[GNUz] RMS Talk - Thanks Rik and co... where to now?

[Richard M. Stallman]

    Frankly I don't know where to start with what I heard today.

One way to start would be to rename the mailing list
to gnu-linux-users.  I doubt many of the discussions are
really about Linux alone, or that many of the people on the
list use Linux other than in the GNU system.  It won't take
much effort to recognize us here, so how about it?

    I've already spent 3 hours talking with my wife and father about the 
    issues and am no further ahead.

I suggest you not knock your head against the wall trying to convince
a person who isn't willing to consider the issue.  Instead, find
someone else who does listen.  That is more efficient.

The best way to influence your wife could be by example.  If you
switch to GNU/Linux on the computers you normally use at home, and
treat any machines with non-free systems as solely her business, you
will have escaped from non-free software; you can then leave the
invitatin open for her to follow you, without insisting or arguing.

    I've said it before that I just think is a mockery that HP sponsor so 
    many open source web sites with banner ads about how wonderful their 
    products are yet every time I try to use GNU/Linux on a machine I run 
    aground.

That is why they promote open source, rather than free software.  They
do not want to imply that there is anything wrong with their current
policies.  The ideas of open source were chosen NOT to imply that
there's anything wrong with proprietary software.

This is precisely why I take pains to promote free/libre software
rather than open source.

When other people raise a superficial issue, you can raise a deeper
one.  For instance, when people complain about computers sold with
time-bombed software that stops working after 60 days, you can point
out that this kind of malicious feature, like many others, is possible
because the software is proprietary.  And when people complain that
they are supposed to get cash back from the purchase of a computer and
the company did not pay, you can point out there's something worse
about that computer: non-free softare such as Windows or MacOS.