Re: Privileges and practicalities [was: Re: [ELPA] New package: repology.el]

[Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > And together with the statement above, I think the more progress could be
>   > made if make GNU OS (Linux based) more attractive to more
>   > people.
>
> Of course, we try to do that.  It is easier said than done.  There is
> no way to do it in general -- only various ways to do a lit of it in
> specific.  Those depend on volunteers who want to work on it.
Yes I know I am aware of it. I believe that as a general rule of act we
need to give people more incentive to work on Free software. This can
come from more people using free software. Which is kind of a circle,
not evil one though :-).

I am suggesting for GNU to try to work more towards giving people that
incentive. Maybe via political means, by persuading politicians and
taxpayers that they have interest to pay for development of free
software. For example if they "buy" (sponsor) development of free
software, they can use it themselves. They (taxpayers) can save money in
the long run when developers for some reason stop developing it, more
companies would have insight in the software and be able to pick up
development, contribute, etc. There are many reasons why taxpayers might
wish to invest in free software rather then in closed source
software. Not to mention personal freedom and privace as well as
guarantee that organisations, company and institutions are not spyed on
either. Openess of software is probably the only guarantee for personal
privacy which is important for any democracy and freedom. I think
general audience is not that introduced in problems about the software
and why prefer free (at least open source) software vs. closed source
software.