[ale] Let's Party! (To celebrate computer viruses!)

[Brian Pitts]

On 09/23/2009 04:16 PM, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
>
> Take another example that is closer to the topic:  The Free Software
> Foundation recently launched it's Windows 7 Sins campaign.  The Web
> site, right from the get-go, tells Windows that they are sinners.  Ahh,
> most excellent.  Alright, so I may not like religious fundamentalists,
> but that doesn't mean I want to go out of their way to piss them off.
> Hell, no.  Maybe you haven't noticed, but that's a good way to get them
> in your face, not get them to leave you the hell alone.
> 
> And even those that are closer to the edge of the spectrum than the
> middle are going to be driven away.  You just called them *sinners*.
> Over a (extremely excessively) bloated compilation of _software_.

I know I've complained about the approach and quality of the FSF's
campaigns to members of this list before, but this is an instance where
I'll have to defend them. Nowhere on windows7sins.org does it say that
windows users are sinners. That would be analogous to telling workers in
a sweatshop that they are exploiters. Rather, FSF's position is that
Microsoft is "sinning" against its users in a variety of ways. There's
plenty of clear language to that effect on the page: "The case against
Microsoft and proprietary software", "What are Microsoft's sins?",
"seven examples of abuse committed by Microsoft", etc.

Personally, I think drawing the connection between the version number of
the new Windows release and the Christian conecpt of the "7 Deadly Sins"
was clever marketing.

-- 
All the best,
Brian Pitts