Bulletin Issue 28 Spring/Summer 2016
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Bulletin Issue 28 Spring/Summer 2016 These campaigns do not all agree Contents with each other. The slogan common between them is an attempt at mo- Youarewhatyourun 1 tivating us to more closely examine In it for the long haul: A what it is we are putting in our bod- model for long-term free ies. No food movement argues every- software campaigns 3 one needs to be, or should endeavor to become, a Michelin star chef. Every- Mr. Snowden: or how I one acknowledges that people choose learned to stop worrying to spend different amounts of time and and love GStreamer 5 energy learning about preparing and Governments pay to eating food. reinvent the wheel, or buy a proprietary wheel 6 User freedom in the age of computer-generated software 7 On the road with RMS 9 We need to fight for strong encryption. And stop DRM in Web standards. 10 But a certain very basic level of You are what you run food literacy is widespread. We take By John Sullivan many of the basics for granted. Even Executive Director if you do not have advanced culinary ou are what you eat is a popular skills, you know that hamburgers do Yslogan in many parts of the world not grow on trees (yet), that food in used by groups encouraging people general is prepared by taking ingredi- to change their eating practices. It ents from different places and combin- is used to promote vegetarianism, to ing them, often with heat, and that discourage “junk food,” to campaign if ingredients are not stored or han- against foods containing genetically dled in certain ways, some of them can modified ingredients, and more. make you sick. 1 You know that with the same or security (sanitation) practices? How similar ingredients, you can prepare a many people know that when they meal at home, or you can have the visit a Web site, their computer is meal prepared for you at a restau- given programs to execute locally be- rant. You know that if you do not hind the scenes, and that these pro- like the way it is prepared at a restau- grams may be doing all kinds of things rant, you can prepare a different ver- they do not want? How many peo- sion at home. You know that even at ple know what source code is, or a restaurant, if your food is not salty that programs are usually transformed enough, you can add more salt your- from human-readable into machine- self. You know that preparing a single only formats? meal can involve several people work- More and more often at the FSF, ing together. You know that, while we are finding our advocacy efforts a meal is presented on a very specific running into challenges related to a plate in one restaurant, the same meal widespread lack of fundamental com- can be presented elsewhere on a differ- puter literacy. This is not because ent plate while still tasting the same people lack the ability to understand, and having the same nutritional value. or that they are doing something Because every healthy human has wrong. It is just a fact that we need to to eat, and eat every day, every hu- address. It is difficult, because others man has to know something about are very happy with the current state food in order to pursue basic happi- of affairs. There are billions of dollars ness. Food-focused movements start from proprietary software and service from these basics and ask people to operators pouring into marketing ma- learn more, in order to convince them terials along the lines of, “we know you to change habits and make different don’t want to have to care about how choices. your computer works, you just want it to work.” When it comes to advocating free software, we often find ourselves Ironically, when computers are de- stuck on the basics. Try re- livered in new formats – cars, flat, reading the above “you know that” round, handheld, goggles, whatever – statements, substituting software for they are often accompanied by adver- meals. Within the sizable portion tising campaigns by these same com- of humanity now using or interacting panies portraying them as something with computers on a daily basis, how so radically new that we should of many people know those basics? How course expect them to come with new many people know that they could re- rules. This is how people who have place the operating system (meal) on been installing whatever software they an iPad or a Microsoft Surface tablet want on their laptops for years ini- (plates), if those devices were not ar- tially accept the idea that Apple can bitrarily locked down? How many tell them they cannot install software people know that their “smart” ther- on their iPad from anyone but Apple, mostat is running computer programs or that if they want to switch to An- written by programmers (chefs) who droid they have to buy a new phone may have failed to follow basic code instead of just flashing their current 2 iPhone. evaluate and sustain long-term free As user freedom advocates, we software activism.2 should get more involved in doing and The HPP campaign launched in encouraging basic computer literacy 2005 to foster work on projects that education. This does not mean ask- are important for increasing the adop- ing people to write their own software, tion and use of free software. For or to concern themselves deeply with the first few years, the list was main- complex software systems. As with tained by FSF staff and board mem- food when we eat out, or when we buy bers, based on our own research and prepared meals or produce at the gro- on feedback occasionally sent in by in- cery store, we trust others to do all or terested people. In 2014, we formed some of the work and detailed under- a committee of free software com- standing for us – we just have general munity leaders, who have done the knowledge about the processes they work of reevaluating and refining the are using, and that general knowledge list based on suggestions from the empowers us to protect ourselves. free software community, the chang- A little bit of knowledge goes a long ing landscape of software and hard- way toward putting people in the po- ware (and consequently, of restrictions sition to make much better, more eth- on computer user freedom), and the ical choices. Just knowing the ba- achievements and failures of projects.3 sics will not make people automati- The most recent revision, which is cally support free software. But know- currently underway, includes the in- ing a little more will make it much eas- troduction of four criteria that define ier for them to give it a fair hearing. If what needs are important for the list. we are successful, we could start advo- But how can we maximize the use- cacy campaigns with the slogan, “You fulness of this list – or any of our are what you run.” campaigns? In the case of this cam- paign, we have identified projects that In it for the long haul: are critical to the advancement and adoption of free software. But if no- A model for long-term body steps up to work on these proj- free software campaigns ects, if nobody hears about them, they By Georgia Young will never get done. The campaigns Program Manager team helps by acting as a project man- hat is your favorite FSF cam- ager for the committee, publicizing Wpaign?1 How long has it been the list, recommending ways the com- around, and when was the last time munity can help get the work done, you heard about a victory in that celebrating victories, and reevaluat- area of the FSF’s work? These ques- ing the work regularly – essentially, tions came to mind as I begin to in- we must continue our advocacy indef- tegrate the recommendations of the initely. High Priority Projects (HPP) commit- How exhausting! No wonder ac- tee, and it got me thinking about how 2 our three-person campaigns team can See u.fsf.org/1sy for the committee’s analysis, and u.fsf.org/1sz for the list. 1fsf.org/campaigns 3u.fsf.org/15r 3 tivists suffer from burnout. And we may be that we simply need to try cannot stop until we have achieved a again. When change is truly impor- world where all software is free. tant, actions that energize people can So, how do we keep up our momen- benefit from their failure by observ- tum in a years-long effort like the HPP ing what went wrong, and what might list? Here are a few thoughts: be needed to lead to success next Small wins add up over time. The time. Some people at the World Wide aims of the HPP list are impossible Web Consortium (W3C) were dismis- to achieve in one fell swoop, but over sive of our campaign calling for self- time we can chip away at them, bit by ies against Digital Restrictions Man- bit. Once we have updated the list, we agement (DRM) on the Web – but it will be sure to celebrate progress made got their attention and led to conver- toward the fulfillment of any of these sation in the press and between the High Priorities. You will hear about W3C and our movement – conversa- it on fsf.org, in the Free Software tion that those who favor DRM would Supporter, on social media sites, and prefer to avoid.