other name which I don't want to name here to not fuel domain sharks[/s] na, they already took the .org domain ... :-( ). But it remains only like that, no actual development took place after that. Mostly because of low human-resources (hackers willing to write it).

If the FSFE could put their resources more into such projets, it would be more helpful than setting linkings to Youtube, Facebook, Linked-In, Instagram (FB again) and all of these high-walled coorporate "networks" (not really a network, compared to GNUSocial/Friendica).

But what now? There is no FLOSS-Youtube (you should not name it that way) and nobody seem to have enough time to do it?

Someone has been working on the basic technologies for a few years. Do you know MediaGoblin and the W3C ActivityPub protocol?

https://mediagoblin.org/news/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

On 22/06/17 20:51, Mirko Boehm - FSFE wrote:

Hi everybody!

...

On 21. Jun 2017, at 17:20, Federico Bruni <fede@inventati.org mailto:fede@inventati.org> wrote:

Il giorno mer 21 giu 2017 alle 16:47, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro mailto:daniel@pocock.pro> ha scritto:

...

• systems like facebook are made by the establishment, for the

establishment. Zuckerberg is a regular at Bilderberg these days. This brings me to the age old question: can you change the system by using the rules the system gives you? People like the Bolsheviks and Gandhi didn't exactly think so.

This reminds me a recent discussion I had with a quite popular blogger here in Italy. He wrote a blog post complaining that Youtube automatic filters put his video under "restricted mode"¹. The video is about a "controverse" and hot topic in Italy in the last months, but the content itself is far from being dangerous or controversial at all.

I commented that we cannot expect real free speech in a walled garden and these events should encourage video bloggers to start using alternative platforms. He replied that there's no big audience in alternative platforms, so he cannot migrate until an alternative platform reaches the "critical mass". Well, true but nothing will change if everyone, especially opinion leaders, adopts this mindset. It's a complicated matter.

It appears to me as if we conduct this discussion based on what we wish the world would be, instead of based on what the present world is like. In the perfect world, everybody would be using free software, and everybody would know that it is about freedom, not free beer.

Does a man who is overweight lose weight by continuing to eat donuts?

Or does he lose weight by going to the gym and acting like the man he wants to become?

There would however not be a need for FSFE in this scenario. Our mission is to advocate software freedom. On one hand this means protecting the freedoms we already have, which targets mainly those already using free software. These we may well reach on GNUsocial. Or via an RSS feed. On the other hand, it means educating people and lobbying to politicians that do not use free software, and do not yet understand the need for software freedom. These we won’t reach on free platforms, by definition.

But why do you think we would reach them on Facebook or other proprietary platforms? Where is the data to back that up? How much time is put in to it, how much time do people look at those platforms and how many other messages are they bombarded with during that time?

Regards,

Daniel

Hi!

On 22. Jun 2017, at 22:05, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro wrote:

...

It appears to me as if we conduct this discussion based on what we wish the world would be, instead of based on what the present world is like. In the perfect world, everybody would be using free software, and everybody would know that it is about freedom, not free beer.

Does a man who is overweight lose weight by continuing to eat donuts?

Or does he lose weight by going to the gym and acting like the man he wants to become?

...

There would however not be a need for FSFE in this scenario. Our mission is to advocate software freedom. On one hand this means protecting the freedoms we already have, which targets mainly those already using free software. These we may well reach on GNUsocial. Or via an RSS feed. On the other hand, it means educating people and lobbying to politicians that do not use free software, and do not yet understand the need for software freedom. These we won’t reach on free platforms, by definition.

But why do you think we would reach them on Facebook or other proprietary platforms? Where is the data to back that up? How much time is put in to it, how much time do people look at those platforms and how many other messages are they bombarded with during that time?

I am glad you asked. Overall global GNUsocial users rank in the 1000s-100.000s, as far I know. Maybe somebody has better statistics on that. Here is a good overview of proprietary social media reach: http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/ne... http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/ Of the 3.7 billion internet users, 2.8 are active social media users (see Q5. What is the overall Social Media usage globally?)

However, I don’t think this means much. And I don’t want to get into an argument about lying statistics or whether or not everybody should be using free software. My main point was and is: FSFEs mission (part 2 in the original email) is to advocate, and we won’t achieve that by preaching to the acolytes.

Best,

Mirko.

Hi,

On 23. Jun 2017, at 09:59, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro wrote:

...

I am glad you asked. Overall global GNUsocial users rank in the 1000s-100.000s, as far I know. Maybe somebody has better statistics on that. Here is a good overview of proprietary social media reach: http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/ne... http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/ Of the 3.7 billion internet users, 2.8 are active social media users (see Q5. What is the overall Social Media usage globally?)

However, I don’t think this means much. And I don’t want to get into an argument about lying statistics or whether or not everybody should be using free software. My main point was and is: FSFEs mission (part 2 in the original email) is to advocate, and we won’t achieve that by preaching to the acolytes.

