09.04.11
Making Progress by Complaining
Summary: Advogato posts a “Defense of Negativity” and we repost a video relevant to this
THERE IS this common misconception that things will improve if one adheres to a consistently positive message and never speaks badly of the ills. Here at Techrights we do not quite agree with this (we do not complain about it, either) and a few months ago I did a video to explain this (reposted below). Well, yesterday it was Advogato which posted a very detailed rebuttal to the claim at hand. It’s titled “In Defense of Negativity” and it starts as follows:
I have often heard criticism of “negative campaigning” in the free software movement. “Negative” campaigns speak out against proprietary software as opposed to “positive” campaigns which instead speak of the benefits of software freedom. This essays unpacks some of the arguments against negativity and makes the argument that negative campaigns, in some forms, can play an critical and important role in free software advocacy.
Great essay. For what it’s worth, my response is reposted below. █
YouTube: On Techrights Negativism
Or as Ogg:
Download:
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
NotZed said,
September 4, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Never really understood that sort of thing.
Then again the world seems to be all about black-and-white issues these days, with no greys. ‘negative is bad, therefore anything non-positive is bad’, etc etc.
Seems to be an obsession with giving everything a label and then using that as the only filter.
It’s just a way to divide people, because if you add enough labels to someone eventually you’ll find something with which you can have no agreement over.
Divided we fall …
Michael Reply:
September 4th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
I would love to find more areas of agreement.
Roy and I butt heads, but I think we both sincerely want to see Linux and OSS in general succeed. We both deeply believe that the OSS movement has lead to excellent products and processes and that it has, with no hyperbole, changed the world for the better.
The one main place we seem to differ: I believe Linux and OSS is good enough *on its own* to be worthy of respect and admiration… and that when people lie about it to exaggerate its value they do harm to the movement. I also believe that lying about people who disagree and lying about their views is counter productive.
NotZed Reply:
September 5th, 2011 at 8:09 am
I was agreeing with the post. I think negativity is fine, and jumping on it just because some other negative campaign (such as wildly negative political attack advertising) isn’t, but shares the label ‘negative’ isn’t really useful. Such a simplistic 2-tone view as suggesting all negative campaigns are bad is a bit childish, as things are generally more complex and nuanced than that.
I wasn’t talking about Roy or this site, which is how you seem to have read it. I actually this site is more balanced and consistent than other similar sites such as groklaw. Not that I agree with every detail of every post.
OSS was invented specifically to stand for nothing at all, it’s essentially just a way to get free developers and beta-testers. Without the underlying ideology of freedom it is really quite weak – it is too easily corrupted and disrupted. Without the strong ideological backing of freedom, ‘open sauce’ is only a fairly crappy and inaccurate economic model (well, just like all the rest then!). There is plenty of evidence for instance that open-source software isn’t always technically better software – which is one of it’s strongest claims.
Free Software makes no such claims, only that the software is inherently better only because of the 4 freedoms – but nothing about it’s technical abilities.
“and that when people lie about it to exaggerate its value they do harm to the movement”
I don’t think this sort of language helps your argument, whatever it is.
Michael said,
September 4, 2011 at 6:20 pm
You are always negative and are attacking companies – and you repeatedly speak about what companies you should not even work for or buy products from. And then you say you do not want people to lose jobs with the excuse that you think people will find other jobs. What? Completely twisting the whole concept – of course you want people to lose their jobs. Why not just be honest about this and then say why you think it is worth it (the companies are evil, they will find other jobs, etc.).
Funny, also, how you admit to focusing on specific organizations but then whine about me when I focus on your FUD and dishonesty. Quite hypocritical of you.
And you say it is “constructive” to show why an organization is wrong or dishonest. Good: you think I am being “constructive”. Excellent, really.