About the promotion of FLOSS

Dear All,

may I forward an IMHO brilliant post of Gary Murphy (with his permission)
to another list, about how to promote FLOSS.

What I would like to emphasize is this part:

>Because it's all about sharing. We have to underline that FOSS isn't
>just about better code (better because it's made by the people who use
>it) it's about _community_, about me in Sauble Beach Ontario willing
>to help someone in Kenya to install channel-binding so they can
>squeeze double-bandwidth out of two parallel modem dialup accounts,
>helping them even if we never actually meet but only know each other
>through what we both leave for others online. Eric Raymond says FOSS
>is a culture of sharing, but that's not really what we see: FOSS is
>one thing, the culture of sharing is another, and _together_ they
>/really/ shine.

IMHO, the biggest challenge to the success of FLOSS in Vietnam is this
culture of sharing with strangers, for no immediate return, that is so
untypical for Vietnamese Society (and East Asian Culture in general). "Open
source" starts with an open mind.

As long as programmers don't open up and are willing to share their work,
as little as they consider it to be, and as low in society they feel to be
("I am only a student, I have nothing to say!");
... as long as organizations that order code don't open up and share the
end product with others; ...
... as long as this opening of cultural/societal behaviour does not happen,
we will have little chance to get open source software off the ground.

It is said, that one of the strengths of FLOSS is, that the sources are
open, so everybody can check. Are senior Vietnamese programmers ready that
their code gets e.g. scrutinized by some first-year students in Vietnam or
some other parts of this planet?
Or would they consider it as a "loss of face"?
Would a student dare to comment/debug (and send back) code of somebody whom
he considers higher ranking?

As long as this spirit of sharing and collaboration is not created - or
fostered in those few places where it exists - then FLOSS in Vietnam will
be merely a cheaper alternative to the common proprietary software. That
would not be a bad thing, but it falls short of tapping all the other
non-cost advantages of FLOSS.

On the other hand, if this spirit of sharing is there, then FLOSS will need
no other promotion, since it will spread like fire through a dry forest.

See below Gary's post.

Picking up on some other points there, and looking about Jordi's CD-ROM: A
big bonus for that CD would be, if it would include a number of Vietnamese
templates for office stationary....

Cheers,
Stefan

>From: Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>
>Organization: TCI Business Innovation through Open Source Computing
>X-Home-Page: http://www.teledyn.com/
>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:14:35 -0500
>Subject: Re: [isdf] 1. New Report: "Understanding WSIS" (Hans Klein)
>
>
>The FSF and others /are/ doing quite a lot on this front, best they
>can considering resources, and we have to remember _how_ FOSS spreads:
>It's like the old joke "How many psychiatrists does it take to change
>a lightbulb? Just one but the light-bulb has to /want/ to change."
>
>there is no shortage of FOSS expertise standing ready and waiting to
>assist (as Bob Young said, "not to be the biggest fish in the pond,
>but to make the pond as large as possible") but they can't go out and
>actively approach people, they can only do what FOSS people do, which
>is to work on the software they need for their own purposes and ensure
>that all their work is there ready and waiting to be shared.
>
>It's that culture of sharing that needs to be spread. Funny how those
>of us in FOSS _know_ as empirical fact what everyone has been taught
>since Kindergarten:
>
>Sharing _is_ the most profitable path.
>
>But I'm not worried: Because sharing is the most profitable path, I
>believe simple greed will lead the world to FOSS. No need to push it;
>it is inevitable.
>
>Once the glamour of the proprietary systems begins to wear thin,
>everyone starts to think like the old pop-song, "Is that all there
>is?" and they go looking for something better. Then they stumble upon
>some opportunity to give this GNU thing a spin, and, well, invariably
>they /like/ it. Our job is only to litter their path with
>opportunities for this discovery.
>
>Watching the Netcraft and other deployment surveys, it's remarkable
>how many sizeable enterprises make the switch to GNU and other FOSS
>systems, and how few switch back. Ditto with my friends and
>colleagues: I have a hard time getting them to /start/ but once they
>taste freedom, it's a bitter pill but an acquired taste -- if they
>stick with it over that initial reaction to the loss of
>shopping-freedom (they can no longer just go to the mall and buy
>software, and that's a convenience factor that is hard to counter)
>most stay with FOSS.
>
>To that end, I advocate wide distribution of Knoppix. If you
>celebrate Christmas, this is an ideal time to burn Knoppix CDs as
>gifts (see http://www.teledyn.com/node/view/449) --- Debian-based and
>network ready, Knoppix runs directly from the CD, so they have no
>fears of partitioning hard drives or leaving a permanent installation,
>they can just /play/ with it, try out OpenOffice and Mozilla, even
>play nethack.
>
>But Knoppix has warts, and that's where advocate groups must come in.
>We must help them over their DTs (delirium tremens, withdrawl from the
>false glamour of anti-FOSS). We can answer their questions, offer
>guide lists, work on knowledge-base systems (like the Wiki idea) to
>short-circuit the issues they _will_ encounter.
>
>Most of all, we need to _contribute_. We need to help Knoppix in
>creating ever-better services, we need to build a rich roster of
>_professional_ templates in the OOExtras project
>(http://ooextras.sourceforge.net/) by _contributing_ our own
>best-of-breed documents into that mix.
>
>Because it's all about sharing. We have to underline that FOSS isn't
>just about better code (better because it's made by the people who use
>it) it's about _community_, about me in Sauble Beach Ontario willing
>to help someone in Kenya to install channel-binding so they can
>squeeze double-bandwidth out of two parallel modem dialup accounts,
>helping them even if we never actually meet but only know each other
>through what we both leave for others online. Eric Raymond says FOSS
>is a culture of sharing, but that's not really what we see: FOSS is
>one thing, the culture of sharing is another, and _together_ they
>/really/ shine.
>
>In general, I find that suggestion of sharing to be the hardest part
>of 'selling' a shop on FOSS. I say "sharing" but they see only the
>giving part; instead of seeing the Nash Equalibrium, they immediately
>think of the Tragedy of the Commons and shoo me away as a heretic ;)
>
>One thing that won't work is to try and pretend that we can play the
>proprietary game with FOSS, that we can compete head to head on bids.
>That's like if Greenpeace tried to bid against Haliburton on tenders
>to reconstruct Iraq -- I say we don't want to be in that game, that we
>just step out of that box and admit the only similarity between what
>we offer and what the proprietary marketing-machine propped software
>biz offers is that both produce programs that run on computers.
>
>What we offer is a _collaborative_ way to use that hardware to solve
>problems _incrementally_. We work /together/ to solve each other's
>problems by sharing what we know. That's not the same as an empty
>piece of guarantee paper that claims all sorts of magic powers only to
>add a disclaimer to say you can't sue us if the software fails to do
>it ;) I was recently on the MusicXML homepage where they list software
>that supports the new standard, and I was amused to see the software
>divided into two categories, programs and betas --- as if the
>commercial software is 'finished'!!! What a laugh.
>
>Except for trivial cases, all software is 'beta', all of it is an
>unfinished exploration of the problem space, patched and extended as
>we learn more about the particular problem domain. We're no where
>near complete in our understanding of what a "word processor" should
>do, no where near. Anti-FOSS producers claim magic powers of
>completeness, but it is a ruse, a deception, a con to part the
>consumer from their money _now_ rather than later when the software
>really is complete, a day that never arrives.
>
>The trouble is, if they have the money, the buyers buy into the myth.
>They see OOo as somehow "unfinished" (which it is) and go with MsWord
>because it's supposed to be a completed work with no further bother to
>get it going. And MsWord _is_ /more/ complete, with a rich opus of
>resources, templates and tutorials, and they see the short-term
>advantages to that and off they go spending $500/seat. What's nearly
>impossible to explain is the short-term gain is at a staggering
>long-term cost, and we all know that software is not the only realm
>where next-quarter returns are favoured over sustainable policies ;)
>
>This is where FOSS becomes most ideal for developing (or shattered)
>economies: They don't have the _option_ of anti-FOSS. For a lot of
>them, it's FOSS or _nothing_, but that also means they may not have
>the intellectual resources to invest. Creating OOo templates takes
>time, time to learn the process, time to craft and proof the material,
>and if they had that kind of time with that sort of expertise, they'd
>probably lay them off and just go buy MsWord ;)
>
>Thus it's _critical_ the rest of us focus all our attention on what we
>/contribute/. Rather than fill yet another Wiki with words about how
>fine the world /would/ be _if_ everyone was running on FOSS, rather
>than create any /new/ advocate rhetoric project, we need to /do/
>something tangible. Such tangible action could be as simple as
>rallying behind existing initiatives like OOExtras, Sourceforge and
>others to help ensure that every possible need an enterprise might
>want is readily available and findable.
>
>Obviously we cannot hope to commission all these business solutions
>ourselves, but here's where the FOSS advocates and other
>social-computing networks play an essential role: But _because_ it is
>FOSS, advocates do not need to actually create the software, they only
>need to foster the sharing principle and connect the FOSS-enabled
>enterprises.
>
>Here's two wild ideas for an action plan:
>
>1) We could create committees charged only with watching and reporting
>on relevent new additions to Freshmeat, Sourceforge and OOExtras, but
>not just a one-line saying "gxmame is updated", but compose feature
>postings explaining /how/ the software is used and showcasing the
>contributors. All of this casts a wide net out in the Googlespace
>that increases the probability of pulling in anyone who gets online
>and asks about any associated keywords.
>
>Everyone likes a bit of free publicity. This could be implemented
>with a simple weblog where advocate groups could post the things they
>find online. Since there are many weblogs like this (opengovernment
>for example) we could also aggregate other feeds in a sidebar creating
>a one-stop snap-shot homepage tracking new FOSS business solutions and
>showcasing the people who make them.
>
>FWIW, I have everything technically required to host this on
>www.teledyn.com, but would need assistance to create the design of the
>site and someone would have to cover my bandwidth costs.
>
>2) Everyone on FOSS needs to be encouraged to discover what is missing
>so they can, if they've commissioned such a work internally,
>contribute the missing pieces to the global community through the
>sites mentioned above.
>
>A simple and doable example of this is lazyweb.org: People post what
>they /would/ create if only they had the resources, and others can
>watch this through their aggregators and blogrolls, and respond to
>postings with what they know about possible solutions.
>
>Because lazyweb.org uses Trackback, it does not require posters to
>have accounts; anyone with a weblog can post. Since that may not be
>practical for the average FOSS-curious enterprise in a shattered
>economy, perhaps we could invest some time to create a simple
>email-bridge for posting these items, or perhaps create a USENET group
>(soc.isoc.foss/soc.isoc.foss.wanted?) to mirror the site contents.
>
>--
>Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com>
>www.teledyn.com/mt - www.teledyn.com - sbp.teledyn.com
>You don't play what you know; you play what you hear.