We also won't achieve the mission by preaching in the middle of a busy street where people are in too much of a hurry and nobody can hear us over the noise of the traffic anyway.

If people are going to argue in favour of violating our principles to use facebook, then I would prefer to see the data first and if data is not available, I'd like to see what plan is in place to collect data about the effort being spent and the outcomes achieved (e.g. what metrics will be monitored and why they are good metrics).

Without data, you can't convince anybody that this is worthwhile.

Please don’t say "people are going to argue in favour of violating our principles to use facebook”, because that assumes a lot. Is it violating a principle? Is it Facebook we are arguing about?

Data needs to be available about all alternatives that we consider. How about we start by looking at what the reach is if we stick to purely free software? This information surprisingly seems to be less transparent, we know less about it than about proprietary platforms.

I am looking forward to a data driven discussion.

Best,

Mirko.

Hi everyone,

I'd like to see what plan is in place to collect data about the effort being spent and the outcomes achieved (e.g. what metrics will be monitored and why they are good metrics).

I agree. We have suggestions for a group of the members to look more into what metrics we use for our activities generally, to which Daniel has contributed graciously. There hasn't been anyone taking this to up to lead the effort yet, but some of the metrics have a clear impact on our operations and it's sound judgement to spend our time and effort in activities which maximise impact.

We'll be looking at this more, and I won't speculate in the outcomes but of course, if we see we get a great impact in favor of free software if using Facebook or other tools compare to other equal investments, we will engage more on Facebook. Jonas Öberg Free Software Foundation Europe | jonas@fsfe.org Your support enables our work (fsfe.org/join)

On 23/06/17 09:47, Daniel Pocock wrote:

On 23/06/17 10:19, Jonas Oberg wrote:

...

Hi everyone,

...

I'd like to see what plan is in place to collect data about the effort being spent and the outcomes achieved (e.g. what metrics will be monitored and why they are good metrics).

I agree. We have suggestions for a group of the members to look more into what metrics we use for our activities generally, to which Daniel has contributed graciously. There hasn't been anyone taking this to up to lead the effort yet, but some of the metrics have a clear impact on our operations and it's sound judgement to spend our time and effort in activities which maximise impact.

We'll be looking at this more, and I won't speculate in the outcomes but of course, if we see we get a great impact in favor of free software if using Facebook or other tools compare to other equal investments, we will engage more on Facebook.

All the viral things that actually get noticed on social media became popular because of the effort that went into producing them or some other significant feature long before they hit social media.

For example, a natural disaster doesn't need to post itself on facebook.

In FSFE's case, if the policy or campaign work being done is extraordinary in some way, other people will inevitably share it without any staff or volunteer time spent on those platforms.

If people concentrate on doing work that a random person on the street would spontaneously want to share, then they can be confident that is something that other random people would want to re-tweet or share as well, making it viral.

Regards,

Daniel

At an event i attended in June, i got involved with a IT help session, people seemed interested and responsive to the idea there are alternatives to windows etc, there is another event on 30th September, (aimed at older people) which I am at, I am also at an event in September (festival of learning, community generally) so these are a really good opportunity to talk about alternatives and give people flyers, but what ever happens, this needs to be backed up by a solid support network we have a lug but we need people who can help and answer questions when there are issues.

Paul

---

Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

# jah [2017-06-21 17:46 +0200]:

If it is true that humans tend to seek out ideas that confirm their own, then it seems likely FSFE's twitter followers belong to the set of people who do not need convincing to use and further Free Software.

As one of the maintainers of the FSFE's Twitter account, I cannot confirm your theory. Our Twitter sphere (direct followers and their followers) may be tech-oriented but by far not only convinced Free Software enthusiasts. Just some groups in our Twitter audience I think we wouldn't reach via GNU Social/Diaspora alone:

- tech journalists - politicians concerned about digital politics - supporters and members of other civil organisations covering digital topics but not FS - some people who we won by campaigns about slightly different topics we conducted, e.g. "Document Freedom Day" or "They don't want you to" - random tech people who love some of our promo material (like the nocloud stickers) but don't affiliated with Free Software before

Following the various discussions about this for many years, I always come to the same personal conclusions:

- Forcing our "followers" to use a proprietary network in order to get our messages is bad. We have to offer Free Software alternatives, if available. - Everything we post via proprietary channels must be available on at least one Free Software channel (except a message is only targeted to users of a certain network, e.g. a call for Facebook users to switch to Diaspora) - Whether or not to use a certain proprietary service has to be decided on an estimation whether a) we can reach more people who we couldn't reach via Free Software alternatives, and b) whether the time/money spent is worth the results. - We have to inform our users about the negative effects of the various proprietary networks, especially those we use – something we already do on fsfe.org by linking to [1] at various occasions. - We shouldn't restrict our volunteers in the tools they want to use to fight for Free Software. If a local group is convinced that it should promote their meetings via Facebook, let them do that as long as they don't promote Facebook as the best or only tool.

With the FSFE's Twitter and Facebook presence, I'm positive that all requirements are met.

