Re: A challenge for community to go beyond what's already rule

[Jean Louis]

* Lori Nagel via libreplanet-discuss <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> 
[2020-11-20 21:21]:
>    I believe in buying local if at all possible. Sometimes, that doesn't
>    work or doesn't really make sense (like if i tried to grow all my
>    tropical fruit in a greenhouse)

I would buy local stuff would it be of good quality. Let us say when
thinking of African countries one may think of ecologically produced
crops, but that is not so, far from it! They learned what everybody
does so they do it too, so they purchase inexpensive Indian
manufactured pesticides and spray all over all crops with it, any
crops without taking care how to apply it properly. Wordings on the
pesticides are written so small that I have to use the magnifier to read
it, and it is not because of my eyesight. Then one can read that it
causes so many side effects and that one bottle is enough even for
many hectares of land. And they spray one bottle on 20 meter by 20
meter piece of land. Then I should eat those beans, potatoes, sweet
potatoes and what else. So there is no special preference from where
product comes from. Everybody would like it is local as distance is
practical benefit and there is no doubt about it. Problem is that
local products often do not exist in the form how one wants it.

>    If there isn't a local one, in your country or geographic area, I
>    think it is perfectly fine to buy an overseas one.  That is one
>    of the reason why I do not support the abuse of copyright to
>    prevent people from printing stuff in their own countries.

That I did not quite understand. You basically say that you would not
prevent people printing stuff in their own countries?

In those countries outside of Europe and North America by large and
practically there are no problems with any copyrights. Those cases are
mostly left for larger companies while normal people can simply do
what they want. Would Chinese people would purchase foreign products
in large?  I do not think so.  They have all proprietary and free
software anyway gratis or for peanuts, few cents, so they can get it
and nobody will punish them.

South America, Africa, Central America, Eastern Europe, Asia and
Africa, in those areas practical life is pretty much careless in
relates to any copyrights. I find it good so and I hate that I have to
worry when downloading some files over Torrent when I am in Germany.

>    I do try to practice what I preach (and I try not to be an
>    annoying preacher alienating people with impractical ideologies.)
>    I am a member of a CSA, community supported agriculture.

Do you work with villages? Here is one good book for you, I think
copyrights expired, it is free, so you may use it to enhance
communities:

https://www.startyourowngoldmine.com/files/books/social-betterment/Homemaking%20Handbook%20for%20Village%20Workers%20in%20Many%20Countries.pdf

>    I think that is an interesting business model that software
>    developers should look into if they want to make a living from
>    software development without resorting to the proprietary model
>    for "the long tail" of software, that is, software that is not
>    general purpose but has a specialized niche audience, (an area
>    where there is often way to much proprietary software,
>    particularly software targeted at non-technical people who just
>    want to get stuff done, and not spend hours writing code.)

Alright. I do hold opinion that it does not matter. There were few
small orders online and I said if they wish to work with me, that is
fine, but software written has to be free software and I have not have
problems of acceptance. They agreed on it. And they also used other
free software only that nobody in the company used it or looked at it
ideologically. We created some shell scripts for customers like
installation assistants and similar.

Companies really need support together with software. Programmers and
companies can as well be free software oriented such as Purism
https://puri.sm and still earn good money and make profits. We can see
free code hosting providers also making money. We can see Wordpress as
free software where plethora of people are making money with it, or by
developing it or otherwise. There are so many free software projects
that are making money.

GNU Health and OpemEMR are good examples as whoever installs such
software for hospitals can make good money by providing support,
installation and networking in hospitals worldwide.

It is just a matter of attitude. If programmers themselves support
and demand writing only free software then customers will not complain
as customers need a product.

Jean