offtopic Re: Explaining Open Standards email attachements [summary what to send?]

[Sam Liddicott]

On Sun, 2010-04-11 at 10:23 +0100, xdrudis wrote:

> I enjoyed your discussion, mostly agree with Hugo Roy and won't repeat 
> arguments. 
> 
> Sam Liddicott wrote : 
> > And this question: Which is your target audience?
> > * Evangelist => strategic document like this message
> > * Idealist => "Like the Why I rejected your attachment" link you posted
> > * Pragmatist => How to communicate: A view of interoperability
> > * Minimalist => Simple etiquette: How to stop your correspondents
> > complaining
> 
> I'm sorry but I don't think this is helpful. You can't come and start
> classiying people in groups and thinking you know everybody is one of
> those patterns and you just have to decide what to tell them in order
> to manipulate them to achieve your goals. 


I agree, and that is not what I was trying to do. I meant that each
person may act according to the good that they see. If a person cannot
see the ultimate good of free software but can see a lesser good (like
interoperability) then they may act towards the lesser good (and so do
that good) and still advance the aims of free software. They are not
manipulated, but rather offered (and receive) the good that they
recognize, which also benefits others. 


> That shows, and creates the 
> same kind of rejection advertisement causes. You should just say what you have
> to say, try to make it true, understandable and coherent, and to
> summarize what's in it the best you can when you point someone to it,
> and let people, in their knowledge and diversity do what they want/can
> with it. 


Yes. But different people see different advantages. We can communicate
in relation to the advantages and benefits that they can see. To
communicate advantages that they cannot see is to fail to communicate.


> If you think you are what you call an evangelist, then write
> a document about what an evagenlist can tell others to help them understand
> things. Not a document about what an evagelist should know, and much 
> less about what an idealist, pragmatist or minimalist should know.
> Assuming they exist, you don't know what they need, you only know what
> you have to offer: offer it.


Well... I thought that is what I had done. Idealists and pragmatists do
exist, they are the main factions on the fsfe mailing list, I've been on
the pragmatic side of many debates. I recounted a discussion with my
first minimalist in my recent message. 

These groups differ in the way they perceive the benefits of free
software. Only idealists properly comprehend the idealistic benefits.

I have something beneficial to offer pragmatists that can also advance
the higher aims of the idealists. The warrior and the scholar can both
work towards the same goal from different perspectives.


> The rest of this mail is more general and likely offtopic, or at least
> too long for the small portion on topic, so anyone reading furhter has
> been warned.
> 
> 
> I just wanted to give my opinion that I think you (maybe Sam, but
> possibly more other people than intersect in part in this attitude)
> are very eager to understand people and adapt to them in order to be
> effective in what you try to achieve. 


I see why you say this, and there is something in it. It's not that I
want what can be called "success" and any price, but I don't want people
to be left out when they could get some benefit.


> For me this has 2 problems:
> 
> - you assume an undestanding of people you often don't have, so your
> models of the people you interact with are too weak for the confidence
> you put in them.  The only person you can aspire to really know is
> yourself, so offering (never imposing) your views and knowledge to
> others is often a safer bet than adapting to the views or knowledge
> you think others have. They can think for themselves, so they'll pick
> what they can use from what you tell them better than you can pick it
> for them. If they don't believe all you say or do all you tell them 
> it's not your failure, it's their judgement.


I would rather say that if a person won't accept the greater message of
freedom they may accept the lesser benefits. I don't adapt myself to
their views but present of my own understanding those views that they
can accept.


> 
> - you assume people are static (or you care for an interval short
> enough to ignore people evolution during it). Since you care about the
> present situation and want some result from your interaction, or some
> present success you adapt to the present state. This may give better
> results now but it may give worse results in the long run. 


It may be; I recognize in principle the sorts of dangers you refer to,
but I feel that in fact that familiarity with free software and those
who use it will help them to recognize the greater goods, and expose
them more often to those ideas, increasing the likelihood of their
acceptance and understanding at some future date. There is a potential
that it could live them in a worse position but we can never know.


> Sometimes
> you tell something to someone with the utmost care to help her
> understand what you think and why you do what you do, or are what you
> are, or think it is best also for her to do so, and she just thinks you
> are crazy and moves along. But then she lives on, gets other inputs
> and maybe the fifth person she finds with similar views makes her
> change her mind in a way that wouldn't have been possible if that
> was her first time hearing it, i.e. if everybody had always adapted 
> too much to her.



I think we are in closer agreement that you think. We both have concern
over what would have happened.

In fact I do what you generally suggest; I only know what I have to
offer, and I offer them (the three things).