Best, Max

[1] https://wiki.fsfe.org/Advocacy/ProprietaryWebServices

Sorry to rehash an "old" thread. I didn't see any conclusion posted, so I thought I'd just send a +1 to bzg

El Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 09:47:02PM +0200, Bastien Guerry deia:

(I'm just a member of this list, not a member of the FSFE, which goals I strongly support though.)

+1 (and not very active even reading, it seems).

I think FSFE should play a role model in not using proprietary platforms at all. Let supporters or other people relay the messages there if they are there, but don't step there.

+1. For me messages are difficult to understand if people don't do what they say. So if part of the message is not to use software X I think it's easier when those saying it don't use it.

Also one volunteer may already be using some service and not minding doing some outreach there, but what happens if the volunteer moves on ? Do you want your organization to have a requirement for volunteers to do stuff you preach not to do ? The moment an organization opens an account in one of those not recommended services you are assuming there will always be one or other (sufficiently trusted) member willing to do work that the ideology of the organization recommends not doing. For this reason alone I'd consider easier to just post elsewhere and have any volunteers willing to do that (why?) to repost on unrecommended services from their personal accounts.

Also I don't understand how can you use those services only a little. How do you stop discussions developing there, from something you posted meaning to direct people out of them ? What if the content other users post there have more value than what you posted ? Of course you can't stop people using whatever they want, but posting to a service is contributing to it, giving value to it, and so helping it. If your identity has any value at all (as in somebody may ever want to get in touch with you), being reachable in a service is also contributing value to that service. I don't see how it can be avoided while using it at all. Yes, I understand it would be worse if no content would ever be posted outside that service, but that sounds extreme (even if some organizations may do it).

Also in theory if part of your message is against some centralized service, it is the nature of the centralized service to be easily able to stop any of your activities in their service because it is centrally controlled by them. So your campaign should always be switched off by the very social network management in a more or less obvious way before it has any chance of reaching your goal. It should stay there only as long as it's irrelevant. At least I wouldn't assume social network managers don't know about their social network. They likely know the most effective censorship, tuning down or depriorisation to apply in any situation so that the impact in their service is as small as desirable (to them). Of course being irrelevant is already likely simply because of the amount of messages you'll be able to post in comparison with the total number of messages moving through such huge networks, before you start considering whether the infrastructure owner will decide anything on what opinions to favour on their service.

And yes, whether or not you post to proprietary services somebody may post something there and give you a lot of traffic/sales/whatever, but counting on that when deciding where to spend effort sounds to me like buying lottery tickets with the organization budget.

But of course if the real ideology was something like it is fine to use Facebook as long as you browse it with a free browser, then nothing of what I said makes sense. So it might have to do with how much important you think the stance against those services is compared with the rest of ideology you want to preach. I happen to think it is quite central and hard to achieve coherency without it, but there might be other views.

On the argument that that's where people are, well, I don't know, but I think each online community creates its group identity or ends up being follwed by some kind of people, just like every pub attracts different people and people is more likely to go there because of the people they find there than maybe the music or drinks (I don't mean these are independent things). So pretending outreach should happen where there is more people sounds to me like pretending missionaries should go preach in some sex&drugs&Rock&roll festival because that's where people most need them to explain where the nearest church is... Maybe there's some strategy between that and preaching to the choir ? (but hey, if they like the music they may want to go to festivals anyway...).

In other words maybe people go to Twitter, Facebook and so on to learn about cute cats, gossip and friends holidays and simply don't want to listen to philosophical arguments there. Some may be just philosophically/socially/politically/intellectually inclined and just ignorant that there is internet outside social networks, but maybe there are so few of them as festival goers wishing to start a monacal life if they just found a helpful missionaire, after being turned down by someone they just fell in love with. I mean I wouldn't go looking for advice on regaining control of my computing in a centralized social network, but maybe that's just me... (in fact I've been asked once by someone whether she could trust a web on free software because she saw centralized social service icons there and thought it might taint its credibility).

Sorry for the length, I honestly meant to send a +1 only... :(

Thanks for your mail Erik. I fully support what you say. This makes all sense to me.

Well one thing is with online activities you can even track down the effect to single users if you like to. Personalized links is the hint here. We fortunately don't have it but Facebook and Xing or Twitter do, to name just a few.

Regards Thomas

About the use of non-free social networks in FSF's DefectiveByDesign: Yet again we must distinguish between free/libre software activists/supporters/proponents and people who are only free/libre software users (and that eventually participate in the activities).

See the DefectiveByDesign's notes on their Amazon tagging/commenting/reviewing actions.

In regards to the use of (free/libre software unfriendly) network services only for advertising campaigns: I'm not sure if FSFE should go that far as to do the advertising themselves. I think so because, suppose the advertising is done by FSFE, from here on I assume that FSFE will only publish the advertisements, but no other activity will be made in that network service (no replies, follows, likes).

