Sticking To It

I have a similar story as to why I started using only free software. I also have many friends who are big consumers of proprietary non-free programs. One of my friends uses just about every service that Microsoft owns, whether it's Dropbox, Skype, WMA Lossless, or even Windows 8 for the phone. The other friends always complain that "there's no games for linux" and "linux sucks."

As for me, I am very oriented towards using GNU/Linux and open source programs, but being free or not isn't as much of a concern to me. Despite this, I think I'm still on the right track as I only have 2 non-free programs on my computer, both of which are open source. As for convincing your friends, changing their morals will only affect them for the better or for the worst. Most people consider convenience and their addiction to games to be more important than their civil liberties, security, and their privacy, but so be it. Converting someone to FOSS-only is not easy, but the best place to start would be making them concerned for their privacy. This gets them into the moral-shift towards freedom, which will be gradually followed by the switch to FOSS, ultimately.

"(They always say things like "It may spy on me, but there are millions of people out there, and what do they want with me?" and "I don't care to program for the operating system, so why should I care if its FOSS?")."

From onpon4's Proprietary Software Common Arguments:

"Why should I care? I can't/don't want to change the software anyway."

You may not want to change a particular program now, but you may want to change it in the future, or you may want to pay a programmer to change it for you in the future. As a human, you deserve that freedom, so it is unethical for it to be deliberately taken away from you.

Think of it this way: if you own a car, you know that the car comes with certain freedoms: the freedom to change it, the freedom to fix it, and the freedom to pay someone else to do these things for you. Though not exactly the same, free software is similar: it gives you the freedom to change the program, the freedom to fix bugs in the program, and the freedom to pay someone else to do these things for you. Most people who own cars do not have the knowledge necessary to do make significant changes or effect significant repairs, but it would still be rather unwelcome for the car to deliberately prevent you from doing these things the way proprietary software does; it's not the car company's right to control what goes on in your car. Similarly, it it is not software companies' right to control what goes on in your computer.

In addition, proprietary programs whose source code is secret often contains malicious features: spyware, which reports aspects of what you do to someone else without your consent; backdoors, which change your computer without your consent; and DRM, Digital Restrictions Management, which is the function of refusing to function. Your only defense against such malicious features is to have the freedom to review the code which is being executed on your computer.

> is there any way that I can easily convince my friends to atleast try to not
> use Micro$oft Windows and proprietary software?

I'm not sure. Personally, I had read articles on gnu.org for years before I really took notice, and then it was a while after that before I started actually caring, and a while after that before I stopped making an exception for games. Nobody ever convinced me, except maybe Richard Stallman with his writings that are on gnu.org; it was a really long process of me gradually coming to agree with it on my own.

In addition, people will *very* aggressively defend their use of proprietary software, and on some occasions they will even attack other people's refusal to use proprietary software. They get offended when you tell them that their choice of software is no good, or more broadly that proprietary software is unethical.

So, here's what I do: pretty much nothing. I just set an example by using only free software (where possible) and display my software choices proudly. If I know of a free program that some other person who doesn't use only free software might be interested in, I might tell them about it (for example, I've told my brother about several free games, and he plays some of them). If someone tells me to use proprietary software (e.g. play a game that runs in Adobe Flash Player, or download a program which is itself proprietary), I will tell them that I refuse to run proprietary software, maybe briefly tell them what that means depending on the situation, and leave it at that. If someone complains about it, I will defend my choice appropriately.

This way, I can hope that some people who talk to me will themselves decide that they agree with the free software philosophy.

> how have you kept yourselves on the right track this entire time[?]

I don't really miss proprietary software. Other than Flash, I never cared for it much in particular. Actually, I mostly remember the bad experiences I've had with proprietary software: Game Maker only being available on Windows; Windows's stupid "drive letters" which can change, causing settings related to directories to be screwed up; Windows being horribly susceptible to viruses and other malware; many proprietary programs not being available on an ARM computer; crappy, glitchy graphics from the proprietary driver for an AMD integrated graphics controller; etc.

First of all, welcome, and good on you for helping program free software.

> My question is, how have you kept yourselves on the right track this
> entire time, and is there any way that I can easily convince my
> friends to atleast try to not use Micro$oft Windows and proprietary
> software?

Hmm, if I wish I knew the answer to that question as well.

At the moment I've been familiarising myself with the ways Windows
attacks its users privacy and freedom, as that's probably the main
reason I switched to GNU/Linux. But not everyone shares that reason.

Another good example which users can probably relate to more is the
compatibility breakage between Microsoft Office formats. At the moment I
believe there are three different MSO formats in wide use: the 2003
proprietary formats, the 2007/2010 OOXML "transitional" formats and the
2013/365 new OOXML formats. The 2007/2010 formats are slightly
incompatible as well. Why does Microsoft do this? It's all about keeping
users to the latest version, whether they like it or not. Interestingly,
every Windows and Office release comes with more restrictions (both
legal and technical), and this strategy compels users to follow them.

