[libreplanet-discuss] commments on LibrePlanet 2016

[Catonano]

So I promised my comments on some of the talks in the conference and here I am

This is the most meaningful and enlightening arguments I have ever heard about Free Software
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/collection/stallman-nussbaum-and-sen-putting-freedom-in-context/

The lack of effectiveness in the freedoms provided by the Free Software movement is something I have suffered for so many years but I was never able to put it in words so clearly.

I know my way around a computer but I'm not a highly productive hacker of Silicon Valley

I worked briefly as a Java programmer a very long time ago, having taught object orientation myself with Squeak Smalltalk and its mailing list. I didn't know who Alan Kay was, back then, but he was on the list and I was a kid, in a small town in south of Italy, learning.

Now I feel so honored about that experience

I believe I am one of the potential recruits of the free software movement that the lack of effectiveness made impossible to reach

That's why I think it's important for me to comment. I hope that my experience and suggestions can be useful

The most significant bit is my experience with Emacs.

Emacs is the GNU project that gives me the most reward and it's a testimony of how much I miss of the whole universe of GNU projects

I've been reading about Emacs for years but I couldn't manage to grasp it. I was frustrated for years.

I cannot stand reading for too long. That's why the manual and the tutorial did not cut it for me.

I was a kid, maybe now I would be more patient

But I think that I simply have a different cognitive style and the Emacs docs simply miss that

Finally I run into an introductive footage about Emacs by Peepcode (it later became Pluralsight)

That was more conform to my cognitive style and allowed me to break the ice with Emacs

Then I used Emacs Live (https://github.com/overtone/emacs-live )

to hack a bit of Clojure (just for fun)

Now I use Emacs regularly. Without the outstanding work from Peepcode and bythe Live people this wouldn't have been possible.

This is the live testimony of the lack of effectiveness of the freedom provided by the free software.

The Peepcode project is still available here
https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/meet-emacs#invite-modal

I believe the Emacs web site and manuals should cite this resource. More, they should praise it.

That's one of the most valuable non coding contribution to the Emacs project

GNU should, in my opinion, acknowledge that and try to help, show empathy to the Pluralsight people AND to their potential audience, to give back, pointing people to that resource.

People like me who stumble on the Emacs materials should not be left in the cold

That's a matter of effectiveness.

This is exactly the case where the freedom provided by the license is not enough

Emacs is made by a restricted circle of highly talented, higly educated, privileged people, with a knack for long linear reads.. And it shows. It's cut for them

I don't know if the license that material is released under is compatible with the GNU ethical guidelines.

If it's not, a solution should be worked out. Because those guidelines are being unfair to a large swath of people like me, I'm inclined to believe.

Now, I understand I'm not in the position to dictate what should be anyone's priority. I'm just trying to bring some diversity to the table. I'm trying to provide food for thought. Adding to what was saind in the talk.

Back to Emacs, when and if Emacs will switch to Guile Scheme, people will be brought to get their feet wet with Guile Scheme and all of a sudden they will be in the position to extend and pilot ALL of the GNU projects.

That is Emacs could be a bridgehead into the GNU "platform"

If the collaboration with Pluralsight could be expanded and improved, this should be explored

Having non Free Software organizations cooperating in bringing people to the GNU projects is an invaluable resource, it should be exploited to the maximum of its potential.

It's not only about delivering great and free technology. It's about EFEFCTIVELY bring it to the people out there

It's kind of a marketing effort to be done (I'm absolutely not a marketing guy. I'm just saying)

For example I don't know if Pluralsight offers any footage about the GNU toolchain, the build tools

I absolutely can't read the docs. They're too lenghty and challenging to me

Other observations that come to my mind:

I took a machine learning course on line with Coursera

It was required to use Octave.

I had a laptop then and there was OpenSuse installed on it

Octave was not available on OpenSuse but I couldn't manage to install any other distribution on that machine because of a matter about the BIOS, the booting process, I don't remember now.

So I went and bought a brand new computer (a cheap one) just to install Fedora, then Octave and then take the course

That is to say that I was ready to go to some effort in order to solve that problem. I was not being lazy.

If a Guix profile for the machine learning course was provided, people coud get bootstrapped with all the tools and configurations needed to take the course and that could be a break to introduce even more people to the GNU platform.

Coursera could provide unified instructions (with footages made on purpose maybe ) about how to get started assuming the common tools selection and configurations provided by the profile

A collaboration with Coursera should be established. They have tens of different courses !

Again this would be a kind of marketing effort

One more:

the author of this talk observed that ease of use DOES matter. He gave the example of Github and Slack that surclassed the number of users of Git alone and of Irc

I would like to indicate the GNUNet project

I had hoped that because both GNUNet and Guix are GNU projects they would have been more integrated and that I could have install GNUNet with guix

But the current port doesn't work. I read someone managed to install it on Gentoo Linux, but I don't know anymore abouth that

I read that there's the implementation of a consensus algorithm in GNUNet that is more general of that of Ethereum

Also I understand that GNUNet can chop files and distributes them in swarms

Like IPFS does

I mean, the Freedom to run GNUNet AS I WHISH is NOT effective !

And in the meantime I can run and play with IPFS and Ethereum that are less powerful and general, they are not free, but yet I can play with them.

They offer more effective empowerment than GNUNet does.

Now I don't want to put the GNUNet effort down

Quite the contrary. I have a hughe admiration for them, I'd LOVE to be able to play with their stuff.

But as the speaker remarked about his crashing LibreOffice, the power or the right to fix it myself is not EFFECTIVE enough

Ease of use DOES matter !

It seems to me that what is happening with Ipfs, Ethereum and GNUNet is similar to what already happened with Github, Slack and Git and Irc.

One last bit of thought: the html Guix manual is not readable on mobile phones

I tried to read it on my phone while in the cafe on the corner of the block where I live and I couldn't

The viewport declaration in the stylesheet is not updated to the mobile era.

Again, I don't want to put Guix down. It's the opposite, it's great !

But it's evident that the attention to the "experience" is not one of their though spots, to say at least ;-)

The GNU world has been like this for years

So this talk was really a surprise. This is a long due elaboration !

I'd love to thank the people who collaborated to produce that talk and I felt that my remarks had to be put down somewhere.

I hope I didn't irritate anyone

Thanks for reading so far.