[Foundation-l] Software Policy Draft

[Delphine Ménard]

On 9/5/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at gmail.com> wrote:

> The idea of thinking about the future and the enforcing nature of the
> policy sounds appropriate, may be, just may be, after many years from
> now, the people working might take an easy route of using proprietary
> software. always using free things increases the sustainability of a
> given thing hence the code is always available and any porting/changes
> needed to make it work can be done without reverse engineering it.

I am convinced (maybe because I am one of those) that the Wikimedia
projects actually bring people who had absolutely no idea about the
difference in evilness or goodness ;-) between proprietary software or
free software to come and care about these issues.

I was a Windoze and Adaubi advocate (and I mean the word advocate
here) not two years ago. I am running Linux on my machine and working
with The Gimp even on a professional level today. I do not believe
that "forcing" the "free" upon people is the way to go. Interess them,
poke them with it, make them understand. Be pedagogic and patient.
Don't "force" them. Teach them your "principles" rather than scare
them with "policy".

> I won't mind if a user using IE is faced with a white screen with a link
> to use firefox :P

I do, if that means this person is hindered in their access to the
content we host.

Delphine
-- 
~notafish

La critique, art aisé, se doit d'être constructive. -- Boris Vian in
*Chroniques du menteur*

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