Free software, free as in freedom. Libre software… ah yes, venerable concepts in their own right, I like the cause, and more important than the raw financials, it is important that the spirit be supported, but sometimes I feel that it is really hard to explain and inform with non-technical folks. But, after I thought about this for a while in recent times, I believe there is a solid “whole-world” framework, as I put it, in which the concept can be unambiguously explained to everyone.
Perhaps one of the best and oldest examples of a complex machine under private ownership by a non-technical person that is the motor vehicle. For most car owners, if they are asked about the responsibility of the maintenance of their motor vehicle, their response will be indicative of the concept that ultimately, it is somebody else’s responsibility to maintain the motor vehicle. They personally are only responsible for following the orders of when to bring in the vehicle for its next maintenance or recall.
Now, perhaps this is a very American culture way to bring up this example, as not everyone around the world has as many cars as the United States does, but let’s put it this way. In areas of the world where there is not as much car ownership, their smartphone is their vehicle. In developing nations that haven’t had much of a history of car ownership, it is also their first such vehicle at that.
In any case, bringing up the subject from this standpoint, one thing is clear. Before you can discuss the advantages of libre software over proprietary software, you need to know someone’s stance on the maintenance of their gadgets. Unlike us geeks, most people don’t see computers as anything special, they’re merely yet another type of “consumer electronics”, and their attitude toward consumer electronics forms an overriding influence on their opinion of computers. Matter of fact, the concept of programmability of computers is a vague and foreign one in today’s consumer world, just as the concept of reprogramming the firmware of a 1990s television or VCR was quite a foreign one to computer people of the time. Back then, the programming of those devices was the realm of electrical engineers, not software developers, but today, the software running on those devices is much more similar to PC software of the 1990s, and therefore, much more intuitive for “software people” to program.
So, the first question to ask. What is your view on craftsmanship in regard to consumer electronics? Is the idea of reliability, availability, serviceability, security, and honesty in implementation important to you? For many people, they simply take a “don’t care approach.” Ultimately, it’s not important to them. Gadgets are cheap, you can just buy a new one if it doesn’t work, can’t you? It’s only when the problems get really severe do they start to notice. If they had to buy a new one right now, they’d clearly be wasting a ton of money, so they’re going to file a complaint about it. Ultimately, they had to buy a new one anyways, but when they received their new gadget, they found out that the old one was tracking them all across the Internet, “phoning home,” and the new one they ordered automatically configured itself to their personal accounts and everything, without asking.
Another deeper question goes beyond the individual standpoint and opinion and looks at the larger community. Despite gadgets being purchased individually, the development of their underlying technologies happens at a community scale. Ultimately, as it turns out, there is no real choice and options in the computer world, it’s all based off of what the one big community develops and uses together, which is then replicated across all devices on the mass market. So the other, higher-level question. Do you guide your purchasing decisions not just based off of what you want, but also based off of what your neighbor wants too? Again, most people take a “don’t care” approach to this, but perhaps it is a cultural phenomenon.
Speaking of motor vehicles, there is also quite an interesting dynamic that has happened from the cultural standpoint. It’s generally understood that farmers have a different cultural standpoint toward their machines than typical consumers do. For most farmers, it is really important that they are able to service and repair their own equipment. And traditionally, it had to be. In the past, most farmers lived too far away from town to be able to easily get someone else to do equipment servicing and repair for them, so often times, except for the most difficult of servicing and repair, it would come down to themselves to service and repair their equipment when it breaks. City slickers and suburban folks have a much different standpoint, of course. With it so easy to get someone else to do it for them, the question is why not? Matter of fact, why even bother learning how that machine works?
So, point in hand, modern trends toward eliminating the serviceability of modern consumer electronics have went largely unchallenged in most of society, and that same trend also extended unchallenged toward the electronics in consumer motor vehicles. But, when companies tried to extend that same tried-and-true methodology to farm equipment, there was a very strong backlash, and many farm-heavy jurisdictions enacted swift legislation to protect “the right to repair.” Indeed, this is a very different culture from standard consumer culture.
Another point in hand is that in modern times, it appears all across society, there has been less interest in craftsmanship. So, that’s another reason why finding people who care about quality in this regrad are tough to come by.
So, after that discussion of background information, I can structure up hierarchical questions as follows.
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What is your cultural viewpoint? Is it that of an individualistic culture community culture? The technical reality is that modern computers are developed via a community culture.
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What is your view on craftsmanship in regard to consumer electronics? Is the reliability, availability, serviceability, security, and honesty in implementation important to you? How about from the community culture standpoint? Do you think it’s important that your personal financial decisions supports the desires of neighbors for craftsmanship?
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All of today’s consumer electronics are, in fact, computers. Computers, unlike electronics in general, are defined to be programmable machines. Do you think the ability of other people to program and upgrade programs on your computers is important? Do you think it is important to be able to program your computers yourself?
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Since you’ve mentioned you are familiar with programming… Do you think it is important to be able to view the source code of the software that was pre-installed on your device? Do you think it is important to be able to install modified versions of this source code?