So, considering the assumptions made so far, suppose some user of that network service becomes interested in what FSFE publishes (assuming he does open the links and contributes eventually). What if, however, after being interested, he decides that he wants to keep up with what the FSFE does, and wrongly decides to do so using the same network service he's already using, because he wasn't aware of another way of doing so.

What happens now is that person will continue using that network service until he's aware of another way to keep up with the FSFE.

Of course, I'm not related to the FSFE, so this is only my personal opinion. Besides, the FSFE has other ways with which people can keep with what is being done (e.g.: newsletter, news/content feed), although in other cases/organizations/groups this might not be very clear.

About developers thinking that (free/libre software unfriendly) network services is where the most important discussion happens, and so undermine the free/libre software friendly network services (also including those with free/libre JavaScript, clearly indicated to the visitor/guest/client : I also agree with you on that. :)

Answering the subject, no. "The medium is the message". I would find a message pushing free software/platforms not effective, hypochritical, on a nonfree platform. We must work to make free software/platforms as easy and useful as the nonfree ones. And we must stick to them: if the people have no reason against using them, we might convince the people to use them. We are not going to win the people by diluting our message and lowering our standards for what freedom means.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

On 06/07/17 17:28, Erik Albers wrote:

I think you get the point. Metrics in the real world are pretty hard to interpret. However, like it or not, metrics in the digital sphere and on (proprietary) social media platforms seem easier to access and to make connections. For example when our president shares our new merchandise product and it got 500 shares and sold out in 24h. Or when someone did share our nocloud-sticker with a link to our order-page on reddit [1] and we got in 48h nearly as much orders as in the rest of the year, then we can clearly see an impact we made (or someone else made) in 5 minutes.

Metrics based on purchases, votes (not surveys/polls) or number of people in a meeting/talk are definitely a lot more meaningful than clicks, hits or likes.

When I nominated for the fellowship representative position[1] on the GA, I wrote two blogs, participated in the IRC session and used no social media.

Please, do not get me wrong. This shall not favor online activity above offline-activity. I am a big supporter of offline-activities and I assume them to be very important for our message, community and cooperation. I mainly wanted to make a point about the complexity of numbers, data, impact, assumptions and so on to avoid too simple assumptions.

Thanks for clearing that up. Maybe we need to have a dedicated thread about offline activities, how FSFE can support them, how to reach out to people who we don't normally encounter at hacker events?

Regards,

Daniel

1. http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_29119d29f759bbf8

Hi Mat,

I strongly (but kindly!) disagree with your position.

Mat Witts admin@mail.yuj.it writes:

While they are using Facebook, a dogmatic approach will NOT be contradictory, it is consistent with political activism in the same way anti-capitalist campaigns still need money to run, Free Software needs Facebook - IF we want to effect Facebook users (and I'm sure we do?)

See what happens here: you are comparing Facebook and money.

While both are difficult to ignore, each individual is completely able and free not to use Facebook, while this is not true for money.

Saying that "Free software needs Facebook" is... false.

Just because some free software hacktivists are on Facebook does not mean they are right in thinking using Facebook is fine.

One of the biggest problem with Facebook for FLOSS is precisely this: dividing the community on whether we should or should not use it.

2 cents,

Hi Mat,

let’s simply agree to disagree.

Witts admin@mail.yuj.it writes:

If you don't think joining Facebook is an effective strategy to persuade people to leave FB then that's your choice, but I am not saying 'Facebook is fine', I am saying something like 'using facebook is fine for the sole purpose of converting people from non-free to free software or encouraging them to support FSFE' - and that is a political point not a logical one.

I believe even political points deserve to be based on logic :)

Also, I’m not a fundamentalist or whatever: I recognize life is complex and politics is complex too. I’m not judging anyone on whether she uses proprietary tools or not. I do sometimes use proprietary tools.

But when I do, I don’t try to find artificial justifications: I simply recognize I do the wrong thing, and I try to find ways of not doing it in a not-so-far future.

In fact, I’m *really* _really_ surprised so many people agree with using Facebook for spreading FLOSS values... guys???!!!!!

That’s my gut reaction.

Hi Bastien,

I believe even political points deserve to be based on logic

In fact, I’m *really* _really_ surprised so many people agree with

using Facebook for spreading FLOSS values... guys???!!!!!

That’s my gut reaction.

You have clearly abandoned your preference for a politics of logic here and opted to communicate your ideas using a politics of emotion really clearly - completely voluntarily and with no coercion - no logic here - just gut feelings - like you said.

I suggested FSFE political activists ambitions will be realized much more effectively if they engage on the assumption that other people are emotionally attached to facebook (they are not using it 'logically' are they? In other words - we agree that being on FB is not a 'rational choice' because it is harming their individual freedom, right?).

For FSFE to be on FB then seems contradictory, (we agree) because it is... but the alternative you are relying on depends on all FSFE's public affairs being controlled strictly within networks only running FS - which is not only impractical... it's also 'illogical' too.

I think therefore we actually agree that politics is not logical at all... I hope so - and on that reading Facebook, along with all the other non-free software out there is both a threat AND an opportunity - not just a threat - after all - if non-free software didn't exist - there would be no need for the FSFE.

