The Family Guide to Digital Freedom

Thanks to Bruce Byfield for a very interesting review of The Family Guide to Digital Freedom!

Most of the review is very positive: nothing to say about those parts except "go to LinuxJournal.com and read it!". The review also contains several doubts about this project and some well done critics. The rest of this page is an answer to those doubts and critics, grouped by theme.

The site is interesting for its attempt to do (two) things at once: to provide a guide for non-technically inclined computers users to the advantages of open standards and free software, and a critique of the FOSS communities. Both goals sometimes sit uncomfortably beside each other on Fioretti's site.

...if I were directing members of the audience to the site, I would want to warn them that not all the essays give practical advice. ...My concern is not so much with the details of those opinions,... but with the fact that they are not clearly labelled as opinions.

If Fioretti has to give his opinions, then the essays in which he does so should at least be clearly identified -- and, preferably,moved to a separate page. By mixing practical guides and opinion pieces, he risks undermining his own creditability within the community he hopes to build.

Byfield is right on this. Criticizing the way in which many individual hackers vanify much of what Stallman and the whole FSF try to do and giving practical informations and advice to non programmers are two very different goals and activities. It is equally true that everything in the Essays section is my personal opinion and not practical/unbiased advice, even if confirmed (for me, of course) from what I've read almost daily for 11 years on tenths of FOSS-related online forums and websites.

I placed and will keep (for the foreseeable future, at least) both kinds of material on the same website mainly for two reasons: first, the book and online community part are born straight from my disappointment with what has been so far an all too common way to "advocate" Free Software (again, not by the FSF): in this sense, the Essays explain why the site was born and should (hopefully) spare me from repeating every time why I am doing what I am doing. The second reason is much more practical: having everything under one roof and CMS makes much, much easier for me to maintain the whole thing.

Said this, I surely have to make much clearer than today that the Essays are just opinion pieces and very different from the rest of the website. I thought that placing them and the book content in two separate sections would be enough, but I was obviously wrong. Thanks to Byfield for spotting this weakness. I will put a big "Disclaimer: read this first" on the top of that section as soon as possible. Other suggestions about this are very welcome!

Also note that (as far as Digifreedom.net is concerned) I've already published or announced almost everything critical I had to say. Specifically, the book itself and the rest of the website are designed to be practical and constructive.

I also wonder whether Fioretti is confusing his interest with those of the members of his intended audience by providing so much material about subjects that are new to them and could potentially confuse them.

See above. Yes, the intended audience of the book are all the people who have no interest at all in what I wrote as Essays (even if the former came from the latter). I agree that there is the potential for confusion, so please help me to make the distinction very clear: again, suggestions are very welcome.

Fioretti obviously hopes that the site and book will become the nucleus of an online community.

There already are several good "Free Software for newbies" websites, tutorial and books. I don't want to duplicate or replace them (but I will link to them in the "Resources" section). My goal, instead, is first of all to give to as many people as possible a reason to go to those other websites and, in the second place, to offer a place to discuss all the other things which are relevant for parents in a digital world (from "what is the right age to start using computers" to "Is Wikipedia a good tool for students" or "why exactly is it wrong to copy software") but are only indirectly related to Free Software.

Fioretti...suggests, for instance, that the alternative to copyright would be patrons, then mentions people such as Donald Trump and Paris Hilton, rather than Paul Allen or Peter Norton.

I agree that this is probably one of the places where I've endulged more than I should have in reductio ad absurdum. Of course there are also a lot of good billionaires who can and are actually doing a lot of good: besides Allen and Norton, we could mention Shuttleworth or (from what I've read so far) even the recent activities of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Please note that in that same paragraph of "Some Dangerous Copyright Myths" I have written, about work on commission by private or public patrons:

Absolutely nothing wrong with it... as long as you don't base the whole system on it.yet.

and also:

I have nothing at all against billionaires, but I don't want any world where they are necessary for any reason.

Back to the review:

As his history shows, Fioretti is clearly a supporter of FOSS, but he is far from an uncritical one. In his FAQ, he explains using the royal we that he is not opposed to FOSS, but, rather, "We are against some excesses of some Free Software "supporters", and against some limits of what has been, until today, their way to advocate Free Software."

Absolutely yes! Please forgive me for repeating it, but this is not a crusade against Free Software, R. Stallman or the FSF. As far as I'm concerned, I'm almost done with the critics, and am deeply convinced that the book and this website can be a very effective tool to promote Free Software outside the niche of programmers, or at least to make much easier for it to be adopted. Take this, for example:

Fioretti... suggests that, even before the four freedoms of free software, they should support the new freedom "to ignore which software others are using,or was used in the past."

Most of all, I worry that open standards can become an end in themselves, rather than leading to free software.

Please note that the "new freedom" (Freedom Zero?? Cool!) would work both ways: a place where only non proprietary formats and protocols are used (enforced) is a place which is much easier to migrate to FOSS in a second moment, and one where you can actually use Gnu/Linux if you like its freedom. My approach allows proprietary software to survive, but in such conditions that it would lost almost all its locking power: neutered, so to speak. How many people do you know that would switch to Gnu/Linux tomorrow if they weren't forced to exchange files in proprietary formats?

He continues in much the same vein in the essay "Seven Things We Are Tired of Hearing From Software Hackers," in which he tries to discredit several ideas that are common in the FOSS community.

Probably this it my fault again for not being clear, but what I actually want to discredit is only the belief that such ideas or criteria remain valid or useful for advocacy outside the very restricted community of programmers and power end users. If all computer users were programmers I'd have nothing to say.

Personally, I disagree with Fioretti at several points. I am not so sure, for example, that the free software view of copyright is inapplicable to books or music; at least for mid-list writers and musicians, copyleft seems to increase sales.

As far as I understand, copyleft is a revolutionary and very smart use of copyright, not its negation: nothing at all against it, nor I deny that it can increase sales. The opinion piece "Some Dangerous Copyright Myths" is against what I define "copyright abolitionists", those who say that no copyright (and, by extension, copyleft) should exist at all.

Perhaps even more importantly, he ignores altogether the potential ethical appeal of free software as a tactic.

Last but not least:

Unquestionably, the FOSS community has failed to reach the general public, and too many of its members have grown complacent and smug through talking only to themselves. By encouraging a debate on these subjects, Fioretti is providing a long-needed corrective.

Above all, I hope that the debate doesn't remain confined within the FOSS community. In this context, I would like to suggest to all the members of the FOSS community that one possible approach or preparation to it may be browsing the website (maybe starting from the Open Letter to mothers about software) with the person least interested in software that you can find.

Many thanks to Bruce Byfield for a very balanced review which points out very well the true spirit of this effort of mine and also helped me to spot some weaknesses and the parts which I'll need to re-read to see how I can make them clearer.

Any feedback is welcome, either directly or on the Linux Journal forum associated to the review.

Best Regards,

Marco Fioretti