Advocacy doesn’t work if you tell someone they’re wrong

[Matthias Kirschner]

* Jelle Hermsen <jelle at fsfe.org> [2010-11-01 14:25:48 +0100]:

> I recently joined the fellowship and yesterday I wrote a blog post on my
> new FSFE blog titled: Advocacy doesn’t work if you tell someone they’re
> wrong
> (http://blogs.fsfe.org/jelle/2010/10/31/advocacy-doesnt-work-if-you-tell-someone-theyre-wrong/ ). 

[...]
 
> My post states that it's best to not talk about proprietary software too
> much when you're trying to advocate free software. Pointing out the
> problems of the proprietary software somebody uses might actually lead
> them to dig there heels in, preventing them to be susceptible to any of
> your good arguments.

Yes, this is a good aproach. But sometimes it is also difficult not to
mention the problems of non-free software. 

For example when you want to explain that Free Software is not leading
to service monopolies, it is difficult not to mention that non-free
software is leading towards monopolies. I think you can explain such
things, but than you have to be careful about the tone. 

Regards,
Matthias

-- 
Matthias Kirschner - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe (fsfe.org)
Free Software is important to you? Join today! (fsfe.org/join)