Facebook then can (and should) be part of the strategy, because it's 'logical' to do so.

I completely disagree.

Okay. That sounds emphatic. I don't want to cut in on how you feel Bastien but simply to point out the confusing motivations at play here.

Knowing that FSFE is using Facebook provokes two reactions in me: one is my "gut feeling" ("guys??"), another one is the one I’ve already presented ("FSFE should play a role model").

Okay. The logical conclusion to those reactions are a) not strictly logical b) Contingent on agreeing what that role model ought to be (either to use FB to further it's aims or not)

You may think the Dalia Lama is a role model on World Peace, but it hardly qualifies him as a role model expert for encrypting an email client - and my point is the reverse is also true... the FSFE have a lot to contribute to society and provide they do it within the law and don't set out to harm anyone, it should get on with it in whatever way it thinks is the most efficient?

Saying that "politics is not logical at all" does not make sense to me.

Yes, that's the point I am making too.

And discarding a logical argument because I *also* presented my gut feeling does not make sense either.

Yes, and that's because you haven't presented a logical argument, you have presented a politics of affect, which I think is the way to go too.

It is precisely because you have a gut reaction to FSFE being on FB that is interesting - that is why this is a legitimate topic of discussion, because people are reacting emotionally to an issue that is not at all logical, but an emotional one. The reason why it is emotional is because peoples lives are involved, much less is it about machine learning.

I urge everyone to simply acknowledge the fact that it is difficult not to be on Facebook and, consequently, anyone can very much be tempted to craft justifications on why an organization like FSFE

should be on FB. But I still consider all these justifications to be wrong.

You are demanding people participate based on your feelings about Facebook. Many people will agree with you, and that's fine but it's not a 'fact' in the same way a pebble on a beach exists whether we 'like' it or not. Your argument is subjective (again this is okay) but recognizing the subjective nature of your argument is important to both your point and mine.

If we accept that people are responding to the issue in an emotional rather than an objective mode (and there is plenty of evidence of this in this discussion) then that strongly suggests to me the FSFE needs to make an emotional call for people to change, rational choice theory when it comes to software was abandoned I think in the seventies?

If there was a natural science model for why people use FB I would love to have it, but the only appropriate methodology in social science and political science seems to be one of 'story telling' to me, and we ignore that reality at our own cost I think.

My view is that folk on FB clearly are not calculating according to rational criteria, because they are sharing way too much and demanding very little from their captors. Their "feel for the game" is that FB is good for them but that is based on what FB are telling them and all their friends - and the FSFE I would say needs to be part of those conversations people are having about privacy and data protection where people can hear us.

So, again we seem to agree on this tactic of using emotion to make our points effectively is okay?

All that's left then is to consider if an emotional plea for people to switch to FS can be articulated on FB.

We both think it can, but the point you want to make is that it is not consistent in FS use - again I agree - but I would rather tweet someone about the harms of twitter than not tweet them at all - perhaps this is where we disagree? You think it is better for people to find out about FS in a FS environment - which I happen to think is idealistic and not practical (and there are plenty of reasons to reject pragmatics of course).

I also agree that a pragmatic approach can be confusing for people, but here I think it also misses where FS is at right now. Sometimes activists end up having to continue to argue for change in sub-optimal settings because society doesn't like what they say. This doesn't mean the activists are supporting refugee camps or locking up dissenting voices in prisons - far from it.

Mandela was not a fan of the South African judicial system or Robben Island, but he was a trained lawyer and I am sure FS advocates are not fans of FB (I'm not) but sometimes we have to be prepared to use the system to bring attention to the harms the system is producing, it's not logical and it's not ideal - but then logic and ideals are not what the FSFE are about... if logic and ideals are what you prefer... I would recommend studying a higher level qualification in philosophy maybe (despite the fact I think the system of Universities is harmful too! right?)

/ m

Here is my position, stated as "logically" as possible.

Okay, although I'm not sure this is the best way to approach things because I suspect we may be arguing about tactics, not ethics.

Discouraging people from using FB for example can be restated as 'encouraging people to use FS'.

I prefer the second aim to the first because it is less dogmatic. Discouragement implies moral wrongdoing, whereas encouragement promotes the idea of gradients of bad behavior. I hope we can agree that pranking someone in college with an ice bucket challenge is not in the same category as state sponsored water boarding?... ideally perhaps neither behavior ought to be tolerated but this distinction is very important to me.

I am fine about people using FB and about proprietary software, because within the four freedoms there has to be the freedom to develop software for private use.

Within the four freedoms, it seems consistent to allow people to develop software and not share it, otherwise that is not freedom, that is totalitarianism.

