De: Holmes Wilson Fecha: 26 de julio de 2005 21:36:41 GMT+02:00 > > Is this contradictory with their stance on free culture and > > the copyfight? Shouldn't the spokepersons and leaders of this movement be the first ones to not use propietary > > software? Can you be a leader in this war and not use free software exclusively? Sure. First off, I'm not expert on this, and I don't claim to speak for a broader community. That said, I'm working 60 hours a week now on a large F/OSS project, and at Downhill Battle we've given a lot of thought to the question "how do we make F/OSS dominate the sphere of software that regular people use every day?" because that's something we care about. Then, in terms of what software I use, I was totally one of the people using Keynote on a powerbook for my presentation. But the last computer I had was a free-as-in-beer thinkpad running Debian, and before I started working full time on Downhill Battle, I worked on a project that used Debian and LTSP to set up computer labs around our town with donated computers: http://participatoryculture.org/ So I've used linux quite a bit compared to most people. So first, the thing that pushed me to get a Mac laptop was very simple: I needed wifi on my thinkpad because I travel, and I couldn't get wifi working on my thinkpad. I bought a card with a chipset that the best resources I could find on the subject said would work fine. I used up at least 4 hours of our developer's time (who's a linux expert) and he couldn't figure out how to get it past partially working. His time is very precious to us, so I gave up, and eventually I had an important trip where I absolutely needed wifi. I couldn't see any way to buy a laptop and put debian on it without making wifi support an open-ended project that I didn't have time for, so I bought a Mac. To sum up, I'm ideologically committed to free software and was willing to spend slightly irrational amounts of time trying to make linux my platform. But I was forced to switch. People should realize that linux has several of these "deal-breaker" short comings, and that for people in certain circumstances there isn't any workaround. It's also the case that I'm at least 20% more efficient working on a Mac than on linux. I miss three things about debian: multiple desktops, apt-get update, the Muine music player, and using Konqueror + Kate for editing webpages (soo nice). In all other areas, I have to recognize that it slowed me down and made me more stressed, even if the ideologue in me loved it. I think it's difficult to imagine how much time people like Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow spend using a computer (or even how much time they spend working: I'm guessing they each do 80 hour weeks). When you're spending that much time communicating online, having a computer that doesn't fit your needs is suicide. Another way to put this is, would you rather have Cory and Lessig use free software, or have 20% less of their time going to their work? If all of us were developers, it would probably fit our needs better than anything else. Linux is, in many ways, a platform built by developers for developers. I would know emacs inside and out and use it for everything (like our developer Nick Nassar does). Plus there are a million nice things about linux for developing software that would balance out the advantages of Macs, or so I've heard. Developers should realize that linux meets their needs better than it does those of any other community. Now let's return to the common goal of making F/OSS dominate the sphere of software that regular people use every day. Reaching this goal requires advocacy, activism and evangelism, not just individual commitment and sacrifice. I'm worried about people who like free software falling into the same trap that vegetarians fall into. Some people are vegetarian for spiritual reasons, but for most people it's either because they don't want to support the cruelty to animals or the waste and environmental damage inherent in mass production of meat. So for the majority of vegetarians, their political goal, or the projection of their personal goal into the social sphere, is to reduce meat production. The problem though, is that most vegetarians value their own ideological purity far above their social goal. This results in several common problems: *Vegetarians spend lots of time working on being a vegetarian, and very little time on "how can I make more vegetarians?" *When vegetarians do think about convincing others, they focus on convincing others to make the same ideological commitment they have, rather than on getting others to reduce the amount of meat they eat. (they try to convert 1 person to be 100% vegetarian rather than trying to get 20 people to cut their meat consumption by 50%). *Vegetarians drastically overestimate the extent to which "leading by example" actually works, next to other strategies. *Vegetarians' ideological fervor comes off to friends and family as self-righteous, and pushes them away from considering vegetarianism on the basis of its economic, health, and environmental benefits. *Vegetarians make weird food and decide to like it, rather than making good food that non-vegetarians also like. Not all vegetarians are like this. But it's pretty common. And I think the analogues to how some people feel about free software are pretty obvious. It comes down to whether you care more about individual ideological purity, or the ultimate social goal. If the social goal is the more important to you, then you should realize that ideological purism will make you non-strategic, and cripple your ability to achieve your goals. Novice Windows users, universities, internet cafes, etc are all much better strategic targets than people who spend 60 hours a week living or dying by their computers. Plus there are a lot more of in the first categories than in the last.