Hi,
this is not an election, this is a farce. And I will not vote for anyone in this farce. There is no election commitee I trust, so I doubt that these are free and fair elections. The only thing you'll get here is maybe a tendency, what the rebels, malcontents and mavericks of the FSFE community want or don't want.
I support FSFE and not FSF - among other things - because of Stallman. No question RMS did much good for the Free Software movement. After all, he founded it and he is one of the reasons why Free Software even exists. But I don't think he should stay any longer the figurehead of the Free Software movement. Seems the longer he has any say, the longer he will poison the well. He hurts his mission with statements about sexual abuse, dehumanizing disabled people and denigrating women.
Btw: I have written 2 emails to lists.fsfellowship.eu. I think they never get it to his mailling list and I can not find them in the archive: https://lists.fsfellowship.eu/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/thread.html
Looks like I am censored by Daniel Pocock.
Regards Christian Imhorst
Am 13.05.2019 10:41 schrieb Ingrid Schwarz:
Hello,
Sorry everybody for not replying over the weekend, here are some of my policies
Many Fellows use the fsfe.org email addresses. The Fellowship Council will demand a meeting with Richard Stallman and Matthias Kirschner to understand the conflict about the FSFE name and also represent the interests of Fellows who may be unaware of the conflict or inconvenienced. If FSF really objects to the name like in the leaked email then Fellows need to stop using it now, we shouldn't be trying to extort things from FSF. People can't accuse the last Fellowship rep of being entitled when FSFE is even more brazen using the name of another organization. But I would try to get a good deal for Fellows to keep their email addresses even if FSFE loses the name, this is why it is so important for Fellows to have a voice in the Fellowship Council now.
Another group where I volunteer runs an annual ball. We sell tickets to all our friends, dress up and have a lot of fun. Most members are able to sell between 6 and 10 tickets, enough to fill a table. Fellowship groups can bid to host a Fellowship ball in their city each year.
Before I write a lot more about my ideas, I would like to see the policies of other candidates.
One candidate has proposed to delete people from the mailing list without consent. I don't feel comfortable about that and if we are both in the Fellowship Council, I would vote against it.
Yours,
Ingrid
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Wednesday, May 8, 2019 5:16 PM, Ingrid Schwarz ingrid.schwarz@protonmail.ch wrote:
Dear fellows,
Conflict like this doesn't erupt spontaneously.
Daniel isn't even a candidate but people are attacking him. They talk about respecting the Code of conduct in one sentence and break it in the next. He promised a smooth transition for the new council, I can't see any way that he profits from helping run the election, why can't people just say thank you and move on?
Both Daniel and Armijn have described thuggish behavior from FSFE bosses. Now we see it for ourselves.
I came across this quote from Georg Greve on the fsfellowship site:
"The Fellowship is an activity of FSFE, and indeed one of the primary ways to get involved in the organisation. It is a place for community action, collaboration, communication, fun, and recruitment that also helps fund the other activities of FSFE, for example, the political work."
Moving the list to get around censorship appears to be a good example of that 'community action', activism and political work.
That is what political action looks like. It was effective. Now everybody knows there is censorship in FSFE. We didn't know before and now we do. It shouldn't be happening. If only more FSFE actions could get their point across so clearly. That's activism, isn't that what we signed up for? People can learn from somebody like Daniel.
I can't see any harm that can come about by having a fellowship council but I can see many benefits this council will have for free software. So I hereby nominate.
Yours,
Ingrid
Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfellowship.eu https://lists.fsfellowship.eu/mailman/listinfo/discussion
On 5/13/19 11:57 AM, Christian Imhorst wrote:
Hi,
I support FSFE and not FSF - among other things - because of Stallman. No question RMS did much good for the Free Software movement. After all, he founded it and he is one of the reasons why Free Software even exists. But I don't think he should stay any longer the figurehead of the Free Software movement. Seems the longer he has any say, the longer he will poison the well. He hurts his mission with statements about sexual abuse, dehumanizing disabled people and denigrating women.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, except that I know RMS has been criticized for his "Saint Ignucius" stick. I also don't agree on his position of preferred pronouns for transgender people.
One should note, however, that Stallman is a child of the decade he was born in and also seems to be quite rigid in his points of view, to the point where one might suspect a mild degree of autism. If the latter were to be the case, your comment - and the comments of all of those people who seemingly like to denigrate, ridicule and bully Stallman on Reddit - could be construed as ableist.
I have no illusions as to Stallman being any sort of perfect person, yet I want to note that /not //only/ did he found the Free Software Movement and contribute s mzignificantly to it through the creation of the GNU project, he continues to spend all his time travelling the world and advocating software freedom - and not only that, he still occasionally comes up with important new contributions.