That is what FB have done and they have made a lot of money doing it. We know it's bad but I uphold their right to do that. Some FS advocates think all proprietary software should be banned (with no context specific criteria) but I think that position is too dogmatic and my activism is about eliminating proprietary software from the public sphere while leaving individuals and companies to develop software privately if they want, provided it is legal and not harming anyone. If you believe proprietary software is inherently harmful , then I would say 'okay', but for me - it almost always depends on what purpose it has been designed for - I don't feel morally obliged to share and share-alike the mobile computer game I made for my daughter, but when I develop software for an educational establishment my sense of obligation ramps up a lot.

So, with all of that out of the way - let's go through it.

P1: FSFE discourages people to use FB because FB TOS are unfair.

Agreed, though the reasons to avoid we already know are over-determined (TOS is sufficient for your argument, if you'd like to modify / add more that would also be fine but excessive)

P2: Trading the number of people you can reach out against the consistency of your behavior (aligning your moral with your discourse) is not a good idea.

This took me a while to unpack. I am still not sure if I understand this premise correctly but i think the assumptions you are making here are:

A1) The rationale for staying on FB is about quantity ('number of people').

A1-R: I would say the main reason for FSFE being on FB is also about quality. My thinking here is if you want to influence the behaviour of facebook users and owners, a good place to start would be facebook? This seems self-evident to me and would require persuasive evidence that facebook users use facebook the same way as they use say, diaspora or gnu social etc. I suspect you will struggle obtaining such evidence.

A2) Extending reach is not consistent with moral behaviour.

A2-R: This sounds like a charge of 'selling out'? If so, I wonder how you arrive at this. Given P1, refusing an opportunity to act consistently with P1 would actually be inconsistent?

On this reading P2 is not valid and thus requires more demonstration.

P3: If FSFE uses FB, then the FSFE behavior will be inconsistent with what it promotes, whether it reaches more people or not.

This seems to be a remix of P2. I can't find any new information here and thus it requires more demonstration (see my response to P2).

C: From that it logically follows that using FB is not a good idea for the FSFE.

I agree that the confusion is at P2.

You say you 'strongly believe in B', (P2) but it requires further demonstration around the assumptions you are making, then we can see if there is anything to disagree on, because I suspect there isn't much we disagree about - and it may all boil down to personal taste.

Personal taste wouldn't be something that I think requires FSFE to do any work on.

From this, it seems consistent for FSFE to use FB to 'discourage people to use FB' which (restated) is not antithetical to the aim of 'encouraging people to use FS'

/ m

I think that's an understandable reaction in the circumstances.

best wishes.

Paul/

Discouraging people from using FB for example can be restated as 'encouraging people to use FS'.

...

Not necessarily.

The (logical:-/) *necessity* of leaving FB to use FS wasn't a point I was making as far as I can see, and I wouldn't be keen to pursue it because with more and more software being made available of all kinds the situation clearly isn't a 'zero-sum game' (so to speak).

Human ingenuity I find has a canny knack of redefining things (and 'development' most often is in favour of the dominant idea - in this case - 'global capital') so this was more about the definition/articulation of FSFE's goals under such uncertain terms and conditions.

I wanted to illustrate that the problem with the way the FSFE goals are often articulated dogmatically - in this negative way - is not consistent with the four freedoms whereas the second positive goal may also not be in the eyes of those that (for example) believe that FSFE's aims should only be accomplished using FS - because it's the only way to avoid critical self-defeat.

However, the positive form does benefit from allowing the promotion of FSFE goals on both non-free and free platforms, which from the perspective of the practicalities of political campaigning for FS will I predict will be more effective simply because of the 'visibility' aspect.

The reality is of course we need (and have) individuals that promote both versions and that's fine by me. But on the narrow question about the FSFE political campaigning methods - any policy on that ought not to extend to our individual free choice to refuse those methods, likewise if the FSFE were to adopt a policy of refusing non-free platforms (I think like the FSF?) I wouldn't expect that choice to extend to individual FSFE members own choices which may be different in some cases.

I am sure none of the FS campaigning orgs are considering banning people for using non-free software? I hope not, but that would be the consequence of maintaining a very hard line on topics like this I think.

So, the confusion is that a policy decision made by the FSFE ought to be made on what's best for the FSFE, not best for any individual member. Hopefully this potential conflict will often match both - but on the issue of promoting FSFE on FB, I don't think there is much to be said for refusing to engage on FB at that level while this ought not to be seen as a signal or endorsement of the platform.

If it sounds illogical/inconsistent/confusing that's because reality is just like this. The individual campaigning around that will have to be creative... a number of tactics could be used I think for people expert in PR...

...

So, people are not going to start using Free Software just because

they realise that being on Facebook is a bad idea [...]

Indeed, that's one permutation. Another one is people are not going to start using Free Software - full stop. We have to get used to that reality, over-zealous optimism for our cherished FS may drive some people away, people that would otherwise stay and listen to us perhaps? So, as a general rule I don't think it is controversial to suggest a lot of people who become interested in FS eventually attenuate their use of FB to almost zero so the pressure must be on getting people interested in Free Software surely, whether it's on FB or at our local brand of supermarket?

