Re: [Fsfe-uk] Documentation

[Marc Eberhard]

On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 09:50:24AM +0000, Jason Clifford wrote:
> I think it would be worthwhile deciding on who you are writing the 
> promotional material for.

Good point, very true! I have no clue, who is reading which computer mags,
so I hope someone else can come up with statistics.

> To a commercial user the core message has to be freedom from vendor lock 
> in and abusive monopolies (and not just the obvious one).

<ad>
  Trapped again?

  [ Photo or comic: Weird looking employee sitting on the floor in front of
    his office desk, almost completely buried in books, manuals and paper ]

  Free Software comes with complete source code!

  <page-bottom><small font>
    AFFS - Association For Free Software - http://www.affs.org.uk
  </small-font></page-bottom>
</ad>

> To a home user that freedom is more likely to be about the freedom to use 
> their computer as they wish, including the freedom to watch DVDs and 
> listen to CDs,MP3s,OGGs etc without having to report back to an abusive 
> corporate on what they are doing. 

<ad>
  Big Brother is watching you!

  [ Photo or comic: Left half: Living room with computer, pretty dark only a
    computer screen with a user in front of it, viewing some page,
    downloading something; right half: computing centre with one screen
    showing the actions of the user as a text listing on the screen. Both
    sides are divided and connected by a red patch lead starting at the 
    computer on the left side, leaving on the bottom of the page, then going
    up (as a divider line between the two sides), then down again somewhere
    into a machine in the computing centre ]

  Free Software doesn't spy on you!

  <page-bottom><small font>
    AFFS - Association For Free Software - http://www.affs.org.uk
  </small-font></page-bottom>
</ad>

> The freedom to implement software as "good engineering" will be core to 
> programmers (and thus corporates).

<ad>
  Can't fix it?

  [ Photo or comic: Desperate employee (waving his hands in the air) sitting
    in front of a computer showing a really stupid error message ]

  With Free Software you can!

  <page-bottom><small font>
    AFFS - Association For Free Software - http://www.affs.org.uk
  </small-font></page-bottom>
</ad>

> There is a lot more too, which you all know, however in order to write an 
> effective ad or series of ads it will be necessary to clearly define all 
> of the messages you want to communicate.
> 
> It is unlikely that all of these can be properly put forward in a single 
> ad so I'd go with the idea of having a number of themed ads which can be 
> used for the different publications and/or as a series.

I fully agree.

> That seems reasonable however that doesn't preclude offering articles 
> emphasising the Free Software message as well. I'm sure that if they are 

Of course! I'm just trying to get the whole thing started and the
opportunities so far have been offers of free ad space. If we get an offer
to write an article and find someone with enough time to actually do so, we
should of course make every effort to use such a chance.

OK, OK, I guess I better stop here now and give others a chance to reply!

Bye,
Marc
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