Re: List contains more SPAM than content
On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 05:26 -0300, Barbara Figueirido wrote:
> Dear Andreas & ter:
> Thank you so much for your continuing interest. I have mysel felt bad
> lately for not having made any contribution to the livelihood of this
> project for so long, because I do feel it's a great project. I was
> just about to write to you, ter, to see if you had lost interest and
> also to ask for new ideas to enliven this.
Hi Barbara. Good to be weighing against SPAM again.
My interest continues. My intuitive sense is that things are
reconfiguring themselves, both in general and in law, and we (the Free
Software community) are located on the future horizon, rather than the
past. But it will take a while, some patience, and some persistence.
>
> It is true that non-technical people used to proprietary software are
> more focused on searching for ready made solutions (well, not only
> them, we users of free software do it more often, I feel); thinking of
> a software project as something were one might also contribute is
> unusual and might even sound mad to some.
Yes, the set of people with some interest and capacity in practicing law
and software is not very big, much smaller than that for the sciences
and software. But it is not none - the debian-lex project was started by
such a person. Both require so much effort that it is hard to keep it
up, especially in these early stages.
>
> On the other hand it is also true that we non-technical users/would-be
> producers do need technical support, and technical people don't seem
> quite interested on making lawyer's lives better or funnier (maybe
> people don't like lawyers as much as doctors ;) ).
>
Steve and I are working on this - bringing the geeks and the suits
(that's how people refer to lawyers here) together. Interestingly
enough, Free Software of course is that singular hack of the law by a
geek. But this, and other famous entanglements of Free Software and the
law, have not done much to foster mutual recognition. There is an
economic potential well here where both groups can benefit from the use
and support of FOSS. We need to tunnel through the barriers, somehow.
> I feel that we could point out such developments as the one you sent,
> Andreas, in the wiki, not only as possible packages, but as real news,
> so that the targeted audience could see some practical benefits;
> maybe, add also only indirectly related news (or links thereto), like
> projects aiming to get paperless in courts, that might involve digital
> signatures via openoffice (there is such a project coming to life here
> in Bariloche), I believe that people might get more involved if they
> see the project addresses real needs with already available solutions.
This could be an idea to pursue - some kind of news site, maybe
beginning with some wiki pages. I would be interested in news stories
about how Bariloche is using FOSS, and similar stories from elsewhere.
The paperless push is proceeding apace here in Washington state, because
of the economic crunch on local governments. We could begin by focusing
on that issue.
More later,
Elaine
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