Hi Folks,
I would like to re-direct the group regarding the proposed slogans, and
I'll tell you why.
One of the big problems that the Open Source / Free Software community
has is that we have trouble getting the rest of the world to buy into
what we do.
If you have trouble believing that, I would like you to spend some time
in an Apple store. You'll probably notice that it's jam-packed with
happy, excited people who aren't buying into the freedom we offer them.
If you ask, they will tell you that Apple gives them more freedom than
we do. And it's true, because everything about the Apple systems is made
for people who think the way they do.
The fact is, we make our systems for ourselves and the other people who
think like us, and for the most part we're happy with that. A lot of us
don't even like users. We call them "lusers" or "mundanes". We get
annoyed when they criticize our products while they haven't contributed
anything, if they're even capable of doing so.
But we aren't very much like the majority of users in the world around
us, not even the majority of licensed Radio Amateurs. There are a lot
more Linux and BSD users among hams than the general public, but even in
the Amateur world, the Free Software users are a minority.
So, we need to accept that there is a dichotomy:
We care intensely about the freedom in our software, and some of us
have made real personal sacrifices for it.
Our target audience doesn't care nearly so much.
That they don't care might also be obvious because these folks continue
to buy D-STAR, and Windows, and Apple.
Now, we need to reach these people, because we want to turn Amateur
Radio away from proprietary black boxes. But no amount of telling the
rest of Amateur Radio about proprietary black boxes is going to win this
fight for us.
Instead, we need to tell them about what they will care about. It works
better, goes farther, lets you have twice as many channels,
inter-operates across multiple manufacturers, works on HF as well as
VHF/UHF, is legal to use between nations, you can include it in your
homebrew projects, etc.
You and I know that these benefits come of the fact that it's Free
Software and it's going to be an Open Standard. The target audience
cares about the benefits.
Please try to develop empathy for the target audience. We won't win this
fight otherwise. I'm sorry, but they don't care all that much about "free".
Thanks
Bruce
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