Re: [Fsfe-uk] Linux User & Developer Expo

[Roger Leigh]

Richard Smedley <address@hidden> writes:

> There was a lot of talk about the"Linux desktop"
> taking over, but the "Open Source" solutions
> discussed were very much inclusive of proprietary
> software :-(
>
> The only people speaking up for Free Software were
> Don de Silva with a question from the audience and
> Jeremy Allison on the panel, who spoke up for the
> GNU GPL, and how it worked as a unifying force
> in Free Software, creating a level playing field.

This is a very important point to get across.  It's unfortunate that
quite a number of people believe untruths spread by others about the
nature of the GPL, to such an extent that they believe that it imposes
usage restrictions and infects the systems they install it on.


I didn't attend this year, but I came for a day to Birmingham last
year, and I was quite shocked at the lack of knowledge of some of the
other exhibitors.  For example, some were manned by completely
ignorant saledroids who didn't even understand what they were selling.
On enquiring if $product would interoperate with
$well_known_free_software they were well out of their depth (a
database-related product, and they hadn't heard of PostgreSQL).  And
they hadn't the first clue about Free software.  I'm sure this applied
to many of the attendees as well.  Was the situation improved this
year?


Could AFFS do more to advocate users of free software (particularly
companies) make contributions to the development of the software that
they depend on?  I'm thinking of things like this:

- Financial donations to specific individuals/projects
- Donation of equipment
- Donations of employee time and expertise
  (have you got your employer to disclaim copyright on work on free
   software, or assign it to the FSF?)
- Employing free software programmers to work on free software

As an example, I've recently ported GTK+ 2.2 and friends to Cygwin,
and I'm now doing 2.4.  This was done in work time for my employer
(unfortuately, I don't get to work on free software all the time).  I
think the latter two are perhaps even better and longer lasting
contributions than money, since you can see exactly what your
"investment" has achieved.

One argument that could be used it that given the savings the company
makes by using free software over proprietary alternatives, could part
of that saving be donated to free software projects?


Regards,
Roger

-- 
Roger Leigh

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