Challenges to Free Software adoption in the lock-in era

Speaker: Praveen Arimbrathodiyil

Track: English

Type: Long talk

Room: Avvai Hall (Mini Hall)

Time: Jan 29 (Sun): 14:15

Duration: 0:30

Free Software (specifically GNU/Linux) used to be technically challenging to install. You had to get a CD/DVD image and risk data loss if you made a mistake. Now things have become easy as installing an app by a single click, but something else changed. Earlier days when computing was primarily on desktops and laptops, we could convince some one personally to switch to Free Software. Now due to network effects, unless we convince all the people one interact with, we cannot get them to stay on Free Software platforms, even though installation has become very easy. This is a challenge we have to confront together if we have to sustain the Free Software spirit. If we only choose the easier path, we will easily become irrelevant or sidelined. What can we do?