The ODF, on the other hand, does not see that sort of breakage. And
since the software that reads them is free (Apache OpenOffice,
LibreOffice, Calligra Suite, Gnumeric/AbiWord, ...) any threat of
restrictions will likely lead to a software fork, keeping users free.
But most of these programs are (L)GPL anyway, so legal restrictions
can't really be added.

> "It may spy on me, but there are millions of people out there, and
> what do they want with me?"

As you probably already know, "nothing to hide" is a myth. You might be
interested in this:

http://www.privacy.org.au/Resources/PAS-STH.html

Looks like nearly 1% of the American population had something to hide,
many who probably didn't do harm to anyone except themselves:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/US_incarceration_rate_timeline.gif

And this just leaked out not long ago:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/02/nsa-dea-at-t-call-records-access

Maybe people you know don't have anything to hide, but that's still no
reason to give up on privacy. Maybe understanding the relationship
between surveillance and censorship is important. Think of things like
money, food, online communications, transport, room access. If they know
who's using/doing it, they can arbitrarily stop that person from doing
it. Surveillance can become power. Maybe people you know don't have
anything to hide, but they want to be free to live their life without
someone having that sort of power over them.

Andrew.

On Thu, 2013-09-12 at 02:31 +0200, name at domain wrote:
> Hello Everyone;
>
> My name is DeckardCain and I am a software developer. I began using free
> software when I began writing optimization patches for the Bukkit MineCrat
> server mod, which then led me to the GNU GPL (which I have used countless
> number of programs before that used the same), which then led me to Richard
> Stallman. I've watched just about every video on youtube (of course, with
> GNASH now-a-days), and have begun using Trisquel GNU + Linux as well as began
> using only wholley free programs on my systems.

Nice to read this, I went through the same path as well. I was more of a
player though than someone on the developers side.

> An issue that I've been
> having though is that several of my programming friends still develop and use
> proprietary software, and always want me to play these proprietary games with
> them.
>

Had the same problem with my guildmates. I had to make a choice: stay
with my guildies and be locked further in proprietary software games or
leave and work/play/use Free Software--I chose the later.

Also suggest you take a look at Ryzom or Mana World as a Free Software
alternative

https://www.fsf.org/news/free-ryzom-1

> My question is, how have you kept yourselves on the right track this entire
> time, and is there any way that I can easily convince my friends to atleast
> try to not use Micro$oft Windows and proprietary software?
>

Suggest you watch this video, the interviewer asked the same question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XRgPaZmS0

And/or you can send them this link:
https://www.fsf.org/working-together/moving

> P.S. I love free software, always have an always will. Ever since I began
> programming I've used the GPL, so there is no lack of want to write and use
> programs, its really just finding a method to counter attack their boasting
> of proprietary software (They always say things like "It may spy on me, but
> there are millions of people out there, and what do they want with me?" and
> "I don't care to program for the operating system, so why should I care if
> its FOSS?").
>

Who says you need to counter them? Some people just don't care. Move on
to other people that does care. By the way, there are other
Copyleft-friendly licenses there you can use as well.

> Thanks in advance
> ~DeckardCain

>My question is, how have you kept yourselves on the right track this entire time, and is there any way that I can easily convince my friends to atleast try to not use Micro$oft Windows and proprietary software?

Whenever I had strange urges in the past I thought about the great beauty of the free software movement, what it was all about, its lofty goals. The massive scale of people's donation of time and skill towards the common good. It always helped me shun any silly ideas. Besides that it only gets easier with time.

I doubt there's an easy way to persuade people. Everybody will have their own path. And some will never see the light. You can only lead the horse to the water but you cannot make it drink. And people only really care about things they have internal motivation for anyways. I always point people to the GNU philosophy pages. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/

Well, to tell you the truth, things are really mixed around here.

The process of convincing people to use free software involves, as far as I know, knowledge about the person you're trying to convince.

Generally speaking, I always tell others the difference between the terms "gratis", "open source", and "free", I always tell them that every free software is open source, but the contrary may not be true. Depending on the person's preferences, I also try to point out some specific characteristics of free software, this of course, if such exist.

I won't lie, I do try to help people about non-free software related questions, but I don't help them installing non-free software, I always tell them that I'll try to solve the problem, not that I will solve it the way they're expecting it, that means, I firstly try to solve the problem using the existing software in the computer, if this fails, I try to use free software, but I never recommend or install non-free software for my clients.

For those interested, I'm not a programmer, nor a maintainer. I am a hardware technician, not very experienced, but I try my best. I don't have a established business, and as such, I just help when called.

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.