I really like you Alan. It's quite a feeling when you receive your own thoughts eloquently put in your own inbox, just when you're trying to figure out just how to express them. It's like we're... Collaborating! :) Quite a gift, actually, and quite appropriate for the birthday of Linux, which I share. :)
On 25 August 2010 20:32, alan c <aecl...@candt.waitrose.com> wrote: > As you say, there are other aspects of Ubuntu. > > Motivations - and how they might be leveraged in Marketing: > > I have been using Ubuntu for some years, with Suse a bit before that, > and it is only relatively recently that I think I fully understood the > various issues of ethics, community, and social politics which free > software espouses. It took a video of one of Richard Stallmans (long) > talks for me to realise what might be all of the issues. A statement > that it is Ethical software is useful, however, if it took *me* so > long to fully appreciate this, it may not be a primary advertising pull. Quite right. I experienced Linux for the first time in 1994, on a computer party in my home commune. We actually still call it that in Norway. I think Stallman would appreciate that fact as much as he would appreciate the fact that Norway has laws that prevent people from actively confusing gratis with freedom in order to mislead. Just as much as he would love the fact that we don't permit IP laws in Norway, except for those creations that belong to a person -- which GPL is meant to distribute. So I would say "Come home to Norway, Richard" -- it it were not for the fact that USA needs him more than we do in Norway. Perhaps he does know and perhaps that's one of the reasons why he had a tour in Norway, but for the sake of argument, it's possible that he doesn't know this yet. Those who fight for freedom rarely pays any attention to those who have it, save for the sake of inspiration. I remember stuff like GEM, but most people doesn't because Windows won as a GUI on MS-DOS, and as we all know, the history books are written by the victor. I really hated the way Microsoft killed GEM -- I was less than ten years of age, mind you, but they were different times -- and Linux promised a future where different desktop environments would have a chance to live if people wanted it to. But it wasn't until a few years ago that the importance of free software really came home to me. Richard Stallman was the key factor. He will be remembered as the Hipocrates of the science of distributed communities, I think. Some might even call him the Lionheart of free knowledge. I personally belive that there would be no wikipedia without him and that he's to be remembered for all those pyramids of knowledge that we have built and will build in the near future. You have to prove that it is possible, and that's what he has done. My respect for that man has no bounds. I don't always agree with him though. He belives that freedom of thought is worth everything, even if people doesn't make money on it. That's not where I disagree with Richard. He believes that the point of software is to enable people to share. That's also not where our disagreements arrise. He sais he doesn't care how people make money as long as they surve the necessity of freedom. That's where we disagree. I believe that enabling people to make money on promoting and creating freedom is necessary, even if it means suspending some freedom in order to do so. I was about to say "sacrifcing", but I believe that it is possible to reclaim all the suspended freedoms by appealing to everyone. Because that's how we kill the proverbial chicken and the egg. Because that really isn't a problematic question: the chicken broke out of its egg. We might define the species differently, but Nature doesn't care, because Nature created both. In the same way, I believe that our children and grandchildren will not care if Ubuntu made it easy to install mp3 codecs. They will remember us as the ones who took the extra step and made it a real possibility for anyone to enjoy freedom. The fact that there was more theoretical freedom for them to theoretically experience, means nothing. It is the actual experience that matters. It's the Ubuntu Experience that matters. It is the power to empower that matters, and the ability to inspire people to inspire. The danish writer wrote: "Vi flyger i flokk, når vi er mange nok". Littlerally, it means: "We fly as one flock, when our numbers are great enough." It might be a translation of the old English: "Birds of a feather flock together". But then again, it might not be. Because these things really _are_ self evident. We need no persuasion or constitution to understand this general law that Nature has given us. We can look at the birds or look at the fish and we know it's true. There are no communism among these species, only the knowledge that everyone else wants the same thing as you do, and therefore also acts the same way as you do. We are not fish or birds, but we all do fight for freedom -- even those who try to convince you that they don't care about politics. Freedom is much greater than any politics or economics conceived by mankind. It's not even just a birthright. It's Nature. That's why I think it's more important to gather people than the effort to spread understanding of freedom. Once they have tasted freedom, we don't have to convince them of the importance of freedom. We only have to teach them how to contribute what ever it is that they're good at and how to express themselves in order to successfully become a part of the Ubuntu Marketing Team. Thanks for your attention, I appreciate it. Jo-Erlend Schinstad -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
