In mind, I am a strong supporter of Free Software, no doubt. But concerning the fight against FUD, I prefer the way of Taiji - conquering the unyielding with the yielding. Thus I invent the DUF ...

"Grok" is a word that you may not know, but it has been in use since the 1960's. It is commonly taken to mean "understand" but it is so much more than that. Do you grok open source? The word is the key to understanding why talented developers give of their time.

Over at Sphere of Networks, I published a text that tries to give a simple overview of the workings of information production in the age of the internet, covering everything from free software to free culture.

"Whenever I hear people discussing GNU/Linux's prospects for becoming more popular, I'm reminded of a comment by Tommy Douglas, the social democrat who became a hero for introducing universal health care into Canada. If he could press a button and gain a million voters who did not understand his policies, he said, then he would not press that button. He meant that he was not in politics simply to be elected, but to gain supporters for his ideals -- and that he was determined not to lose sight of his long term goals while pursing short term ones.

"...It is this intensive effort at the private appropriation of knowledge that has created different movements of resistance. The free software movement, the movements of farmers against biopiracy in seeds and animal and vegetal types, where Western corporations are privatizing the fruits of thousands of year of communal cooperation; the movement of patients and developmental organizations for access to reasonably priced medicines and medical knowledge; the movement for free access to scientific publications, are all related reactions to these New Enclosures.

RMS: "That is completely backwards. The free software movement is a political cause, not a technical one. 'Choose based on technical criteria first of all' is the opposite of what we say. [...] The GNU Project is not just a collection of software packages. Its intended result is a coherent operating system. It is particularly important therefore that GNU packages should work well with other GNU packages. For instance, we would like Emacs to work well with git or mercurial, but we especially want it to work well with Bzr..."

After their successful counter to software patents, the EFF is organizing another movement to stop copyright extension in the EU.
The first step is to sign the petition