Mozilla first, now FSFE?

[Bastien Guerry]

Hi Charles,

we know each other from outside this list, through your work on
educational free softwares (I'm from the OLPC France crew).

I think it's perfectly fine to be friend (like in "true friend") with
people having different values.  I'd even go further and say it would
be insane to be surrounded by like-minded people...that's why we have
this discussion: lists of people who don't necessarily value the same
priorities and who don't share the same point of view.

That said, I totally disagree with you, in a friendly manner :)

(1) I don't use Facebook and I'M FINE.  Like many others.  I do have
    friends, I chat online, I socialize, I read the news, I'm not an
    obscure nerd, lost in his paraverse.

(2) Facebook is a teenager in the Internet history.  Not a baby, but
    not an adult. Some people like to educate raging teenagers, some
    prefer to avoid them. I avoid FB as I don't like to give to much
    attention to systems that do things in a way I 100% disapprove.

(3) I believe the strategy of "changing FB from FB" is a myth.  Can
    anyone give an example of something she did on FB that resulted
    in a change in Facebook's policy?  When people managed to change
    Facebook, it was not because their were on Facebook, but because
    they spent time and money *outside FB* to make them heard.

So I'm fine with my friends being on FB but (1) I don't let them say
"It's the only way to stay connected to your classmates", (2) I urge
them to remember Myspace and the likes and to remember behemoths can
die, and (3) I challenge their "trojan horse strategy" illusion.

Now, as a group of free software hacktivists, I do think we have a
responsability to pave the way and to show that we can make a better
internet but not using things we disapprove.

We can more effectively change Facebook by not using it.

Best,

-- 
 Bastien