[WFS-India] feedback on using the word "M$"

[Aruna S]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 8:06 PM, A. Mani <a.mani.cms at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Satabdi Das <satabdidas at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> A. The obvious problem is if we say free s/w runs in M$ os, then
> >> newbie may never move to GNU/Linux.
> >> There are examples of people never bothering to understand despite
> >> sitting in the free s/w movement.
> >>
> > True. There is a possibility that they might never move to FOSS. But I
> fail
> > to see how our forcing them to submit their posters made in FOSS will
> make
> > them switch to FOSS. If someone is using an OS, it takes time and support
> > from others to migrate to another OS.
> >
> > I am not sure if using derogatory signs for MS will win us people.
> Through
> > the poster competition we are trying to get people warm to FOSS
> alternatives
> > even if they are run on MS Windows. If they like the FOSS alternative,
> then
> > we can try to get those people convert to using a FOSS OS. Making the
> > criteria of FOSS tools run on open source OS will only get people already
> > using open source OS. I am not sure if people will switch to a new OS
> just
> > for the sake of participating in a poster competition.
> >
>
> We teach this way: concept formation, concept application and concept
> maturation.
> You are not understanding the nature of concept formation.
> The first step is awareness.
> The concept exists.
> The concept can be useful.
> .... it goes on.
>
> There is a huge difference between a person  who says "I have never
> heard of GIMP" and
> one who says "I have used GIMP". The latter type of person is more
> likely to move to a GNU/Linux distro.
>

I think you are forgetting that a lot of women come in the former category
and I do not want to exclude them from this initiative; if anything I'm
more concerned about this group. Would your stance here change if women
with the latter opinion were using GIMP on MS-Windows? The first step is to
be aware of ANYTHING related to FOSS, it could be as simple as a FOSS game
like GNOME Mines instead of Minesweeper. We could show people the code
behind minesweeper and maybe show them how tweaking it changes the game and
help them see that there are a lot of cool experiments that they can carry
out on their own if they give FOSS a chance( even if their OS is
proprietary). I think it is more important to emphasise on FOSS more than
emphasising on FOSS OSs, not that they are mutually exclusive, but getting
people to even start using a FOSS application would be a good start.


> I have converted a number of M$ OS users to Ubuntu/ Fedora by
> stressing mainly on TeXLive. A single tool can motivate migration of
> individual users too.
>

Exactly! You focussed on promoting TeXLive, a FOSS application rather than
stressing on why MS-Windows is M$-Windows.


> Saying nothing about 'M$' makes sense for corporates who want to be
> bought by them. Not for others.
>
>
I completely agree. I'm just saying that let's not bring this into learning
about FOSS. At least, not *yet*. The reason why I want people to learn FOSS
is because there are many who are not aware that they can contribute to the
development process of something beautiful, and also because making that
first contributing step is very very easy. If all FOSS creators thought
that users of MS-Windows should be excluded from the FOSS community, they
wouldn't enable these applications(Including git) to run on Windows. I
think it is very very important to be democratic and give people the choice
to determine what they want to do in the end. That is what FOSS is to me,
at the end of the day. We are not running an anti-Windows campaign, at
least not yet. I will go so far as to say that I do not care about the OS
that women are using as long as they are even mildly curious about FOSS.


> >
> >> B. M$ can say that the free s/w runs in their OS and so their OS gets
> >> weight in an adoption scenario.  This is very dangerous.
> >> We should take care to denigrate the performance, usability, etc of
> >> s/w in M$ os in this scenario and also make it it a point to mention
> >> it to newbies.
> >>
> > I support what Aruna has said and I would strongly suggest that we
> maintain
> > a respectful and friendly attitude it in our online communication.
> >
> > And even though we try out "confrontational and provocative" mode of
> > engagement, simply ranting against MS won't do us any good.
>
> You are missing the point.
> This is not about ranting. This is about responsible teaching.
> 'respectful' != 'sweeping all the issues under carpet' as you are
> trying above (It is not very different from lying).
>
> I am saying that all events for newbies should have clear links to
> FOSS resources including FOSS philosophy.
>
> If you won't even give a clue then how on earth will your newbie divine
> things?
>

I think better clues would be wikis and links(Like you have mentioned) on
how to download source code, how to write good documentation if you're
unsure of coding, how to translate if you're fluent in some regional
language, how to spread the FOSS philosophy(Which is not the same as
running an anti-Microsoft campaign) etc.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 8:09 PM, A. Mani <a.mani.cms at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Satabdi Das <satabdidas at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you feel we are trying to "sweep all the problems under the carpet",
> > please point out where we are doing it. Otherwise simply throwing terms
> like
> > "right-wing media strategy" or "corporate speak" doesn't help.
> >
>
> Nobody can be independent of the socio-political mileu.
>
> An example is in your other reply in this thread
> I will answer it there.
>
>
>
> > I liked the positive (I know I am being repetitive on this) atmosphere
> > provided to the Gnome OPW interns during my internship and you can see
> it in
>
> The Gnome OPW context is very different. They do not deal with newbies
> and are more concerned with very specific development projects. Our
> context is too different. We are not handling motivated people (only)
> who can actually write code.
>

The GNOME OPW took me under its wing when I was a FOSS newbie *infant*. I
had no awareness whatsoever about FOSS except an Ubuntu OS running on my
computer on a partition with MS-Windows(Since my parents use MS Windows.
They love Ubuntu because it integrates all the device drivers much better
than MS-Windows and therefore makes our Webcam look much better but they
also dislike Ubuntu because an application, MajicJack, that they use to
talk to my sister did not have a Linux driver the last time we checked. Do
I blame them? Not at all.) and I don't think the OS made *any* difference.
I'm still a coding novice because I contribute to documentation. I
personally know students who run git on Windows and contribute to
documentation. Maybe this is dangerous and being soft on Microsoft, but is
FOSS benefiting? Most definitely. These students did change over to Fedora,
but did so on their own.

For me, getting women to talk to me about FOSS and providing them with
community support is a better beginning than ensuring that they see how
Microsoft is M<dollars>-Windows. Let's focus on women for now and leave the
politics and the activism for later though I completely agree with you on
the importance of the same and would love to be part of anything we decide
about this when the timing is right. :)

Warm regards,
Aruna
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