[SPAM] Re: Could there be a law to protect the free choice of operating system?

[Hugo Roy]

Le lun. 01/04/13, 16:30, xdrudis <xdrudis at tinet.cat>:
> I heard somewhere that one study set up to measure how much contract 
> legalese internet users did not read when using online services,
> and reached the conclusion that an average internet user should 
> dedicate some 70 days a year in reading the terms of use and similar
> clauses of all the web services they use. They apparently don't care to 
> read them, even less to negotiate them, or even to reject the
> services because of their terms. So they may be similarly inclined
> about software licences. Sorry I don't have the quote handy.

The average found by the study was 76 days. But what you can
conclude from this is that it is completely impractical to read
(not even understand) the terms of service you subscribe to
online. To make the conclusion that people don't care about what's
in them is completely out of proportion. We have no research that
I'm aware of that can measure how much people care about their
rights online. But the fact that FSFE, EFF or projects like
tosdr.org get funded by individuals and sustain is one sign that
actually enough people *do* care.

Much like with software freedom. Do most  people care about it?
Until they are aware of the concept and of the dangers of non-free
software, it is indeed very unlikely. But people can become aware
of it quite easily.

In the end, I think it is useless to ascertain whether people care
or not about the law. This is too broad and difficult to measure
for us anyway.

What we do konw is that *we* care about our rights and freedoms
and there's definitely enough legal ground to make a meaningful
proposal that people should have the right to be in control of
hardware they buy. So let's focus on that.

There have been some proposals here, and I'd like to see more
ideas coming :-)

-- 
Hugo Roy, Free Software Foundation Europe
FSFE Legal Team  + Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team + Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr
 
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