The most recent example I can think of is this article from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-...
in which he advocates ending the abusive surveillance by the tech giants by introducing a very simple law: No system is allowed to record data that are not necessary for its /primary/ purpose.
Such a law could be implemented in the EU and could be enforced with mandatory, unenforced inspections and draconian, GDPR-style fines. That would be the end of Google's and Facebook's surveillance, since it would simply become illegal.
I currently believe that such regulations are the /only/ possible way of defeating the surveillance regime. Stopping NSA surveillance might be a good thing, but it's rather immaterial, because the governments are likely to gain access to the tech giants' data troves anyway, as they have in China. I'd /love/ to see the FSFE adopt such a proposal and see it through the EU Parliament.
And while Stallman is still capable of coming up with this kind of thing I honestly don't think we should ostracize him from the movement. I've supported the FSF before, and while I currently am supporting the FSFE and continue to do so, I might easily support the FSF again if I e.g. had more money.
Best Carsten
Hello Carsten,
I think RMS is a brilliant mind when he talks about Free Software. No question. Unfortunately he is not so brilliant in other topics. And it's not an excuse that he is a child of the decade he was born in. [1][2]
Sure, he makes big contributions to the Free Software movement. But I have a problem with the personality cult around him. I think there should be more people in the FSF besides RMS talking at conferences. More people in the FSF who make their contributions. We need more diversity in the Free Software movement, because it means respecting people as they are, without prejudice. Diversity brings solutions to complex problems of the present and the future we can not handle with solutions from the past. This requires people who see the world with different eyes. People have to be able to contribute to the Free Software movement with their whole personality as they are.
Best Christian
[1] https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/994010501460865025 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20190520093716/https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wi...
Am 19.05.2019 17:19 schrieb Carsten Agger:
On 5/13/19 11:57 AM, Christian Imhorst wrote:
Hi,
I support FSFE and not FSF - among other things - because of Stallman. No question RMS did much good for the Free Software movement. After all, he founded it and he is one of the reasons why Free Software even exists. But I don't think he should stay any longer the figurehead of the Free Software movement. Seems the longer he has any say, the longer he will poison the well. He hurts his mission with statements about sexual abuse, dehumanizing disabled people and denigrating women.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, except that I know RMS has been criticized for his "Saint Ignucius" stick. I also don't agree on his position of preferred pronouns for transgender people.
One should note, however, that Stallman is a child of the decade he was born in and also seems to be quite rigid in his points of view, to the point where one might suspect a mild degree of autism. If the latter were to be the case, your comment - and the comments of all of those people who seemingly like to denigrate, ridicule and bully Stallman on Reddit - could be construed as ableist.
I have no illusions as to Stallman being any sort of perfect person, yet I want to note that _not __only_ did he found the Free Software Movement and contribute s mzignificantly to it through the creation of the GNU project, he continues to spend all his time travelling the world and advocating software freedom - and not only that, he still occasionally comes up with important new contributions.
The most recent example I can think of is this article from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-... [1]
in which he advocates ending the abusive surveillance by the tech giants by introducing a very simple law: No system is allowed to record data that are not necessary for its _primary_ purpose.
Such a law could be implemented in the EU and could be enforced with mandatory, unenforced inspections and draconian, GDPR-style fines. That would be the end of Google's and Facebook's surveillance, since it would simply become illegal.
I currently believe that such regulations are the _only_ possible way of defeating the surveillance regime. Stopping NSA surveillance might be a good thing, but it's rather immaterial, because the governments are likely to gain access to the tech giants' data troves anyway, as they have in China. I'd _love_ to see the FSFE adopt such a proposal and see it through the EU Parliament.
And while Stallman is still capable of coming up with this kind of thing I honestly don't think we should ostracize him from the movement. I've supported the FSF before, and while I currently am supporting the FSFE and continue to do so, I might easily support the FSF again if I e.g. had more money.
Best Carsten
Links:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-...
Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
Hi all,
On 27.05.19 10:21, Christian Imhorst wrote:
I think RMS is a brilliant mind when he talks about Free Software. No question. Unfortunately he is not so brilliant in other topics. And it's not an excuse that he is a child of the decade he was born in. [1][2]
RMS is not a speaker of FSFE. If you visit a RMS talk he always will _exclusively_ mention FSF and collect money for FSF and never mention FSFE at all. So I don't know what we could influence about that on this list?
Best wishes Michael
Hi Christian,
Christian Imhorst christian.imhorst@fsfe.org writes:
But I have a problem with the personality cult around him.
