Re: RealMedia used for GUADEC live transmissions?

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    It is a lack of respect for the volunteers that put the long hours into
    the conference.  You know perfectly well that not everyone involved in
    free software is working on it for free software, there are hundreds of
    different reasons.  

Reading that, I couldn't help thinking of the way "Support our troops"
was used to silence dissent among Americans.  The claim was that if
you criticize the war, you're being disrespectful to "our troops."  We
must reject, as a general principle, the claim that respect for the
people carrying out an activity places the activity beyond criticism.

I am sure the GUADEC volunteers were dedicated, but the issue here is
the methods they were directed to use, not whether they worked hard.
Precisely because not everyone in our community appreciates the
importance of freedom, it is vital for our future that we carry out
our work in a way that says "freedom is important".  We need to teach
the public, rather than let them lead us to forget.

    I am proposing that *one* person "taints" himself for the few hours that
    it takes to conver the files into an open format that everyone can use. 

If someone is willing to do this, or if someone who already uses
RealPlayer wants to do the conversion, I won't reject the results.
However, pressing a person to violate his principles by installing a
non-free program is acutely disrespectful.

It can't be terribly hard for the GUADEC organizers to post the .wav
files.