I have yet to hear a convincing reason why messages should not occur on platforms like Facebook or Twitter on the single aim of efforts in getting people to use decentralized services and run with Free Software in the same way sometimes any agent tasked with the role of protecting the public will tell you that sometimes pointing a gun at someones head is the only way of getting a hostile person to drop their weapon.
Zuckerberg won't let you talk to them on his platform, so you can't negotiate, so you need to tool up. This is the situation with users of Facebook for example. Once people put their weapons down, then we can talk about why they should not be persuaded to taken them up again. 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?) It therefore does NOT potentially harm us in the long run. This dilemma is because of the idealistic goal of trying to 'ban all weapons' which for me is philosophically and practically unachievable. What we ought to be arguing for is NOT a moratorium on proprietory software but the equivalent of de-escalation or reduction which would be both desirable and achievable. Free software is an important principle, but we should not let our principles obstruct the need for important institutions and citizens to switch to Free Software, and the way to go about that is very different, it requires a practical STRATEGY AS WELL AS principled rhetoric. Mat Witts _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
