<story><title>Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter</title><url>http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-an-open-letter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danieldk</author><text>Years back, I used to be an FSF member. Not that I liked the GPL much (in fact, I mostly use the Apache License), but they raised important issues, and had a track record of investing into fine software (GNU) that I benefitted from a lot.&lt;p&gt;However, their campaigns were getting so off-target, that much of my sympathy dwindled, and I ended my membership. Childish &apos;anti&apos; advertising, such as &apos;BadVista&apos; and DDoSing Apple&apos;s genius bars (gee, that&apos;s will convince anyone who was visiting an Apple Store) only made the whole free software movement look bad, childish, and unsocial. To this day, they seem to put their energy into almost hilarious campaigns (Windows 7 sins? Seriously?).&lt;p&gt;This open letter is on the mark, their current course only marginalizes the FSF and part of the FLOSS community. Whatever happened to relying on your own strengths, rather than caricaturizing the competition?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vog</author><text>I&apos;m a happy fellow of the FSFE (&lt;a href=&quot;http://fsfe.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fsfe.org/&lt;/a&gt;), the European pendant to the FSF. Sometimes we also discuss FSF campaigns, and usually agree that those would almost certainly be counter-productive here in Europe, especially things like the &quot;Windows 7 sins&quot;.&lt;p&gt;However, we always thought: Well, the USA have a different culture, so maybe this kind of campaign is needed there, and probably our style of campaign would not work there.&lt;p&gt;(With &quot;our style&quot; I especially mean: not to exaggerate, and to prefer positive campaigns over negative campaigns.)&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to see that our objections seem to be also valid within the USA, too. Maybe it&apos;s time for some people to join the FSF and to encourage them to learn from their European branch.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter</title><url>http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-an-open-letter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danieldk</author><text>Years back, I used to be an FSF member. Not that I liked the GPL much (in fact, I mostly use the Apache License), but they raised important issues, and had a track record of investing into fine software (GNU) that I benefitted from a lot.&lt;p&gt;However, their campaigns were getting so off-target, that much of my sympathy dwindled, and I ended my membership. Childish &apos;anti&apos; advertising, such as &apos;BadVista&apos; and DDoSing Apple&apos;s genius bars (gee, that&apos;s will convince anyone who was visiting an Apple Store) only made the whole free software movement look bad, childish, and unsocial. To this day, they seem to put their energy into almost hilarious campaigns (Windows 7 sins? Seriously?).&lt;p&gt;This open letter is on the mark, their current course only marginalizes the FSF and part of the FLOSS community. Whatever happened to relying on your own strengths, rather than caricaturizing the competition?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fluidcruft</author><text>I am also a lapsed member exactly for the same reasons. The camp makes it impossible to spread the word (for example by linking to their site) because I feel like the cheesiness of the presentation would reflect poorly on me. Frankly they look like a bunch of clowns. Which is unfortunate. I do think they are entitled to their own flair and personality. Thankfully the GPL website is less polarizing. The free software manifesto is great and it isn&apos;t packaged in a cloak of easily-dismissed looniness.</text></comment>