2006 - The Year the FSF Reached Out

nanday writes "Linux.com is running a story about how the Free Software Foundation has transformed itself into an activist organization in the past year. From the story: 'At the start of 2006, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was largely inward-looking, focused on the GNU Project and high-level strategic concerns such as licensing. Now, without abandoning these issues, the FSF had transformed into an openly activist organization, reaching out to its supporters and encouraging their participation in civic campaigns often designed to enlist non-hackers in their causes. Yet what happened seems to bemuse even FSF employees.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

Comments

It's about time...

[jaymzter]

I've often wondered why the FSF hasn't reached out to the mainstream community before. The ideas and restrictions behind Treacherous Computing, DRM, and the Copyright Raiders should be enough to raise the hackles of any conservatives and libertarians out there. Until mainstream activists realized the dangers pointed out by RMS this will remain an uphill battle.

As an aside, if the common public are pirates, maybe we should refer to the **AAs as Vikings or Raiders or something. Successively stealing our rights and enforcing their business models..

Re:It's about time...

[0racle]

I've often wondered why the FSF hasn't reached out to the mainstream community before

Because most people do not care about what the FSF cares about.

Re:It's about time...

[Erwos]

What you don't get, apparently, is that this concern doesn't rank very high on the average person's radar compared to other stuff, like _crime_, _taxes_, and other such issues. It's like the "Save the *small rare bird* Foundation" - there's a bunch of folks who care, but they're absolutely dwarfed by those who don't. Why should your cause be at the top of the list, or anywhere in the vicinity?

Re:It's about time...

[daviddennis]

... because most people don't understand what the FSF cares about, and it's likely they never will.

For most people, you shove a DVD into a DVD player and if it works, that's all they need.

Most of the people who do care are on Slashdot, and so it's easy to think of it as a huge bunch of folks, but I'd say about 1% of the population uses file sharing networks and maybe 2% of the population actually sees the problems with DRM. Now, that's a huge number of people, and a large percentage of the number of people interested in owning music or movies, so it's important to both producers and consumers of entertainment. But it's never going to be the dominant issue for more than a tiny handful of people.

It's not enough to swing an election, so with politicla issues the RIAA has a huge advantage, and from what I can see, they use it ruthlessly.

I think the FSF did a very nice job with BadVista.org . The site's very well done. But I think they will mainly be preaching to the choir.

D

Re:It's about time...

[TheRaven64]

Most of the people who do care are on Slashdot, and so it's easy to think of it as a huge bunch of folks, but I'd say about 1% of the population uses file sharing networks I think you'd be way off here. Take a look at the people the RIAA is suing; how many of them post on Slashdot, do you think? In my experience, it tends to be my non-geek friends who are more aware of which filesharing network is the place to get which kind of content. Using most of them doesn't require any technical knowledge, just a broadband connection. Mostly, it spreads because someone says 'hey, I found this way to get free songs' and installs it on all of their friends computers. They may have no understanding of the technology, or the legality, but they are still using the systems.

Re:It's about time...

[dangitman]

I've often wondered why the FSF hasn't reached out to the mainstream community before.

The grammatical construction of your statement implies that you believe that the FSF is reaching out to the mainstream community now. Problem is, they aren't. They are just pulling retarded publicity stunts that do not resonate with the mainstream. It would be nice if they decided to "reach out," but their actions this year indicate the opposite - they just want to further wall themselves off into an enclave.

Thank you FSF

[JayTech]

Thank you Free Software Foundation,

You guys have helped spread the dream of free access, open source and non-proprietary software to the everyday consumer. You've dared to speak out against the media & industry giants in your quest to unmask the truth of rights-stripping DRM. Keep fighting the good fight, we are behind you 100%.

Re:Thank you FSF

[Millenniumman]

You guys have helped spread the dream of free access, open source and non-proprietary software to the everyday consumer. No, they haven't. Very few people have moved to open source systems, and very few have any desire to, or even knowledge of what they are.

You've dared to speak out against the media & industry giants in your quest to unmask the truth of rights-stripping DRM. Ugh, dared to? They're not the mafia, anyone and everyone can say whatever they want whenever they want. And unmasking the truth? It's rather obvious. DRM restricts what you can do with media. That's it. It isn't good, but it isn't really very important.

Re:Thank you FSF

[wrook]

Sigh... That's my point. It doesn't. Yet. The point behind fighting DRM is to make sure that doesn't happen. I could care less whether or not *any particular device* has DRM. What I care about is making sure the public doesn't accept DRM as "the cost of doing business". Because once all the popular media falls under DRM, it will be a short technological tweak to ensuring that only certain groups get a voice in the media.

Again, look at the gaming industry. Try to release anything to the general public on one of the current generation machines without somebody else's permission. In the US, and very rapidly many other countries, it is not possible without breaking the law (and actually extremely difficult even if you don't care about the law). This is the case because people don't care. I hope they don't care because they don't understand the possible implications to their lives.

