[Fsfe-ie] Irish Times article, my feedback

[Ben Klaasen]

Hi Ciaran -

Nice work. I didn't see the article, but I usually check out Karlin 
Lillington because she's better informed than most journos who write for 
the business or technology sections of their respective newspapers.

We've got to be absolutely rigourous regarding any facts we wish to use 
- I've heard that quote before about the Government being Microsoft's 
largest Irish customer - what's the source of that quote? (Please don't 
say "the FSF" - I mean /independent/ source.)

You say Free Software "represented liberation from the desktop dictator 
role that Microsoft had." I think a quick explanation of "vendor 
lock-in" would be less strident. (If 92% of people were using Linux on 
their desktop, would you consider that be dictatorship too?) I'm not 
sure how helpful terms like "comrade" are, either, in terms of getting 
our point of view across to a mainstream press journo.

regards
Ben

Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:

>Hi all,
>  In Friday's Irish Times there was an article on page 4 of the
>business section titled
> "Linux popularity is swelling but advocates must spread the word".
>
>  It was a journalists account of a "Linux" press conference chaired
>by Linus Torvalds, John Hall, and spokesmen from Oracle, SuSE, RedHat,
>and VA Software.
>
>  I mailed the following response to the author, the jist of it is
>that it's the GNU project and the Free Software movement that really
>needs advocates.  I thought I'd forward it here in case anyones
>interested.  I'll let the list know if I get a response.
>
>  My comments near the end about an Irish Free Software organisation
>are hopeful guesses.  I made no reference to this list so I'm
>representing myself alone.  I'd like to see such an organisation
>emerge from this list, I have some ideas which I'll mail to the list
>later.
>
>
>Ciaran.
>  
>