I am not volunteering :)
I have some experience advocating free software and the free software philosophy to `mere mortals', although I am sure there are other's who have more. And, most of my experience is not with businesses, but with random other people, mostly students of various subjects. I gave one interview on the subject to a non-technical newspaper.
My conclusion is that it is very difficult to bring across the message. It's complicated enough to explain the copyright and patent issues that we face in software to someone who is already using computers. To someone who is not using computers, it is possible, but quite more difficult. From my experience, it takes about an hour of private conversation to deliver the basics. But the challenge really starts if you face someone who has experience with copyright and patent issues from another point of view (publishing, engineering, etc), because then inevitably they will try to project their experience on other subjects, and it is very hard to demangle it and bring the correct arguments at the right spot.
I have spoken a couple of times to RMS, and I am always impressed how well he has the arguments arranged, and always knows what to say on copyright and patent issues. He also recognizes all possible traps in the discussion and can put the discussion back into line. This is something were his experience as free software advocate really shows. You are now looking for someone who can do this in the non-technical world, too. And this means that you have to communicate the philosophy to publishers, engineers, anti-globalists, economists, environmentalists, and they all have their own philosophies and try to find out how your ideas apply to them and where they think they are different. There will be situations were people try to transfer your ideas and try to apply them in the wrong way on other issues, and drawing wrong conclusions from that. Anti-capitalists will focus on the free-beer aspect, while journalists and publishers think it impossible to distribute anything with a free license.
The free software community has some experience with non-technical aspects, like publishing. I agree that we must make more experience and connections to non-technical groups. But it will be much more diverse and difficult to lead. I hope someone who can lead such a discussion will be found, and I would enjoy to follow it and learn from it to see where we can do better in communicating our philosophy to non-geeks.
Maybe we should start to make a list of sites which focus on those connections? I think there already are some (although not many), I recollect seeing some before.
Thanks,
Marcus
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