No, I don't subscribe to that camp. I have so many examples where software is written because they cared about ethical issues. Software written by people in the Free Software camp. GNOME, GTK, GNU TLS for example. There were already proprietary software or even free software for the job (open ssl is free software but gpl incompatible), so personal itch wasn't a factor. Same diaspora itself, Eben Moglen's speech 'Freedom in the cloud' inspired 4 students from New York university to start it.
What do you mean by converted? How many here actively use diaspora or gpg. Even if 50% of this group use it, I can say I'm preaching to the converted.
And even if that were true, my goal doesn't end at the conversion. I want to build better and new things and for that, what better audience than the already converted.
2013/12/30, Binand Sethumadhavan binand@gmail.com:
On 30 December 2013 16:33, Praveen A pravi.a@gmail.com wrote:
You can either wish for the right tools to appear from nowhere or set out to build it yourself. This choice is with everyone.
You are preaching to the choir. My point is that the original premise that software arises from the developer's need to scratch an itch is still valid. The plan should be to generate that itch, not popularize the scratch.
But how many percentage of your emails are encrypted? If we take a poll in this user group, how many would even know how to encrypt their emails if they need to?
:-) There are some correspondents with whom I exchange only encrypted emails. As for the group - let the group answer.
Binand