Using computer programs such as VLC media player is very normal. Millions of people use it daily without ever thinking it’s a weird tool or player or even thinking what’s behind it. It’s one of the best media players we could ask for and is published under a GNU General Public License.
The quality of the media player is so high, people just install and use it. Unfortunately, the qualities and features of many other free (as in freedom) programs are not considered when people choose their software. Windows, the malicious freedom and privacy-violating operating system from Microsoft, is the dominant OS on personal computers and Android filled with proprietary programs and components is the dominant OS on mobile phones.
The quality of GNU operating system with Linux kernel is very high. The features, the freedom, the usability, the community, and many other factors to consider are all voting that GNU should be the normal operating system when people try to choose. However, the publicity of Microsoft and the resources, power, and tools it has made it the dominant OS.
Even though Microsoft violates users’ privacy and freedom everyday, in bright daylight, it is still one of the main two default choices people consider, along with other proprietary malicious operating system published by Apple.
It is like this because people consider it the normal. No matter how wrong it is, people choose it because it’s the normal way of computing for people. We, the free software community, should change that.
We should change the normal way of computing by educating people that using a computer should not be equal to losing your privacy. We should teach people that using a computer is not equal to losing your freedom. We should teach them that a computer should do as the user wishes, not vice versa. It is the computer that should be under the person’s command, and it should be the normal.
The normal should be:
- Users can run programs as they wish, for any purpose.
- Users are free to study how the programs work, and be able to change it so it does what the user wants.
- Users be free to redistribute copies of the program.
- Users be free to redistribute the copies of their modified versions.
And it is what computer user freedom means. It is what should be the normal for people. It is not only about the GNU operating system (or as many may may call it, Linux — which is a kernel), it’s every piece of program a computer user runs. Freedom is not conditional is situational. One should always be free from proprietary software.
It’s like free speech. It’s not that we always have something to say, it’s that we always should be free to speak. Computer user freedom, or software freedom, is not about always changing everything, it’s about having the right and power to change what we believe is wrong or is not suitable for us.
Computer user freedom is not the normal we have today. Running GNU+Linux on your computer is still odd for many people, and we should change that. People already use a lot of free (as in freedom) programs daily. VLC media player is one of them. Many proprietary programs use free components.
And it’s not like you have to be a computer expert to be able to use a free operating system or program, believe me, I know so many people who use them daily with no problem and they’re not even a computer power user.
We should change the normal. It shouldn’t be normal to sacrifice your privacy and freedom to be able to use your computer and we can achieve the new normal, the correct, humane, people-focused, and right normal through education, good publicity, hard work on usability and user experience (UX), and consistent work on improving our user interfaces and adopting them for daily users.
It’s never late to start, specially for a good purpose like our mission.