Hi all,
I was reading an interview with RMS on ZNet (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9350), and at one point the interviewer poses a question which is interesting, in many ways:
"How would you respond to those who suggest that free software activists lack a sense of proportion? Given the vast scale and suffering of war, invasions, occupations, poverty, doesn't the freedom to use computers pale to insignificance?"
My own background before being interested in free software was that of social activism, and one thing is definitely true: Free software may be a prerequisite for a free society, but does not in and of itself guarantee a free society.
Corporations and states might give us free software while tying our hands in other ways, and we might want to work against wars, censorship, corporate domination of the media and of the media agenda, etc., before working for software freedom. So is software freedom the wrong place to put the emphasis in the light of all the other problems we might fight, or might it be?
best regards Carsten