3 ms·
Just a hunch but I'm sure that was a magnitude more annoying than effective.
by ddoolin 13y ago
Just a hunch but I'm sure that was a magnitude more annoying than effective.
- RexRollman 13y agoAgreed. Most people just don't care about this stuff.
- Argorak 13y agoMost people are also never exposed to this stuff. While a some readers here cringe at the FSF going on the streets and speaking to "most people" about this stuff, I highly appreciate it. Those FSF members got out of their echo chamber - it is not a fun job, some people won't care, but that is part of what makes this a good action.
- zacinbusiness 13y agoI don't know. It seems more like a marketing stunt than a public service. They targeted Apple who champions a lot of free software. They could have targeted Microsoft. Or better yet LodSys.
- justincormack 13y agoNot sure there is much difference between Apple and Microsoft in terms of free software now, they both contribute and use free software but still have a large proprietary core.
- Argorak 13y agoApple uses a lot of open source software, but tries to eliminate free (as in speech) software from its stack. Apple is also the champion of not allowing device owners to tinker with their devices. This doesn't make their involvement into open source any less and it is highly appreciated, but it also doesn't raise them above criticism. Also, LodSys and Microsoft have far less customers on the street. Especially LodSys.
- trurl 13y agoThis is the sort of stuff that made me decide to stop donating money to the FSF. Instead of using my money to help fund the development of new and improved GNU options that will help convince people to switch, they're wasting a whole lot of time on ineffectual campaigns like this. The goal should be to make GNU so good people will want to be using it...
- jiggy2011 13y agoEvery significant software company does marketing, it's difficult to persuade people to use software if they don't know it exists. It's hard to know whether this campaign is ineffective without some numbers. Will everyone leafleted ditch all of their Apple products and switch to Linux? Of course not, but perhaps some % will visit the FSF website and try some free-software programs.
- mratzloff 13y agoIs it measurable? Do they have unique URLs? Are they transparent about how successful these campaigns are?
- jiggy2011 13y agoIf you have the ability to track the number of visitors to your website (I think the FSF recommends piwik for this) then you can get a rough measure of whether that number goes up noticeably in the time after a campaign, especially if you filter by IP addresses in the geographic area. No need for unique URLs.