[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“The free software movement, though, seems to be shrinking. It
still has its adherents, of course. But, when I look around at
Linux events I see a sea of Mac OS X. Most contributors I know see
no problem with proprietary services like Dropbox and Ubuntu One.
With very few exceptions, most companies that work in the community
have settled on some mixture of proprietary and open source
services to try to find a working revenue model. In short, the free
software philosophy seems to have gone out the window for most
users and contributors. And I’ll freely admit, I’ve advocated the
pragmatic approach — because after more than 10 years of
working in the community, it’s clear that getting things done with
a purist approach isn’t working.“Some free software supporters would say that’s an indication
that the FSF needs to redouble its efforts and step up attempts to
convince users that they shouldn’t use those services. Heaping more
of the same on isn’t going to work, though. It’s time for a change
in direction if there’s any hope of making software freedom
important to the general public. A puritanical “thou shalt not”
approach isn’t going to cut it with the majority of the public,
most of whom don’t even have software freedom on their radar
— much less something that’s worth sacrificing usability or
functionality for.”