I also emailed AFUL. I run the portuguese "sister" campaign and am a bit baffled.
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 09:35:53PM +0200, Matthias-Christian Ott wrote: > Dear Sir or Madam, > > on your website you claim that you are the "French speaking Libre > Software Users' Association" and therefore, support the usage and > adoption of Free Software. > > Today I received an identi.ca notice with a link to your "My University > offers me my Microsoft Windows ® license" Worldwide Campaign [1]. On > the campaign's website you encourage students to download Microsoft > Windows through MSDNAA and to return the OEM versions of Microsoft > Windows which the students own. You claim that this will send "send a > strong signal to computer manufacturers" and also suggest to install > GNU/Linux on the same computer. > > Returning OEM versions of Microsoft Windows may convince hardware > manufacturers to offer computers without Microsoft Windows, but > encouraging students in the same breath to install a gratis copy of the > same proprietary operating system won't support Free Software at all. > > Following Richard Stallman tabaco analogy [2], this means that you > ask students to return their tabaco to the shop in order to force > the shop to not offering tabaco and on the other to get free tabaco > samples from the tabaco company. This will of course not solve the > problems of smoking. > > I think the title of your organisation is dishonest, because you > violate your own statutes. I suggest to either change your title > and statutes or to stop your campaign and to apologise to your > members. > > If you really want to convince hardware manufacturers to offer > computers without an operating system or with a pre-installed > free operating system, I suggest to support the Windows Tax Refund > initiative [3] of the Free Software Foundation Europe. > > Sincerely, > Matthias-Christian Ott > > [1] http://www.racketware.info/msdnaa/call-on-students > [2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html > [3] https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion -- _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
