Marc Eberhard m.a.eberhard@aston.ac.uk Wrote: <snip>
I gave my POV. You don't seem to want it, so nothing more I can do here it seems.
Make no mistake: agreeing with me would mean completely restructering the FSFE (to the point of desolving and starting new with a different outlook (and everything different frankly)), and distancing the FSFE from everything that has to do with money. Making it completely flat, no hierarchy whatsoever, even to the point it will be impossible to have an hierarchy (however inofficial). Making it a service to the community (creating some kind of forum for people to coordinate themselve accross Europe in matters they want to do, a NewsGroup for instance, and a website perhaps with some generalities on them, you know... introduction, the different outlooks on free(dom) software (RMS,ESR, etc etc), NG-faq, the Logo's etc. And if someone wants to go have some action into the politics of europe, they can cooperate through the NewsGroup). That is what I think about when I think FSF-Europe.)
You want this /underneath/ you (the current FSF). I want this /on-top-of-you/.
In *my* scheme /you/, the whole "influence politics"-thing will be a project, a thread on the NG. That's how it works: no hierarchy, no control, everyone is free, and working *along side of eachother*. No core-team, no "director", no nothing. In *your* scheme, this forum is one of your activities, one that you can control (oh, yeah: """coordinate""", right) from above, maybe so you can have your finger in everything... or whatever, i don't know.
Now you maybe say you /are/ such a thread, a thread in the fabrik of free(dom) software... well sorry, I don't buy it.
bye, Jos ps Don't come back with saying "yes, good idea, blah blah blah". You are either decieving others, and very possible some of you are decieving themselves I think. Good luck with keeping up appearances. pps One last thing: do you know what kind of "vibes" come to me from you when writing this? Not those you expect from hackers, or good-meaning people trying to do good.... no: the `vibe' of a bisnis department, scrambling to cover their ass.
Sorry to have been rude. Normally I am not, but we are talking about things that people have given away in good heart, and now you come along and say it is perfectly alright to make money from it... just because no-one forbid it. --