Free software and priorities?

[Carsten Agger]

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

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