While I think that RMS is often misunderstood and usually does not talk about topics that he is well informed about, I also worry about the personality cult. What happens to a community focussed on one leader once that leader passes? (Hopefully this will be in the distant future for RMS.) Luckily, I don't think the Free Software community as a whole is purely focussed on RMS.
I think there should be more people in the FSF besides RMS talking at conferences. More people in the FSF who make their contributions.
As far as FSF staff goes, I have seen several at talks around the world: John Sullivan and Molly de Blanc were at this year's FOSDEM, for example. That being said, I would argue that the FSF, just like the FSF is more than just the staff. We as a community need to give talks, organize booths, local groups, and so on to promote our organizations. If it was only staff doing talks, we would need a lot more money.
We need more diversity in the Free Software movement, because it means respecting people as they are, without prejudice. Diversity brings solutions to complex problems of the present and the future we can not handle with solutions from the past. This requires people who see the world with different eyes. People have to be able to contribute to the Free Software movement with their whole personality as they are.
I completely agree! We are actively taking steps to make our staff and teams more diverse. It is by no means an easy task because the pool of active contributors that we usually draw from for our teams, is not very diverse. If you have any ideas in this regard or just generally want to help, please let me know.
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi Florian,
sorry for my late reply.
Am 28.05.19 um 07:26 schrieb Florian Snow:
Christian Imhorst christian.imhorst@fsfe.org writes:
We need more diversity in the Free Software movement, because it means respecting people as they are, without prejudice. Diversity brings solutions to complex problems of the present and the future we can not handle with solutions from the past. This requires people who see the world with different eyes. People have to be able to contribute to the Free Software movement with their whole personality as they are.
I completely agree! We are actively taking steps to make our staff and teams more diverse. It is by no means an easy task because the pool of active contributors that we usually draw from for our teams, is not very diverse. If you have any ideas in this regard or just generally want to help, please let me know.
If you want more diversity, the first question must be: Why doesn't it work? The answer, that there are simply no woman, for example, just white cis man is imho something made easy.
As I wrote on Mastodon: We need diversity in the FSFE to move forward our work on Free Software and freedom. Diversity is an indicator of and is indispensable for freedom. But how can we achieve that? We have to remove any and all barriers for speakers and activists to share their expertise and knowledge with the community. That means encouragement, financial support, childcare offers, a culture of being welcome. We have to bring voices not normally heard to our community. We need more mentors and supporters, not heroes.
Our goals at the FSFE is inclusion not separation. And this is a really important thing for me and fundamental for my support. And I hope that we'll not stop at what we've achieved and that we will continue and become better -- and I know we will.
These are my ideas in this regard and generally I want to help. :-)
Best, Christian
On 16/09/2019 18:24, Christian Imhorst wrote:
Hi Florian,
sorry for my late reply.
Am 28.05.19 um 07:26 schrieb Florian Snow:
Christian Imhorst christian.imhorst@fsfe.org writes:
We need more diversity in the Free Software movement, because it means respecting people as they are, without prejudice. Diversity brings solutions to complex problems of the present and the future we can not handle with solutions from the past. This requires people who see the world with different eyes. People have to be able to contribute to the Free Software movement with their whole personality as they are.
I completely agree! We are actively taking steps to make our staff and teams more diverse. It is by no means an easy task because the pool of active contributors that we usually draw from for our teams, is not very diverse. If you have any ideas in this regard or just generally want to help, please let me know.
If you want more diversity, the first question must be: Why doesn't it work? The answer, that there are simply no woman, for example, just white cis man is imho something made easy.
As I wrote on Mastodon: We need diversity in the FSFE to move forward our work on Free Software and freedom. Diversity is an indicator of and is indispensable for freedom. But how can we achieve that? We have to remove any and all barriers for speakers and activists to share their expertise and knowledge with the community. That means encouragement, financial support, childcare offers, a culture of being welcome. We have to bring voices not normally heard to our community. We need more mentors and supporters, not heroes.
Our goals at the FSFE is inclusion not separation. And this is a really important thing for me and fundamental for my support. And I hope that we'll not stop at what we've achieved and that we will continue and become better -- and I know we will.
These are my ideas in this regard and generally I want to help. :-)
Best, Christian
There are programmes such as Outreachy which is designed to try and address this in terms of offering paid internships to under represented groups.
I am in Torbay, tried to promote this, and I get no engagement. The one diversity group in Torbay, the leader has e-mail but never seems to reply, I don't think a lot of the adults are that computer literate, while children and young people are, so it makes it very hard to reach them via those who are not very computer literate.