Why is this important? Because the cost of freedom is continuous vigilance. However, if the popular media controls our access to information, then we can not longer be vigilant. A relatively small number of people will control the way we are able to see the world. And they can shape it into anything they want.

Re:like me

[Brandybuck]

The modpoint inflation rate is nothing short of astounding. Someone posts a link to the wikipedia page on the FSF... and get's modded informative!

This is Slashdot. As in "News for Nerds who Know What the Free Software Foundation Is." Next you'll be revealing to the world the identity of those perenially mysterious acronyms, GNU, RMS and GPL.

Re:Activist Companies

[FunWithKnives]

Dude, the FSF is a (duh) non-profit organization that was founded by Richard Stallman. Its only purpose, per fsf.org:

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Boston, MA, USA. We rely on support from individuals like you to carry out our worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users.

So, were you just trolling, or were you genuinely confused about what the FSF does?

Funny, I agree'd with their tactics till this year

[BigBuckHunter]

I agreed with most of the tactics of the FSF over the past few years. Then, I started seeing more an more propeganda (like their anti-vista site). I am still terribly troubled by the direction of the FSF and feel that my they no longer are working in my best interest. Just so we are on the same page, here are my opinions on the subjects they are dealing with.

Vista: I do not wish to port my apps to, purchase, or deploy a leacy operating system.
DRM: I do not wish to port my applications to legacy hardware platforms.
Propritary Licenses: I do no wish to relicense my applications using legacy licenses.

Notice the uber-troll passive aggresive use of the word "legacy". I hope other slashdotters here will pick up the word and add it to their everyday vocabulary when dealing with MS sales drones.

BBH

Re:Transformation

[Frosty Piss]

It is an interesting transformation, and one that took people by storm.

Are you on drugs? The FSF took people by storm? What people would these be? The choir?

Re:Funny, I agree'd with their tactics till this y

[westlake]

Notice the uber-troll passive aggresive use of the word "legacy". I hope other slashdotters here will pick up the word and add it to their everyday vocabulary

Good lord.

As if Geek-speak wasn't stupidly off-putting enough as it stands. Passive-aggressive indeed.

Vista on the boss's quad core 64 bit system isn't going to look or perform like a legacy OS and it is the boss the sales drone gets to see.

Re:I wonder

[bfields]

If they weren't an activist organization until this year, what the heck were they the previous twenty four years?

I think they were concentrated much more on supporting free software development directly.

That's less of a priority now, I suppose (for the happy reason that lots of other people are spending money on development), so they're concentrating more on politics--something the various companies funding developers may not be able to do.

Re:The RIAA is a lot worse than the mafia

[Millenniumman]

You're being ridiculous. The mafia kills people. The RIAA sues you for some money. If you don't want to be sued don't pirate music. If you don't want to deal with the RIAA at all, buy indie music, or none at all.

DRM now Vista

[OurNewOverloard]

GO FSF!

I have watched over the years as /. readers have bitched and moaned about DRM and M$, and for years nothing, nothing happens.

FSF suddenly go for it, launch Defective by Design (they even do "protests" outside Apple stores!) and BOOM they get huge press coverage, and DRM now seems doomed, and everyone agrees.

Now they have launched BadVista, huge press coverage, and suddenly everyone seems to "get it" that Vista is a DRM platform, and it will be a nightmare.

More crappy activism like this please!

They're the MAFIAA

[tepples]

You've dared to speak out against the media & industry giants in your quest to unmask the truth of rights-stripping DRM. Ugh, dared to? They're not the mafia O RLY?

anyone and everyone can say whatever they want whenever they want. Even where to get fair use tools for DVD-Video?

Most users don't care

[16K Ram Pack]

Protesting about Vista and DRM won't do shit.

Telling people they shouldn't buy HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and "you should prohibit them from your home and your life.". Do the FSF people get out from their myopic community at any time and meet some normal people? Most of them couldn't care less about free software rights. They buy a PC from Dell, they pop their DVD/HD-DVD in and it plays the movie. It does what they want.

I have a lot of respect for Mark Shuttleworth because he actually has some understanding of the problem. That people want to do this stuff, and right now, Linux can't (or at least not without some rather grey legal areas). And his drive is to solve it, not pretend that you can make it go away or persuade people to restrict their lives for it.

The FSF are insignificant, blind zealots working in their own little world, unable to see that sensible compromise in the short term may be necessary in the long term.

The likes of Canonical are doing far more for free software than the FSF are.

Re:Most users don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

"The likes of Canonical are doing far more for free software than the FSF are."

Ubuntu isn't free software - it includes binary files without source, that violate at least 2 of what FSF considers fundamental freedoms, and encourages (though the restricted repositaries) the use of more proprietary software.

Go back to Bruce's open-source camp, where you can discuss your "I don't care what the license is so long as my music plays" arguments...