Relevance of freedom
I often hear people talking about freedom, GNU, the FSF and many reasons why being too "hardcore" or "negative" is counterproductive.
This is my point of view:
Freedom is relevant - not just its relevance.
You could argue that it matters how many people on earth actually use free software, maybe having a look at a market share, or some download statistics; looking at Ubuntu for example could give you the impression that freedom is getting more relevant.
But the pure measurement of some market penetration cannot be the indicator of freedom or its success; if you loose the meaning of freedom half way to your final conclusions your conclusions aren't worth much anymore.
I don't want to lessen the great effect that Ubuntu (and other "not-100%-free" software) has - I use it myself and am grateful for having that alternative. And I certainly love to see more people making the switch from Mac or Windows!
But it cannot be the final answer to the question of freedom and should not be promoted as such!
I think that this insight is as simple as true - and does not come with the burden of having to present "100%-free-software" version to everything proprietary.
Maybe by advocating true freedom you don't reach "the masses" and you remain "irrelevant" in terms of market-share, because you sound negative. That's sad. But criticizing that won't help either. Better start being unpopular and try to have small but true impact instead!
The goal of the free software movement isn't to have only free software on the planet. But a world where each and everyone has always the freedom to choose free software.
The job should be to get people making the right choice - not a market share.
edit: interesting posts
