https://lists.parabola.nu/pipermail/dev/2016-August/004321.html

cf. just for people here to be able to understand a little bit about why i feel that software freedom is important.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: lkcl . luke.leighton@gmail.com Date: Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 5:40 AM Subject: Re: About EOMA68 video presentation license Cc: Parabola Mail List dev@lists.parabola.nu

ok so we got permission, eric from crowdsupply explained that actually what they do is assign the campaign organisers the right to use the videos that they produce, especially for promotion, which is great. so yes please go to it! :)

now, andre, i have a special favour to ask, it's because many people really do not actually truly understand what software libre really is about. i wanted to reach out to you to explain some insights i have learned from chris (thinkpenguin.com, my sponsor) and from watching dr stallman be verbally attacked and abused during questions at hopeconf 2016.

people genuinely genuinely believe that to be committed to software libre is some sort of zealous idealistic extremism - a form of mental illness, even - which is not only downright rude but is totally wrong. the people who believe this see a committment to ethical standards: they don't like to be reminded that they made a conscious or subconscious decision to COMPROMISE on ethical standards, and, rather than admit that to themselves, they go into all-out ATTACK. blame the other person instead of accepting responsibility. works a charm.

in talking to chris i have come to learn that a committment to software libre results very simply in hardware that JUST WORKS. i told people i think it was about 200 to 300 times: "hassle-free computing: stuff that just works. thinkpenguin do the research... so that you don't have to". and *everybody* i said that to got it immediately.

some examples: they sell ttyACM modems. not to linux users... but to windows users!! people who have windows xp tend to live in remote areas, where broadband is not profitable. they have old conexant soft-modems. they upgrade to windows 7... only to find that the drivers aren't maintained for windows 7! why? because... it's not profitable. now they're totally disconnected from the internet. so they phone up chris and say, "thank god you have ttyACM hard-modems - please sell me one!"

they sell PCIe-to-USB3 cards that they've researched work out-of-the-box and do not require firmware.

they sell AR9271 802.11n USB WIFI modems that they spent 2 years walking atheros through the process of releasing the ath9k_htc firmware that goes into the libre firmware repositories.

and guess what? the only support calls that they get are down to flaky customer hardware (usually extremely poor quality laptops that the customer ows where the USB controllers are not properly functional) and to "whitelisting" in proprietary BIOSes (usually WIFI cards so that Dell and IBM can sell you expensive whitelisted PCIe products at a huge markup).

it's the same with printers: they pre-vet the printers.... and the USB Audio dongles... and the Hauppaug USB TV tuners... all these things *just work* because they've gone to a lot of trouble to find them, check them, track down the firmware and make sure it's libre.

12 years ago i bought *six* soft-modems in a row, taking every single one back to the shop because none of them worked with linux. that was 2 days travel-time wasted.

*this* is what software libre is really about, on a really practical level. not even anything really to do with conspiracy theories or spying and so on, although we know now that that's not actually conspiracy but that it *really does* happen. we also know that 900 million qualcomm-based android devices are soon going to end up in landfill.

what we really do not hear enough about is that if you respect software freedom and use libre hardware, the driver incompatibility issues that everyone over the past 10-15 years has associated with hardware and put up with despite really really hating it.... all those issues disappear.

i know you truly understand this, because you run libre software down to the bedrock of your computing devices, but please can i urge you to consider making it a really key point of your talk so that more people can get the message that there really is a way to have less problems with their computers.

l.