>Thus it's _critical_ the rest of us focus all our attention on what we
>/contribute/. Rather than fill yet another Wiki with words about how
>fine the world /would/ be _if_ everyone was running on FOSS, rather
>than create any /new/ ISOC/ISDG rhetoric project, we need to /do/
>something tangible. Such tangible action could be as simple as
>rallying behind existing initiatives like OOExtras, Sourceforge and
>others to help ensure that every possible need an enterprise might
>want is readily available and findable.
>
>Obviously we cannot hope to commission all these business solutions
>ourselves, but here's where ISOC and other social-computing networks
>play an essential role: But _because_ it is FOSS, ISOC does not need
>to actually create the software, we only need to foster the sharing
>principle and connect the FOSS-enabled enterprises.
>
>Here's two wild ideas for an action plan:
>
>1) We could create committees charged only with watching and reporting
> on relevent new additions to Freshmeat, Sourceforge and OOExtras,
> but not just a one-line saying "gxmame is updated", but compose
> feature postings explaining /how/ the software is used and
> showcasing the contributors. All of this casts a wide net out
> in the Googlespace that increases the probability of pulling in
> anyone who gets online and asks about any associated keywords.
>
> Everyone likes a bit of free publicity. This could be implemented
> with a simple weblog where ISDG members could post the things they
> find online. Since there are many weblogs like this
> (opengovernment for example) we could also aggregate other feeds in
> a sidebar creating a one-stop snap-shot homepage tracking new FOSS
> business solutions and showcasing the people who make them.
>
> FWIW, I have everything technically required to host this on
> www.teledyn.com, but would need assistance to create the design of
> the site and someone would have to cover my bandwidth costs.
>
>2) Everyone on FOSS needs to be encouraged to discover what is missing
> so they can, if they've commissioned such a work internally,
> contribute the missing pieces to the global community through the
> sites mentioned above.
>
> A simple and doable example of this is lazyweb.org: People post
> what they /would/ create if only they had the resources, and others
> can watch this through their aggregators and blogrolls, and respond
> to postings with what they know about possible solutions.
>
> Because lazyweb.org uses Trackback, it does not require posters to
> have accounts; anyone with a weblog can post. Since that may not be
> practical for the average FOSS-curious enterprise in a shattered
> economy, perhaps we could invest some time to create a simple
> email-bridge for posting these items, or perhaps create a USENET
> group (soc.isoc.foss/soc.isoc.foss.wanted?) to mirror the site
> contents.
>
>--
>Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com>
>www.teledyn.com/mt - www.teledyn.com - sbp.teledyn.com
>You don't play what you know; you play what you hear.
>_______________________________________________
>Isdf mailing list
>Isdf@isoc.org
>http://www.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/isdf

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

Subscribe to OSS:

Subscribe | Unsubscribe