pages tagged facebookzack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/tags/facebook/zack's home pageikiwiki2010-09-10T08:11:04Zyes we canhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/09/yes_we_can/2010-09-10T08:11:04Z2010-09-09T16:05:33Z
<h1>(... achieve Debian world domination without endorsing
Facebook)</h1>
<p><a href=
"http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/09/09/can-debian-achieve-world-domination-without-being-on-facebook/">
Yes Raphael</a>, we can.<br />
Nobody said it would have been easy, to reach Total World
Domination endorsing Free Software only, but that's not a reason to
stop trying.</p>
<p>I've recently stumbled upon a very nice article by <a href=
"http://mako.cc/copyrighteous">Benjamin Mako Hill</a>, titled
<a href="http://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html"><strong>Free
Software Needs Free Tools</strong></a>, which I believe it's the
best possible commentary to the proposal of having an
<em>official</em> Debian Facebook page.</p>
<p>Of course there is nothing wrong in having non-official, or
let's call them "fan" pages, about Debian on Facebook. As a matter
of fact we already have one, as you point out. And I also agree
that it would be better to know <em>who</em> is behind that page.
Individuals, including Debian Developers, are obviously free to use
whatever media they please to spread the cause of Debian. After
all, as individuals, each of us decide upon her own
<strong>personal trade-offs</strong> (for instance, a trade-off of
mine is to have both <a href="http://identi.ca/zack">identi.ca</a>
and <a href="http://twitter.com/zacchiro">twitter</a> accounts and
to post only to the former with forwarding to the latter).</p>
<p>There is no way to have an official Debian Facebook page and
pretend that we are not, de facto, endorsing Facebook. That's why I
believe <strong>having official Debian presence on
Facebook</strong>, or on any other non Free Software platform,
<strong>will just weaken our cause</strong>. It will send out the
message that Free Software it's something which is good for others
to use, but not necessarily for Debian <em>as a project</em>.</p>
<p>That does not mean that we live under a rock and that we
consider <strong>social networks</strong> useless to promote the
Debian cause. It just mean that we should be picky in choosing
social networks that respect our Free Software principles, as we
are picky in choosing licenses that are <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">DSFG</a>-free.
For instance, I'm glad to mention here that the <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Publicity">Debian publicity team</a>
has recently obtained access to <strong><a href=
"http://identi.ca/debian">http://identi.ca/debian</a></strong> and
will start using it soon. Subscribe! <img src=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /></p>
<p><strong>PS</strong> This post also gives me a chance to comment
on a so called <a href=
"http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stefano-Zacchiroli/141176895907891">"community
page" of mine</a> on Facebook. As I've <a href=
"http://identi.ca/notice/48501271">briefly commented a few days
ago</a> I've nothing to do with that page. TTBOMK its content is
just automatically injected <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefano_Zacchiroli">from
Wikipedia</a>. The "Stefano Zacchiroli is on Facebook" claim on the
upper left is true only in the sense that there are <em>other
people</em> with my name on Facebook. IANAL, but such a claim (not
the page in itself) will probably be considered an abusive
advertisement in many countries around the world.</p>
<p><small><strong>update</strong>: re-word the
<code>identi.ca/debian</code> paragraph, to better blend with
surrounding text</small><br />
<small><strong>update</strong>: mention "Debian" in
heading</small><br /></p>