Re: [libreplanet-discuss] New GNU

[Jason Self]

Mozilla's campaigns to get people to use Firefox worked well enough because
there was a "thing" that people could go download and use. While it's possible
to build the GNU Operating System it's not really a completed and ready to use
system just yet. Most people use derivatives instead, with the Ubuntu GNU/Linux
distribution you mention being an example of a popular one that also bundles
proprietary software.

The goal of simply getting people to use free software (aka "popularity") is not
enough, in my opinion. The goal should be to instead teach people about why
freedom matters so that they will refuse proprietary software and not run it
anymore. The big question is how do you change people's *values* and get them to
value freedom? Anything that doesn't do that means that they'll just switch to
the next neat thing when that comes along later.

RMS discussed some of this in Avoiding Ruinous Compromises [1].

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

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