Daniel Pocock wrote:
This was raised by Jonas in the thread about proprietary software, but it is a completely different topic, so I'm starting this thread about it: "we also don't do negative campaigning overall. We tell people they should use Free Software; we don't tell them what software they should not be using."
Trying to manage other people's feelings, or framing issues in terms of "negative" (and presumably "positive") language is a wasteful distraction that doesn't address substantive issues we can solve with software freedom.
Each of us is responsible for our own feelings, not other people's feelings. We're responsible for bringing to people's understanding how computers work and the ethical ramifications for choosing software the computer owner can't run, inspect, share, and modify (including non-technical users who need these services even if it means not doing this work themselves).
Free software delivers these freedoms, non-free (proprietary, user-subjugating) software does not by design (in both cases).
I have to wonder: if FSFE is seriously getting caught up in framing debates like this, is FSFE an open source advocacy group or a free software advocacy group? The tension between the two philosophies arose because open source was designed to get away from software freedom while insincerely pitching a development methodology that resembles what is done to make free software. Open source eschews software freedom and reliably gives into proprietary software (as https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html points out, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?"). I'd expect an open source proponent to raise feelings maintenance into the discussion as though it were relevant and wise, knowing that the time spent on this non-issue is time not spent helping people understand what software freedom is and why software freedom matters for its own sake.
The reality is, many sites and software vendors deceive users with a promise of security. E.g. when a user accesses Gmail, they see the padlock icon in their browser, so doesn't that mean Gmail is secure? If Gmail is secure and free software is secure, the user may ask why make the effort to change to free software?
We can explain that this muddles multiple separate issues together. Gmail runs on free software for Google (Google wrote their own software, as far as I know, so their software freedom is present). But the service requires the user run non-free software (Gmail Javascript) to access Gmail via the web.
The connection between the user and Google is encrypted ("secure" in the parlance) but this "secure connection" won't address that Google spies on its users, Google is a known US government spying "partner" (three cheers for Ed Snowden!), that any email could be conveyed to others via insecure means, and that email (as I write this) is most likely in plaintext. We use GNU Privacy Guard to address these issues by cryptographically signing and encrypting email. We can't use proprietary software to do this job instead because proprietary encryption is always untrustworthy, and proprietary software could log keystrokes, capture screenshots, and do other things to spy on us. But right now cryptographically signed & encrypted email is quite unpopular.
It would be really interesting to hear perspectives people have about how to introduce threats without appearing to be negative. For example, what narrative do we need to use to give proprietary software the same urgency as a burning kitchen or contaminated water?
You give them the facts, you denounce the attempt at distraction from "being negative" and you proceed with intelligent, adult, fact-based assertions and clearly conveying consequences. Nobody solves ugly problems like those you mention by prioritizing 'avoiding negative discussion'.