Free Thoughts on Document Freedom Day (DFD)

Today is Document Freedom Day (DFD), it's a global day for Document Liberation. It's a day of grassroots effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general. It's a complementary to Software Freedom Day. Today, the last Wednesday of March, 2008, is the first year that Document Freedom Day is being called for. You may wonder why and how Document Freedom concerns you. Here is the answer.
Last night, I watched the film The Matrix again. It is about nine years ago when I was a middle school student that I watched it for the first time. I did not quite understand what it's talking about then, especially What is The Matrix, the question confused Neo before he was taken back to the Real. But yesterday night, when I watched it for the second time, I quite understand. Because I realized that we are falling into (and in fact many has been in) The Matrix built by those proprietary shits. They go to absurd lengths and try all tricks to restrict our freedom. Unfortunately, many people are not aware of that. You do not realize that you have long been "slaves" of those who claim to provide you any service you need. You are always satisfied with their services and be happy to pay them. Why? Because you are so FUDed that you can not see the Real. You think that you are living a comfortable digital life in a world ruled by Micro$oft and its collaborators. You think that only your "master" can give you a reliable hand. You don't believe and refuse to accept the truth. I am not kidding. One of my roommates (also majoring in IT) is such a person. I showed every fantastic thing in my GNU/Linux box and told him several times that how the freedom matters, he simply rejected it. Speechless, Uh? How can you see the whole *Real* world through Micro and $oft Windows? I always ask them. In fact, some people do know the issue, but they just refuse to face it. They prefer to stay in the situation, they prefer to live in The Matrix. That's why Gustavo Narea recently wrote the article I've seen the light, GNU/Linux Does Not Matter That Much. Attention that the title is a little bit misleading. It doesn't mean GNU/Linux doesn't matter. If you read the article carefully, you will get the point, it just tries to introduce a new and expected-to-be efficient way to spread the word, freedom. I mostly agree with Gustavo, in particular the three tasks he listed:

1. First and foremost, make people worry about the formats and protocols they rely on;
2. Make it really easy for people to switch to unconstrained formats and protocols, under the current operating system, but also warn them that everything won’t be completely solved until they throw the non-free system away;
3. And finally, make people switch to a freedom-respectful operating system, like GNU/Linux.

Task #2 will help people smooth the switch to a freedom-respectful OS like GNU/Linux. And that's the key point, imho. I admit that Free Software movement plays a VIP role in spreading free document format. But that happens only after you succeed helping more people switch from a proprietary OS to a freedom-respectful OS such GNU/Linux. Do remember that to liberate people from The Matrix is a long time campaign. To stick to our goal and idealism is good but to find an efficient and effective way to step toward it is another thing, *Action*! Gustavo did not mean to play down the part of Free Software movement if you have noticed what he has done to contribute. In fact, GNU/Linux still occupy the ultimate role in the list, but before it comes out to be what it should be, we have more to do, especially Task #2.

The Matrix needs a revolution. Free Document Day is a good start, so is Free Software Day. Let's join in! :-)


PS:
I just found an interesting article Microsoft is like the Matrix. That's what a GMTA thing is. ;-)