Kẏra wrote:
If you can explain free software in 5 minutes flat, spend 5 minutes
working out what he doesn't understand, and manage to get some sort of
endorsement out of him, that would be great.
This seems eminently achievable; it's not hard to explain what software
freedom is, but also relate software freedom to people in a way where
they can see how its obviously a good thing in the world.
I would tie it into his previous work, like manufacturing consent. Talk
about how software mediates every aspect of our lives, and when other
people have control over our software, they have control over us.
Some specifcs to build on this point:
Karen Sandler's hypertrophic cardiomyopathy talk is online in multiple
places: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XDTQLa3NjE for the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQnM82MZO0 for a related interview and
her whitepaper "Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable
Medical Devices"
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2010/transparent-medical-devices.html
It's not difficult to see how proprietary software in everyday devices
people trust with their lives and their civil liberties -- in cars,
boats, medical equipment including devices worn inside their bodies, and
the voting machines people use just to name a few examples -- is
foreseeably dangerous and wholly unnecessary.
I wrote an article for Counterpunch.org some time ago about my work
fighting proprietary software in voting machines in Champaign county
Illinois, USA. I introduced software freedom including a brief bit of
history of how Stallman arrived at an ethical approach --
http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/08/19/why-we-need-quot-free-software-quot-voting-machines/
