Free software / quarantine success stories

[Gerald Jay Sussman]

Hello Greg,

Please relay my message to your anonymous mailing list member.  

Thank you,
Gerald Jay Sussman

       -------------------------------------------------------

Hello friend,

   I understand both your situation and your frustration.  I often
have similar feelings.  The network effect is an extremely powerful
force that we are always fighting.  It operates in a way that
strengthens the hegemony of a few monopolistic operators.  And the
practice of liability dodging, where decision makers prefer to make
obviously wrong choices that insulate them from the consequences of
their decisions, because it is "standard practice," are also hard to
fight.  However, there are reasons to be optimistic in the long run.

For me, I am using only free software to teach my class of about 20
students at MIT this term, and it is working beautifully.  Adam
Hartz is is also using only free software to teach his class of 400
students, and that is also successful.  I am also using my own jitsi
meet instance to work with my graduate students and to run my
"science club."

Of course, it is hard to buck the network effects, but every effort
has value.  Our students will know that THEY CAN personally buck the
system without adverse consequences, so when they are in power (soon
enough) they can make appropriate choices.  When my students are
university faculty and CTOs and CEOs they will be equipped to play
by better rules.  Also, other faculty at MIT are seeing that they
can do their jobs with free software, so I expect that in the fall
term a significant proportion of the remote teaching will be using
free systems that we are using now.

So let's keep trying.  We have lost many battles, but we have also
made many significant advances in the war against attacks on our
freedoms.

Gerald Jay Sussman

Member of the Board of Directors 
 The Free Software Foundation

Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Member of the National Academy of Engineering

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences