Il giorno mer 26 lug 2017 alle 13:28, Ioli Papadopoulou <i.papadopoulou@sophimail.com> ha scritto:

Excellent topic; thank you for bringing it up.


Avoiding negative language will help us become BETTER ambassadors of FOSS. Negative language creates negative feelings about us!

We can simply take lessons from other industries facing the same problem. For example, let's see the language of small "natural cosmetics" when they try to fight against "synthetic" dominant competitors. They keep on pointing out what they do better, to the Customers benefit: "no parabens, no additives, no chemicals, only natural ingredients" etc. They do not name or imply their competitor. They just repeat what is "better for you" and "does not harm you".


So, to come back to software: we could use strong laconic statements, such as: "Debian sends no telemetry reports". It is true, everybody understands it and it is not aggressive.

Hi Ioli

It looks like your opinion is the opposite of Daniel's opinion.
He's saying that we, as free software activists, should do _more_ negative campaigning. Why? Because a positive attitude, like caring for the privacy of the users, may be perceived as more valuable if people knew that proprietary software/services behave very bad in this regard.

I agree with Daniel and I don't think that negative campaigning means negative language.
The american FSF has done lot of negative campaigning, in a polite and positive way (as when you provide alternatives).

Persistence and patience are necessary, too. People need time to contemplate and then change; they cannot change overnight.

Is it possible to make a "collection" of nice, positive statements about FOSS and then distribute them to all members? I thing that some of us, including me, would need some help, in "expressing in a positive way"!

Something like this? :-)
https://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/whylovefs/whylovefs.en.html

--

Ioli PAPADOPOULOU
Business Development Manager
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