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

Fri Jun 14 17:12:44 UTC 2013

+1 Nitesh
+1 Aruna
Well said. I see a lot of nice material for our website coming out in this
email!

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 9:53 PM, Nitesh A Jain <niteshjain92 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Well put Aruna.
> I would like to add that the FOSS idealogy is to be completely Open (we
> must presnt  our strenghts, and reveal our weakness too and not hide it. )
> We are only here to present our case for FOSS and let the user decide what
> he/she wants. It is finally the users choice.
> If we try to create systems/idealogy that restricts the user's freedom
> then we are contradicting ourselves.Further if we do this then what is the
> difference between us and the others
>
> Regards
> Nitesh
> On 14 Jun 2013 21:40, "Aruna S" <safincrazy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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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>>
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