While I applaud those that entertain the idea that we should only talk about FS in publicly owned spaces like parks, I'm happy that people are prepared to loosen their principles and talk about FS in the marketplace of non-free too...

I see sofware use as an 'ecology' not so much as an ideology. There are some in the FS movement that have a zero tolerance on proprietary software as an ideological principle. Often (but not always) I agree there is good reason for this, especially in public administration, health, education and possibly a few other sectors.

However, there are plenty of scenarios where proprietary software isn't ideal but may be tolerable... social media may be one - but it depends on a lot of other factors - the moral and legislative context of individual consent vs. public health and safety and so forth.

I don't feel morally obliged to share and share-alike the mobile computer game I made for my daughter, but when I develop software for an educational establishment my sense of obligation ramps up a lot.

...

These are two different things, since you presumably don't share the

game with anyone else at all. If you don't, you are actually touching upon the topic of creative works and why people might not want to share everything they create: a matter that some "free culture" people fail to understand.

Yes, ontologically I agree my daughter is very different to an educational establishment which is why i gave them as an example. I think these two things demand different approaches to software licensing and within the four freedoms this right to develop software privately has to be included. Private property rights then seem to be contained within the four freedoms and I have yet to encounter anyone who is able to convince me otherwise, but I am open to being persuaded.

...

would you withhold the source code from your daughter if she were to

get into programming at that level?

Who knows? My point is that to be morally consistent (if that is important - and I think it is) individuals (partnerships, cooperatives, non-profits and commercial companies) must have that right to create software and keep it secret under the four freedoms as a matter of principle - something many FS advocates don't agree with it seems.

...

Arguably, the primary message should be about those needs and which

Free Software solutions can address them, not about "alternatives" to proprietary services. Because putting the emphasis on proprietary services risks making them the benchmark and Free Software the pale imitation. (People really do love their famous brand names, sadly.)

yes, that might be better... not sure... although 'needs' is still very consumer-oriented? Software development for me ought to be studied in the context of the humanities as well as STEM since arts graduates often come better equipped with social critiques than maths graduates?

...

I doubt that Facebook became successful by telling everyone how bad

MySpace was.

I would have to question the deployment of the words 'became successful' here - 'made a lot of money' might be more accurate?

...

I also imagine that Facebook probably didn't have an account on

MySpace for such purposes, either.

Good point, although I don't think it's instructive to compare the motivations of the advocates of FB with the motivations of FS advocates and plenty of reasons to think the motivations are divergent and possibly antithetical?

...

"Here is a great solution for sharing news with your family and

friends. You can modify and share it as you like, and isn't it nice that it doesn't spy on you or sell your personal information?"

Yes of course, but the thread here (as far as I understand it) is quite a narrow scope - it's about if we think it's okay for the FSFE to post those messages on FB or not.

My current view is it is NOT inconsistent with the FSFE aims/goals, and it is advantageous in many ways to increase exposure to the FS message.

I think posting creatively and sensitively on non-free platforms like FB and twitter is an important part of the FSFE's marketing mix and should be carried out and reviewed annually - until such time as it becomes ineffective/redundant/.../... (insert negative adjective)

I suppose the remaining question is: What does everyone else think?

/m

Well, I wasn't arguing that persuading people to leave Facebook would

be a gain for Free Software. This was something you stated, perhaps speculating on how some people might think: that in this zero-sum game, people leaving Facebook will have to choose something else to fill the void, and if you keep persuading them, eventually they will find Free Software. I just wanted to point out that you can stop using Facebook and choose*nothing* instead.

I agree but my statement assumed that lots of people want to participate in social media of some sort, (the evidence is fairly emphatic) so 'choosing something else' would be their choice too.

Given there is so much to worry about with FB, making 'privacy' more personal might be a strategy, as was the case with the anti-CFC campaign which only got going when the harms of skin cancer were highlighted due to ozone depletion. Before that the story of climate change didn't make people change their fridges. If a similar story could be worked up about FB I think more people would take notice because in an age of CCTV no one is really feeling the anti-surveillance ticket are they?

Of course it is about money and control. Those wanting both of these things got their success.

oh - okay... I see what you mean.

[...] it is all very well for the FSFE (or a campaign, or supporters)

telling people on Facebook that there are alternatives, maybe mentioning negative things about Facebook or maybe not, but if all those people who are supposedly seeing this message then go and investigate the Free Software alternatives and don't get a coherent picture of what they might be using instead, then the exercise will end up being a waste of everyone's time.

Well I am not sure that FS ought to be billed as an 'alternative' anymore than not spying on someone is an 'alternative' to spying on them?

...we underestimate the amount of affective and cognitive labour that is required to make the change to FS I think by referring to 'alternatives'.

Most people that are locked into Apple, MS, Google and FB and all the rest are not looking for an 'alternative', they are looking for whatever they think is best for them, so how do we get them there?

The trouble is we don't, it will be their social network that gets them there so FSFE is more of a 'key influencer' for people in the industry and public admin and health and education at a fairly high level I think and less of an enabler of personal end users I think?

