"Noirin Plunkett" <plunkett at gmail.com> writes:
> The battles you reference will be won or lost on
> economic grounds. Money. Not awareness, warm fuzzy feelings, religion,
> or politics.
I've experienced first hand that this is not the case. Maybe that's why I'm
more positive about the usefulness people being informed.
Having made the case against software patents (for one example) in the
European Parliament, and in the European Commission, I've found there are
people who want to do good things[0], and I'm not talking about a minorty on
either fringe - but these people can only see the options that are put
before them and they can only understand the ones that are explained to them
in their language. When we show them an option, they do listen.
When people send them ranting emails, or when they get a large volume of
email from people who don't (a) understand the issue, or (b) have an idea of
the legislative system, then those people are ignored and the option they're
proposing gets ignored.
[0] "good things" - I'm vague because sometimes it's about civil liberties,
sometimes it's about economic policy, etc.. These things are usually
not in conflict. Software patents are one example which were bad for
both (whether one likes free software or not).
Raising awareness is about helping people contribute positively and it's
about helping people be good consumers, voting with their money, if they
want to.
> Some companies with masses of money and lawyers would like
> to have even more money. They don't care, frankly, whether software is
> open source, closed source, free or libre. They want money, and as
> much of it as possible.
> But don't kid yourself that it's on
> ideological or philosophical grounds.
Don't worry, I don't think that. Actually, the grounds I gave are the same
ones you gave :-)
I said people with big market share don't want it reduced.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan _________________________ \ http://foss-means-business.orghttp://ciaran.compsoc.com/ ________________ \ FOSS Means Business
http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Thursday March 16th, Belfast
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