zealotry (was: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Fwd: OSS Watch inaugural conference, 11 December 2003)

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 18:47, Tom Coady wrote:
> >There are loud mouth idiots in all walks of life.  Some are loud about
> >proprietary software, and some, unfortunately, are loud about free
> >software.  This is fine when it's to their mates down the pub or
> >colleagues at work who know the person.
> >
> >But it's not so great when they send off an angry email to some
> >newspaper journalist who's published an inaccurate article.  
> 
> So where does FSFE fit into this equation? I should have thought we are 
> more analogous to the first scenario than to the second, but then I 
> don't really know how many journalists read our comments to each other.

(Not speaking for either Ralph or the FSFE here ;)

I think Ralph's comments were more directed at the response to the Bill
Thompson article previously. I think it's more a general commentary on
zealotry - at least, that's how I read it - i.e., "how can you expect to
influence people when you're not nice?". 

The argument has really changed from whether or not OSS Watch is
potentially providing a platform to proprietary vendors, to what is a
good (and what is not a good) method of evangelism. 

As it pertains to OSS Watch, I certainly think I'm reasonably close to
Kevin's viewpoint - I'm not sure what critique proprietary vendors such
as Microsoft are able to give of open source, since they do not deal
with it. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a pro/anti proprietary
vendor argument, since I don't apply it to IBM - they certainly are in a
position to offer such a practical critique. As OSS Watch seems to be
very much an open source project (i.e., concerned with the practice of
using free software, rather than the freedoms themselves) then that
seems to fit better than MS. It's still probable that I don't understand
the point of the conference.. maybe I ought to attend ;)

Further, I don't particularly buy the argument that MS should be
involved because of their market share. Having seen them in action
before (and their compatriots in the various astroturf orgs - CompTIA,
Software Choice, etc.) I certainly don't believe that they have anything
particularly useful to contribute. I do buy Kevin's argument that the
reference point of the conference (& hence the balance) should be open
source - a conference to merely present a neutral view of a range of IT
solutions doesn't seem new or different.

In terms of general zealotry, I don't really see how to make the points
contained within any better. There is a point about general tact and
decorum - obviously, there are ways of saying things which are less
flameful than others. But, at the end of the day, the point is the
point. The alternative is not to say anything, and personally I wouldn't
want to see Kevin's point being silenced any more than I would want to
see Andrew's. 

It's very easy to accuse free software supporters of zealotry. I'm not
particularly sure it's fair comment, in so far as it's not particular to
the free software world (or the software world) - there are people who
feel passionately about a range of views. Whether or not you think such
people "get things done" is a whole other argument in and of itself, and
is unlikely to be settled either way on this list. 

I guess the FSFE doesn't really fit much into this argument. Certainly
the examples cited of bad advocacy are arguable, although it's also
arguable that the effect of certain articles (Kieran McCarthy's article
on software patents springs to mind) is that the criticism does have a
positive effect. I don't particularly believe in perfect advocacy
though, and I suspect there will always be criticisms about being too
ideological. I doubt very much this list is much of a forum for anything
other than internal debate, so I don't think it has much effect if any
on journos. I would also be somewhat surprised if it had any effect on
the brand of advocacy of the list participants, so going back to the
equation above I don't see it fitting first or second part. 

Cheers,

Alex.