Granted a lot of people just use facebook, which apparently many young people don't use as it is for 'old people' or that is the impression I get. I have heard that mastodon is quite popular with young people but I have no data to back that up.
Perhaps we should try some of the aid agencies which work with children in say Africa to provide education to girls, I think one of the agencies that sponsors girls advertises on UK tv.
Another thing is what skills do we need from people?, it is all very well saying we need help but help people to help us. So:
If we need say ruby developers where can I go to learn these skills, codecademy spring to mind, which is great for step by step learning, sites such as repl.it allow people to experiment and share their own code, so perhaps we could do that, as in come up with a sort of programme / framework of learning / support via existing platforms, to help them get to where we need them to contribute.
if we also set this up so there is a specific start date and some sort of low entry criteria, then we should be able to take someone and perhaps give them some useful skills, once completed and they start to contribute, we should endorse people on LinkedIn etc for those skills.
I am typing this from my own viewpoint in that I have some skills but don't know how to take those to the next level. There are lots of initiatives to help people learn the very basics of IT and computers but then very little in the way of a pathway beyond that, unless you sign up to a local brick college or like me know about the online courses that are available via Open University, edx, codecademy and many many others.
I think the learning machine has created resources for teaching the basic ITQ qualification but with open tools such as libreoffice and encourages the use of free software and even contributions to this.
Just a thought
Paul Sutton
Hi Christian,
Christian Imhorst christian.imhorst@fsfe.org writes:
If you want more diversity, the first question must be: Why doesn't it work? The answer, that there are simply no woman, for example, just white cis man is imho something made easy.
Agreed. I hope what I wrote didn't come off that way. I meant to describe a challenge, not make an excuse. When in comes to the FSFE, there are also additional issues to consider: For us, diversity should probably also involve geographic or cultural diversity. These are tough questions to solve, but I think very important for the future of our movement.
We have to remove any and all barriers for speakers and activists to share their expertise and knowledge with the community.
Also agreed. One of the ideas to reduce barriers was to examine the use of mailing lists vs something without as many implicit rules (and potentially more inviting design), such as our Discourse instance (community.fsfe.org). I would be interested to hear what you and others on here think. Have you tried out the platform yet? If yes, what do you think. If not, why not?
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi Florian,
Am 21. Oktober 2019 07:03:32 MESZ schrieb Florian Snow floriansnow@fsfe.org:
Agreed. I hope what I wrote didn't come off that way. I meant to describe a challenge, not make an excuse.
Yes, I know. We both know that's a challenge. :-)
When in comes to the FSFE, there are also additional issues to consider: For us, diversity should probably also involve geographic or cultural diversity. These are tough questions to solve, but I think very important for the future of our movement.
I cannot agree more. When I look at fsfe.org/about we don't cover many regions in Europe. We should really improve on that.
One of the ideas to reduce barriers was to examine the use of mailing lists vs something without as many implicit rules (and potentially more inviting design), such as our Discourse instance (community.fsfe.org). I would be interested to hear what you and others on here think. Have you tried out the platform yet? If yes, what do you think. If not, why not?
I didn't really know that this tool exists. I have to check it out.
Best Christian
Florian Snow wrote on 21/10/19 7:03:
Also agreed. One of the ideas to reduce barriers was to examine the use of mailing lists vs something without as many implicit rules (and potentially more inviting design), such as our Discourse instance (community.fsfe.org). I would be interested to hear what you and others on here think. Have you tried out the platform yet? If yes, what do you think. If not, why not?
I've tried out the webbased platform (to complain about FSFE "welcoming" RMS' resignation) but I think mailing lists are much superior to these kind of forums and I would hope that the discussion lists do not move to the web where there's no proper threading, no free choice of editor, and no possibility to get digests. I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options. Is there any software that could provide a (bidirectional) interface between a webforum and a mailinglist?
regards Geza
Hi Geza,
On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 08:50:48PM +0200, Geza Giedke wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Is there any software that could provide a (bidirectional) interface between a webforum and a mailinglist?
There was the software used at gmane.org, which for many years provided not only a web archive to mailing lists, but also NNTP access. In fact, I believe their custom NNTP ssrver was actually the main storage backend.
Unfortunately when gmane.org went down it never really recovered, and I believe the original source code was never released as it was deemed unfit for any wider use by the author[s]?
It's really sad that there are no better, mailing-list interoperable/compatible web forum systems out there.
mailman3 with hyperkitty looks like an interesting approach, but importing the osmocom.org list archives on a 16-core machine with 32GB of RAM took more than 3 days, at which point I deemed it as "not fit for production".