> 
> An example: 
> 
> I myself know nothing about food, for instance. I use it every day but
> I'm bad at cooking and not a gourmet at all, nor knowledgeable in
> dietetics. More or less like many people are with computer science.
> Yet I have vegetarian friends which are in the process of maybe
> convincing me to leave meat. The first time I found one I thought it
> was unpractical, likely unhealthy, odd and made no sense.  The first
> arguments I didn't buy (poor animals?  why should I care more for a
> life form that -like me- eats other life forms than for a purer life
> form that builds life out of dead matter and raw energy? poor
> vegetables !).  I was unconvenienced to find restaurants with more
> diverse meals apt for my accompanying vegetarians, or having to eat
> things I wouldn't have tried if I wasn't at their home but I now
> appreciate the meals I've discovered I like , the habit of looking at
> the menu before going into a restaurant and the later arguments (the
> one about energy cost of producing meat instead of vegetables has
> quite convinced me).
> 
> If every vegetarian had adapted to me and offered me only the
> vegetable dishes I already liked, or come with me to the first
> restaurant and eating what they could I would probably not have learnt
> things I like having learnt. So I thank them for being a little
> nuisance.



This is a good example. It is notable because it is unusual - most
people will not be vegetarian.  Also those who would persuade you are
your friends, and as you say below, you may be regarded as an idealist
and so you are open to persuasion based on ideals.



> I may be regarded as an idealist, inflexible, antisocial or whatever,
> but I think the anti-social attitude is that of only pretending to go
> with the flow and accomodating others instead of sharing your
> knowledge and contributing what you can to your society (and letting
> others ignore you if they will). 


If this is what I were doing I would agree, but I don't pretend, and I
genuinely want to give others all the benefit they are able to receive.
It takes generations to change minds sometimes. Those who resist the
ideals may adopt for pragmatisms sake, and expose the next generation to
the ideals.


> Showing yourself, teaching others to
> do what you think is right (and why) and letting others ignore you or disagree
> is not being stubborn or misantropist, it's being honest and confident
> in the intelligence of others. 


That is a description of what I called idealist, and this approach
appeals to idealists as you showed with your vegetarian example.


> And I may have no proof of that intelligence,
> but I have no reason to think intelligence is not uniformly distributed,
> and anyway, if people are stupid there's no solution, so let's handle 
> the other case.



I think here is the point; you say "if people are stupid there's no
solution." Rather than just handle the other case, I am considering this
case too. I effectively suggest in my previous message that they are not
stupid, and that there is a solution for those people. If they cannot
receive all of the good, maybe they can receive some of the good.

If we see that it is this case I have been talking about as pragmatic or
minimalist then perhaps we see that there is no argument - as I am
talking about how to reach people who were otherwise unreachable anyway.


> 
> And I think it's perfectly fine to mix political and practical advice
> in any text. What use is knowing how to do something if you don't know
> why you should do it or what would the world get out of it ? What use 
> is knowing what needs fixing in this world without knowing how to fix it?


I agree, I meant to say that some of the practical advice advanced the
political aims to the short term inconvenience of those who followed it,
and therefore it can't be presented as pragmatic advice without looking
like a lie to those who cannot yet appreciate the political aims. Thus
it cannot be presented as pragmatic advice to anyone who can't recognize
it as being political - which if it is a successful document will be
many of the readers - some of whom will be policy makers in business or
government.


> 
> But I agree we should not lead anyone to deception if we can help it.


I agree with that point very strongly.


> Saying that all software works with all standards is not helpful. 


Quite true.


> Saying
> that it's best to choose any program that works with standards and
> asking your peers to do so will help society including the person you're
> telling it and you can tell them this will possibly involve more effort
> for more reward than what they're doing. 


Yes.


> But it is also important to 
> let them understand what doesn't work in their current practices, because
> they may not know that not everybody uses their same program and version,
> or that their message is being silently lost. 


Yes.


> 
> A few times when I've complained of email attachments to the sender
> other people that didn't complain initially have told that they
> weren't able to access them either. 


Same here.


> Sometimes even all people adressed
> were not reading the attachment and the sender kept thinking they did.
> Many did not know the problem was the sender's choice of format, so they
> didn't complain, it was simply too difficult to tell what was
> happening when something in their computer didn't work.


Yes.


> 
> Sorry to waste your time with my ramblings.
> 


I think this is one of the most productive discussion for a long time, I
appreciate the time you took to explain yourself - thank-you.

I think we are clear that really the contentious part of this discussion
is how to treat those who can't accept the ideal message. You think to
move on, I think that it is my father or my sister and that it is worth
a little more time, and why not for someone who is not my father as
well... 

If someone will support open standards because the software is gratis,
then it is a weak position but will do for the very short term and will
still advance the aims of free software. 

If they later support it because of interoperability then they become an
advocate with ability to convince others to be pragmatists - i.e. "it
solves a problem."

We can discuss how to convert a pragmatist to an idealist, how to help
them recognize the value of freedom. One way is with Richard Stallman's
original printer-driver story. Once a user is happy with the convenience
of interoperability, they are open to the idea of loss of convenience as
with Stallman and the buggy printer driver. They can then recognize the
convenience of interoperability as a freedom that needs to be maintained
and the principles and ideals by which it is maintained.

I also find the idea of low-cost software for use in countries with a
poor exchange rate (can't afford expensive software) to be a compelling
argument for those who want equal chance to participate and communicate
on the internet. i.e. low-cost is also a freedom to those with
low-income, who can also work and contribute to increase the "commons"
for their own country men instead of being bound to the crumbs from
producers of proprietary software. This argument appeals to idealists
albeit non-free-software idealists.

any other ideas?

Sam

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