ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a range of activist strategies, from defending free software in legislative battles to educating consumers about potential problems of surveillance involved with cell phones and other products powered by software. It explores how French free software activists developed a global free software community of resistance with an explicitly political focus. The chapter highlights the work of the Association pour la Promotion et la Recherche en Informatique Libre or the Association for Promotion and Research on Free Computing. Some free software companies recognized the importance of building understanding and awareness about political issues that affected the conditions for the use of free software. Free software proponents supported a fourth proposal to the Digital Republic bill, sponsored by an individual citizen with a handle evoking Star Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi. Obi Wan proposed to end the forced sale of software with computer hardware, what is often called bundling.