/ m

P.S. I noticed that you had a vacation message which was being sent to people posting to the list. Maybe that was causing you to be moderated, but it might be a good idea to adjust these notifications in future.

I am reconfiguring my email in the next few days :-)

On Monday 21. August 2017 13.51.49 Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:

I think you mean "private software" which is only used by yorself, and not shared to anyone, not even co-workers. Once you share it at least with someone, it ought to be free/libre because it's no longer "private".

Sorry, are you replying to my message? Please use quoting to preserve context.

If you were replying to me, I would say that I agree that people should also give others the same freedoms to modify and propagate the software. However, if Mat should fail to do so here, it would be a private matter between him and his daughter.

(I once got trolled by someone about this kind of thing who seemed to want me to state that because I advocate copyleft licensing then I must be seeking to somehow "criminalise" people who fail to provide sources in situations similar to this one. But notions like common sense and distinctions between ignorance, negligence and malice should be allowed to prevail.)

Also, I disagree in the statement that Facebook can simply be considered only a user of private software, and on the argument that Facebook doesn't expect the user/visitor/guest to use non-free software. In fact, Facebook does expect that, see the JavaScript trap, which is *client-side* software, but provided *by the website*: [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html]].

Yes, Facebook serves non-free JavaScript as does most of the Internet. I would rather not run most people's JavaScript, nor dial out to their tracking servers. I don't remember making arguments about Facebook's lack of coercion, however, so perhaps you were replying to Mat here.

Paul

Yes, I was replying to Mat. :)

Also note that correct copyleft defense should be collaboration/community-oriented, not based on judiciary/litigation pressures ([1][2][3]). :)

I wonder however... Does my message appear correctly threaded in your email client? For me, it does.

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/videos/2015-01-15_Bradley-Kuhn_Future-of-Copyleft_LCA-2015.webm (CC BY-SA 4.0).

[2] https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/copyleft-for-the-next-decade-a-comprehensive-plan/ (CC BY-SA 4.0)

[3] https://video.fosdem.org/2017/Janson/copyleft_defense.vp8.webm (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Well, I hope Linux project decides to switch to GNU GPL 3+. Or even better: GNU AGPL3+. :)

Also... Now I see what was the problem of threading: My own costume to avoid duplicating stuff, I'll try to fix that. :)

Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk writes:

On Sunday 3. September 2017 15.34.55 Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:

...

Yes, I was replying to Mat. :)

Also note that correct copyleft defense should be collaboration/community-oriented, not based on judiciary/litigation pressures ([1][2][3]). :)

Yes, this was a discussion on LWN recently. However, there still needs to be a licence with legal force, contrary to the apparent "old boys network" doctrine prevalent in the upper echelons of the Linux kernel development community. At least if anyone is to make end-user rights a priority, not an afterthought.

...

I wonder however... Does my message appear correctly threaded in your email client? For me, it does.

Yes, but I don't tend to use threaded mode (in KMail) because it isn't as convenient. Besides, mail-sending etiquette suggests that some quoting is done to be considerate to those whose mail programs do not support threaded message views. And also, people do not necessarily reply to whole messages at once.

Paul

P.S. I imagine that the way that KMail forgets where it was when switching folders and views is a factor in the broader use of threaded views. Such things probably still worked acceptably in KDE 3, but have always seemed to be a problem in later versions, at least when seeing how related functions also used to work but now do not, either. _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Sorry... I think I wrote something wrong indeed (perhaps due to being tired at the time)... my mistake.

I didn't mean you are required to share every FS you write.

Mat Witts admin@mail.yuj.it writes:

On 21/08/17 12:51, Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:

...

I think you mean "private software" which is only used by yorself, and not shared to anyone, not even co-workers. Once you share it at least with someone, it ought to be free/libre because it's no longer "private".

My understanding of 'private' is not so much 'secret' as you have expressed here - but more like: 'subject to private property rights' which are distributed/published, *privately*.

If you are suggesting that I ought to be legally and morally obliged to share all the software I produce under a FS license then that version of freedom isn't the version I would fight for. Freedom without autonomy is totalitarianism.

with respect.

/ m

---

Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

I think that we must try to cross studies regarding the importance of free/libre software to society in other areas and how the loss of the freedoms of the functional data (software being one of those) impacts society. However, as we alredy know, we must always make it clear the goals of the movement, not hidding only behind arguments of security, transparency, and so on.

In the previous months I made a talk about the the free/libre software movement as stakeholders for organizations and it's importance to society.

I still have the slides/presentation in .pdf and also in editable plain text .org file (which was used in GNU Emacs, in Org mode, to make the .pdf).

I have presented the talk in Balneário Camboriú, Santa Catarina, Brazil, during the Festival Latino-americo de Instalação de Software Livre (FLISoL, in English: Latin Americian Festival of Free/libre Software Installation).

I can share the presentation in any of those two formats if you wish. And also share it already translated to English if you like (please say so, otherwise I'll only share the one in Brazilian Portuguese).