[Wylug-discuss] Wylug-discuss Digest, Vol 66, Issue 3

[Christopher Brown]

Hi Sam,

On 17 September 2010 13:29, Sam Tuke <samtuke at fsfe.org> wrote:
> On Friday 17 September 2010 12:57:02 Christopher Brown wrote:
>> I thought this new PDF reader crusade was a joke the first time I read
>> it
>
>> I think you'll find an overwhelming majority of people
>> just want to open it and couldn't give two hoots about how they do it.
>
>> Seriously, the FSF people need to spend just one day in the real
>> world.
>
>> Ugh. This is just a Gnuisance.
>
> 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 have no doubt that your campaign has generated press coverage. So
does melted cheese in the form of the virgin mary.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4034787.stm

This doesn't mean to say that the cause of the cheese, the toast or
the Madonna has been advanced in any way.

It might have attracted reports of "infringing institutions" but I
eagerly await copies of the responses back from said institutions when
you advise them they have infringed. I think you will find the
response is lukewarm, to say the least.

Equally I have no doubt that traffic has increased to the website,
considering this has been posted to a number of LUG's mailing lists.
People on these lists are the people who really should be the
low-hanging fruit of this campaign but have so far been generally
negative about the campaign as well as the website.

<snipping links for brevity>

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

Do you have links to these? Surprisingly you missed them despite
posting lots of other ones.

>> Take a straw poll of people faced with a pdf file they don't have the
>> reader for
>
> Most people have PDF readers. Most people do not use FS PDF readers however,
> and in our view governments should not advertise proprietary readers.

Thats your view. Please try to engage positively. Calling them
"infringing institutions" is not a good start.

> Our campaigns always involve a lot of planning, most of which is done on
> public mailing lists. If you would like to be part of the construction of
> future campaigns, and contribute your views to the next campaign before it is
> launched, please sign up to lists presented here
> http://www.fsfe.org/contribute/.

Sam - you are failing. The FSF grows more ludicrous and out of touch
by the year. If the FSFE spent as much effort just coding good
software as you did running these misguided campaigns you would be a
force for much greater good.

There is too much talk these days and not enough action (qv. code). I
would be interested to know what you think of my suggestion of working
with those already producing free PDF readers to include a menu item
that informs about free software. Even an icon on the menu bar
perhaps.

-- 
Christopher Brown