Re: [libreplanet-discuss] New GNU

[David Steinhafel]

I don't think many people would seriously consider
"relaunching" (starting anew) The GNU Project. The responses to this
discussion seem to indicate that many of us agree that we'd like GNU to
be more widely known, appreciated and used. I think that should be the
aim of this discussion: to brainstorm and organize new and hopefully
more effective ways to introduce people to libre software.

I agree that we'll probably be more effective if we can actually point
the user to a free/libre replacement of the software or platform we're
criticizing as proprietary. I also think that snazzy videos, logo
alternatives, and a campaign for pledging to quit Facebook are great
ideas.

I think we would be more effective if we tailored our message for the
audience we're intending to reach. So for technical users, we can
explain the four freedoms, etc. 

But for non-technical users, I'm not sure we need to even mention the
four freedoms. I think we would be most effective by focusing on privacy
and security concerns (i.e. there's no way to know that proprietary
software doesn't contain "malicious" code; emphasizing that the
GNU/linux platform and free/libre software are a *safer* way to compute
and protect one's data).

Does anybody else agree that we should try spreading Free Software using
different methods depending on the audience we're trying to reach? I
think it would be a good idea to have (at least?) two slightly different
2012 GNU 'campaigns', one targeting all/general computer users and
another targeting proficient users, developers, programmers, etc.

-- djs

On Mon, 2012-05-07 at 22:29 +0200, Robert Martinez wrote:
> I think you're stirring up everybody becauseyou say things like:
> "I wanted to launch GNU anew with the focus being primarily on the goal 
> of freedom."
> But GNU already HAS the primary goal of freedom!
> I believe your point is to create a label that transports the value more 
> clearly.
> And i must say i thought about that sometimes, too:
> The OSI has a sticker that indicates stuff that is open source with the 
> green cut open "O".
> Nothing like that exists for free software.
> But then again you should see that you don't want to "relaunch" GNU, 
> since GNU is Not Unix, and is a big project.