On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 00:39:26 AM -0600, Larry Gusaas ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> >>>FOSS is not just about requesting something but doing it yourself. > >>> > >>So are you saying that if I can't program or provide a programmer I > >>shouldn't use FOSS? That is pretty narrow minded. > > > >No, more like: if you can't pay the piper, you can't call the tune > > Attitudes like that make one want to quit using FOSS. Obviously you do > not care about the users of OO.org. You seem to believe that only the > people who can program it should use it. Anyone else's opinion doesn't > count. This attitude will drive people away. I agree 100% with Larry here (see points 5 and 7 of http://digifreedom.net/node/56). This attitude towards end users, this language and set of arguments for advocating FOSS made sense in the 80s (when using any software very likely also meant being able to program). Today they are absolutely uneffective, if not actually counterproductive to increasing adoption of FOSS. 95% of people are unable to program and simply have no interest, need or possibility at all of changing this fact of their life. Until the "traditional" FOSS advocates don't come to accept this fact, and above all to realize that there's nothing wrong with it, FOSS risks to remain or become irrelevant. All those who could be "converted" only with the usual Stallman/FSF arguments and language have already been reached, already accepted them if they wanted and still remain a very little percentage of people. This doesn't mean that OOo *should* have email, calendaring and everything else, of course. The best and only realistic way to satisfy these requests of creating one 100% FOSS "fully integrated office platform" with all and the same functions of MS Office remains to integrate, them and pre-package OOo, Thunderbird and what not. I also agree that this is something which is not going to happen without Sun, IBM, Novell or similar paying a full time staff of professionals. But telling the end users of a program like OOo (ie something that everybody must use, something which is not a compiler, web server or anything else which by its own nature is restricted to specialists) that they should "do it themselves" is, frankly, pretty naive (even if it _were_ right). Marco -- Help *everybody* love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
