Interesting! I was already vaguely aware some of these efforts, but that was still quite informative. Nonetheless, from what I’ve observed, it seems that these kinds of funding initiatives aren’t very popular politically. Most people don’t benefit from it enough, and then it’s only natural to ask why we are spending, néé, wasting money on them. I think better messaging is needed on these types of issues.
And education would help a lot too - most people don’t think about where the software that they are using is coming from and that is a big problem. When you present people with two pieces of software, they don’t really give any thought to where those pieces of software came from or how it’s made. So they won’t be able to understand issues like the fact that vendors can just pull the rugs from under their feet whenever they feel like it. If people don’t understand concepts like these, then obviously they won’t understand how to avoid these things from happening!
I do think there’s hope on the horizon though. If we can brand Microsoft et. al. as American companies and successfully convince people to be more and more skeptical of the USA as a whole, then maybe we have a chance in stimulating people to take more initiative in getting off these products and adopting other ones.
Interesting! I was already vaguely aware some of these efforts, but that was still quite informative. Nonetheless, from what I’ve observed, it seems that these kinds of funding initiatives aren’t very popular politically. Most people don’t benefit from it enough, and then it’s only natural to ask why we are spending, néé, wasting money on them. I think better messaging is needed on these types of issues.
And education would help a lot too - most people don’t think about where the software that they are using is coming from and that is a big problem. When you present people with two pieces of software, they don’t really give any thought to where those pieces of software came from or how it’s made. So they won’t be able to understand issues like the fact that vendors can just pull the rugs from under their feet whenever they feel like it. If people don’t understand concepts like these, then obviously they won’t understand how to avoid these things from happening!
I do think there’s hope on the horizon though. If we can brand Microsoft et. al. as American companies and successfully convince people to be more and more skeptical of the USA as a whole, then maybe we have a chance in stimulating people to take more initiative in getting off these products and adopting other ones.