On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 7:35 PM, Jason Self <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mozilla's campaigns to get people to use Firefox worked well enough because > there was a "thing" that people could go download and use. While it's > possible > to build the GNU Operating System it's not really a completed and ready to > use > system just yet. Most people use derivatives instead, with the Ubuntu > GNU/Linux > distribution you mention being an example of a popular one that also > bundles > proprietary software. > gNewSense, Trisquel, and Parabola are all also "things" you can download to replace your existing OS (even if your existing one is Ubuntu). > > The goal of simply getting people to use free software (aka "popularity") > is not > enough, in my opinion. The goal should be to instead teach people about why > freedom matters so that they will refuse proprietary software and not run > it > anymore. The big question is how do you change people's *values* and get > them to > value freedom? Anything that doesn't do that means that they'll just > switch to > the next neat thing when that comes along later. > > RMS discussed some of this in Avoiding Ruinous Compromises [1]. > > [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html I think you misunderstood my original email. I wanted to launch GNU anew with the focus being primarily on the goal of freedom. The idea-packaging I had in mind was: "A: Hey look, a new OS! B: Why would I want that? A: Because it's free as in freedom! B: Why does that matter? A: {... start of discussion}".
