For what its worth, I believe that if we truly want to promote free software, we need to begin reaching out to people outside of the typical tech-sphere. A great place to begin would be with educators and kids. There are many conferences not specifically related to tech and free software where we could (and should) be promoting ourselves - conferences related to homeschooling, science, education, etc. Because we focus on those already interested in tech we miss out on a huge segment of the population who is most interested in software that works and is cheap/free ('as in beer', though they are likely receptive to the ideals of free software 'as in freedom' as well).
I have spent most of the last year refocusing away from free software and on my children and their education. This past winter/spring I ran a class on free software in our homeschool co-op, where I gave out USB thumb drives to my (4) students and explained the basics of free software, how to contribute, etc and did my best to get them used to/comfortable with it. One student chose to install on their own laptop midway through, and, as far as I know has had no problems thus far (I'd actually installed on another student's laptop in a completley unrelated class the semester before as well). This fall I'll be teaching a class in the same co-op on cryptography & freedom online, where I plan to hand out usb sticks with Tails, teach students to use GPG encryption and properly use Tor, i2P and other anonymous tools online, while constantly reminding them of the need for free software. It is only through this sort of outreach to kids and people who are otherwise ignorant of the importance of freedom that we will ever be able to build a knowledgeable society. The current focus of too many free software projects is within themselves and the (relatively) small tech sphere who already knows of their existence. We need to change this, and begin to reach out to those who are 'just users' of our software, if we ever want expand our reach and truly compete with the proprietary software which is so ubiquitous in our lives today. On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 9:11 AM, Richard Stallman <r...@gnu.org> wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > My question is intentionally broad. I'd like to see what candidates > think about the free software ideals and how they would promote them. > I am not thinking of one particular issue, and if they surprise me > with ideas I never thought of, that would be great. > > -- > Dr Richard Stallman > President, Free Software Foundation > 51 Franklin St > Boston MA 02110 > USA > www.fsf.org www.gnu.org > Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. > Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call. > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list