Bryce Harrington-3 wrote
On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 02:24:32AM -0700, LucaDC wrote:
Bryce Harrington-3 wrote
Inkscape's not a business though...
I suppose the better analogy would be, you want to grow and hand-roast your own coffee beans to brew in your garage. Some of your neighbors pop by to try out the coffee, and many of them pitch in to help with
the
various chores. Word gets out that you're providing free coffee, and before you know it half the city is passing through your garage.
Then someone points out, "You only have half the city coming through;
if
you want to get the rest you need to make coffee that tastes more like Starbucks."
Hence you call your neighbors and say: "We should _educate_ people not to drink Starbucks as it's not free. Then we'll have all the city passing through my garage without becoming a business or having to conform to people's tastes! You see: now they don't like ours but they'll get used to...".
:)
Does the concept of freedom discussed here incorporate the freedom to choose not to be free (for whatever reason)? Is a free software that deliberately chooses not to implement or support some features, because they let users still use proprietary software, really "promoting" freedom? Or is it trying to "force" freedom?
I don't like the word "educate" on the title. As a user, I'd be less biased in reading this thread if there was a more humble and respectful word, like "promote".
Regards. Luca
Heh, I guess that's one way to interpret what I am trying to say, but really I should be more explicit:
If we have a mission here at Inkscape, it isn't to get everyone using our software. Nor is it really to stop people using Illustrator or anything negative about proprietary software; after all, we're actively supporting proprietary OS's and enabling people to remain on those systems with our Windows and Mac builds.
Rather, I think our mission is to _educate_ people about _making_ free software.
So, in our coffee analogy, what we should be doing is educating the people who come by about how we roast our beans, maybe tricks for getting different tastes out of them, and how to do all the various chores needed in operating a garage coffee shop. They may come by simply for the free coffee, but we want to see that working together to *make* the free coffee as part of a community is even more rewarding.
Good positive elaboration :) I second it, of course. Still, I dislike the word "educate" (I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe I'm wrong). What about: "Help people realize that contributing to free software is more rewarding than simply using it"? IMHO starting from the assumption that only contributors deserve attention, the final product is going to miss a big actor in the process, that is the mass of passive users from where new fresh and innovative contributors may come. A product which is not attractive for who is "outside" is going to slowly deflate or stall. This to say that people should be brought "inside" not by "teaching" (educating) them what they should do, but by showing them the advantages of being an active part of the game.
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