[Wylug-discuss] New FSFE Free PDF Readers Campaign

[John Hodrien]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010, Sam Tuke wrote:

> I'm sorry that you don't think that our campaign is not useful or effective.
>
> In our view it has so far been successful. It has raised awareness of Free
> Software, Open Standards, available FS PDF readers, and FSFE. It has generated
> press coverage in several countries. It has so far attracted nearly 900
> reports of infringing institutions, and dramatically increased visits to our
> pdfreaders.org website (which educates about FS and FS PDF readers).

I don't think it's as black or white as that.  It might be successful in
getting attention, while simultaneously making you look less good than you
otherwise should've.  It looks embarrassingly put together by people who seem
to be blinkered (for whatever reason).

I think the word "infringing" is a little odd too.  They've broken a rule that
you've made.

> Already several institutions have removed their Adobe adverts, and some have
> replaced them with links to pdfreaders.org.

I'd say they've made a mistake in doing so.

> Most people have PDF readers. Most people do not use FS PDF readers however,
> and in our view governments should not advertise proprietary readers.

It really doesn't rank high up on my evil radar.

Adobe produce a free reader that works on many operating systems, that's
easily installed on said operating systems, and has a web site that's
straightforward.

Largely I think just slapping a get acrobat link on is about simplicity.  It
does what they need and it's straightforward.  I put one button on my web
site, and if you click it, you're directed to the right version for your OS,
and you're one further click away from installing it (let's assume we're
talking typical home user running as admin).  I'm ignoring that as far as I'm
aware a Mac user isn't going to bother downloading a PDF reader as there's a
perfectly good one already on the system, but let's assume I like what you're
telling me and want to dip my toes into the Free software world of bliss.

Let's assume I click the first MacOSX link, MuPDF.  I have no idea how I can
download a Mac version from that page.  Honestly.  It doesn't mention Mac, or
Apple anywhere as far as I can see.  Let's just give up and look at Okular.

    "KDE/Mac Package Downloads (Old)

    These packages contain an old release of KDE/Mac. Work is being done to
    modernize them, but for now, it is recommended that you follow the
    directions for building from Fink or MacPorts. KDE is up-to-date in both
    Fink and MacPorts with the latest KDE 4.2.x packages."

Nope, you've lost me again.

I'll try the third link for Vindaloo:

Index of /gsimageapps/Vindaloo
[ICO]   Name    Last modified   Size    Description
[DIR]   Parent Directory                -
[ ]     LATEST-Vindaloo-0.2     20-Jul-2005 22:31       0
[ ]     Vindaloo-0.1.dmg.gz     09-Jun-2005 21:27       2.1M
[ ]     Vindaloo-0.1.tar.gz     09-Jun-2005 21:43       1.6M
[ ]     Vindaloo-0.2.dmg.gz     20-Jul-2005 22:56       2.1M
[ ]     Vindaloo-0.2.tar.gz     20-Jul-2005 22:35       1.6M
Apache/2.2.3 (Debian) Server at download.gna.org Port 80

Hmm looks like I'll be trying xpdf instead, as that's still all gibberish to me.

If all the meaningless text doesn't bother me, and I scroll down to "More
binaries" and click the OSX link then I get to:

http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/

You call this success, or useful, or effective?  If as an advocacy group
you're trying to push Free software, I think you need to learn a bit from the
non-Free world.

jh