Re: [libreplanet-discuss] interview with Noam Chomsky

[Joel Kahn]

Some of the relevant issues have been discussed here:

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/

Joel

--- On Wed, 1/16/13, J.B. Nicholson-Owens <jbn@forestfield.org> wrote:

> From: J.B. Nicholson-Owens <jbn@forestfield.org>
> Subject: Re: [libreplanet-discuss] interview with Noam Chomsky
> To: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2013, 4:51 PM
> Kẏra wrote:
> > If you can explain free software in 5 minutes flat,
> spend 5 minutes
> > working out what he doesn't understand, and manage to
> get some sort of
> > endorsement out of him, that would be great.
> 
> This seems eminently achievable; it's not hard to explain
> what software freedom is, but also relate software freedom
> to people in a way where they can see how its obviously a
> good thing in the world.
> 
> > I would tie it into his previous work, like
> manufacturing consent. Talk
> > about how software mediates every aspect of our lives,
> and when other
> > people have control over our software, they have
> control over us.
> 
> Some specifcs to build on this point:
> 
> Karen Sandler's hypertrophic cardiomyopathy talk is online
> in multiple places: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XDTQLa3NjE for the
> video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQnM82MZO0 for a
> related interview and her whitepaper "Killed by Code:
> Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices" 
> https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2010/transparent-medical-devices.html
> 
> It's not difficult to see how proprietary software in
> everyday devices people trust with their lives and their
> civil liberties -- in cars, boats, medical equipment
> including devices worn inside their bodies, and the voting
> machines people use just to name a few examples -- is
> foreseeably dangerous and wholly unnecessary.
> 
> I wrote an article for Counterpunch.org some time ago about
> my work fighting proprietary software in voting machines in
> Champaign county Illinois, USA.  I introduced software
> freedom including a brief bit of history of how Stallman
> arrived at an ethical approach -- 
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/08/19/why-we-need-quot-free-software-quot-voting-machines/
> 
>