Is it acceptable to use proprietary software (platforms) to promote software freedom?

[Paul Sutton]

On 21/06/17 11:22, Erik Albers wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Maybe you noted in the Newsletter May [1] a pro and contra between our
> Executive Director and our Fellowship representative:
> 
> 	On the FSFE's Planet, we had an interesting dialogue popping up
> 	between our executive director Jonas Öberg who argues that sometimes
> 	you can use proprietary software to further free and open source
> 	software [2] although you should be aware about the risk of
> 	backfiring. And Daniel Pocock, our new Fellowship representative,
> 	answered with "the risk of proprietary software" [3] and that "no deal
> 	might be better than a bad deal", meaning that if you cannot achieve
> 	something with Free Software you should consider just doing without
> 	it.
> 
> In our European core team we are having a lively discussion now about the pros
> and cons of using proprietary software platforms like Facebook, Meetup,
> Twitter and alike to send out our message of software freedom.
> 

There was a post on Twitter a while back regarding e-safety or privacy,
to which I replied that I used diaspora,  it respects freedom.

I think in some ways we sometimes have to embrace services that don't
quite meet our standards in order to get a message across there are
'other' services out there.

I think in the US electorial details were stored on amazon cloud,  there
has been a leak so anyone who has a link can access the personal details
on over 200 million people in the US electorate,

I think replying to comments on social media with the 'There is no
cloud,  just other peoples computer'  sends a message to make people
think that this cloud storage belongs to others,  and privacy is at the
mercy of others,  where as setting up Own/next cloud puts _you_ in
control of your own information,  maybe makes people think how their
data is stored.

I think replying to incidents and related discussions with suggestions
there is 'shock horror' more to life and the internet than IE/Edge,
Facebook, twitter is a good thing, we are not ramming it down peoples
throats buit being subtle and subliminal in the way we respond.

Paul