[Sderby] advocacy

[Richard Smedley]

On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 11:46, simon lewsley wrote:
> Wow dogma at its best
> 
> <http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/44398/Windows_44398.html>

Quite incredible =^/

On the subject of advocacy, I did an infopoint at
Bowlers in Manchester on Saturday (the largest
computer fair in Europe, apparently). We were giving out
info on Free Software - explaining Free Software, cross-
platform apps like OOo and Mozilla Firefox that could
run on legacy platforms like Windows, and introducing Free 
Software platforms like Gnu/Linux and OpenBSD.

It went very well, we had more interest than previous
events, and there seems to be something in the air
at the moment :-)

Which brings me (at last) to my point - as we
get more and bigger audiences among the non-
technical public, I think it is very important
not to exagerate the benefits of Free Software:
Let it stand up without hyperbole. Start with the
principle of software freedom, and explain how the
other benefits are side-effects of this. Stick to
facts, and good examples - oh and concentrate on
talking to people who *want* to listen ;-)

Just my three cents ;-)

 - Richard

-- 
Grants for Free Software development in the UK:
http://www.affs.org.uk/grants/index.html