This is getting more and more off-topic... but I realy like the e-mail integration of redmine. You can receive ticket updates by e-mail and respond to them, both by e-mail and online. But it's not a general-purpose discussion tool, but an issue tracker. gerrit's e-mail integration is also getting better and better with every release, btw.
Regards, Harald
Harald Welte laforge@osmocom.org wrote:
On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 08:50:48PM +0200, Geza Giedke wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Is there any software that could provide a (bidirectional) interface between a webforum and a mailinglist?
There are some, but they are typically broken in some regard or another. For instance, a Drupal module used by https://trisquel.info, among numerous minor issues, tries to parse text/plain mail as HTML source, so anything between ‘<’ and ‘>’ is eaten, fails to preserve attachments (in either direction).
There was the software used at gmane.org, which for many years provided not only a web archive to mailing lists, but also NNTP access. In fact, I believe their custom NNTP ssrver was actually the main storage backend.
Unfortunately when gmane.org went down it never really recovered
Actually, no, gmane.org is alive.
Lars decided to cease HTTP access — mostly due to legal issues (and in a view of much more oppressive laws like GDPR adopted since then, it’s unlikely that he would change his mind), but NNTP interface is still there, requests to add new m/l for archiving are still accepted too.
On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 09:57:56PM +0200, Harald Welte wrote:
On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 08:50:48PM +0200, Geza Giedke wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Have you lived the heydays of Fidonet?
Lionel wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Have you lived the heydays of Fidonet?
I am going to assume that Lionel's comment was meant snarkily. However, I think it is worthwhile to approach this a bit more thoughtfully. For many of us the free software movement is a part of something more general - the wish to use computers/cyberspace ethically.
The Consumer-based and Ethics-based world are often in conflict. For well-trained consumers life is simple: Newer is better and bigger is better - that is how they are kept consuming.
Certainly a web-based interface is newer than mailing-lists, usenet or fidonet. The web browser is certainly bigger too, unhealthily so.
But from my personal perspective a web-based interface substantially inferior to a simple mailing list. Here are my reasons:
- A mailing list is well distributed - everybody has a copy of the message. And chances are excellent that I can contact my correspondents directly, without the permission of or interference from the forum administrator.
- The modern web browser is a terrible piece of software. Even if the software is nominally released under a free (or even just opensource) license, it is very hard to participate as an independent developer - the sheer size of the browser codebase is deployed a weapon to exclude. Just you try building a big browser for a new platform.
- The motivations of those developing the modern web browser do not fully align with the interests of the userbase. At best the development decisions imply the developers think themselves to be wise and their users stupid. But is generally worse than that - in many respects the modern web browser isn't written for the users but for advertisers. As they say: If you are not the customer, then you are product.
Put simply I value a world where power and control is more or less evenly distributed amongst everybody - I mean, that is the concept of a functioning democracy, right ? I'd like to think that RMSes four freedoms are part of that, as they help motivated individuals control their computers rather then being controlled by them. Unfortunately mainstream, modern web browsers are used to centralise power and control populations by collecting vast amounts of data on them.
In this regard is unfortunate some posters promote these technologies and think that is ok to accept money from entities who construct these antifree, antiprivacy or antidemocratic systems.
regards
marc
On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:13:41AM +0100, marc wrote:
Lionel wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Have you lived the heydays of Fidonet?
I am going to assume that Lionel's comment was meant snarkily.
No, it wasn't. As I remember things, Fidonet echomail & netmail was more "power user"-friendly than Usenet/NNTP. I admit I now cannot anymore clearly articulate why, and my memory of details is now hazy, but I distinctly remember being frustrated a half-life ago with some Usenet (or was it the then-available user agents?) technical limitations compared to my Fidonet setup (which included a point address). One point I remember is that one didn't have to worry about the BBS' post retention policy, the way one has/had with Usenet/NNTP. But it could not have been the only point. I have a vague memory that the Fidonet echomail/netmail bundle allowed one to get a message by both personal mail (netmail) and also see in the public discussion (echomail), while the two were integrated; reading it in one did mark it read in the other; maybe even showed it in context. Usenet falls back to email for personal messages, and there it becomes two independent messages, possibly duplicated. Or maybe that was just a feature of the user agent I was using for echomail & netmail, that made it "feel" like personal mail by highlighting (sub?)threads below my own posts and/or organising them into a "virtual personal mailbox". I honestly don't remember exactly. In this, mailing lists are more integrated than the Usenet/email bundle. The way one gets personal copies (personal CCs) is the same as the way one gets ML posts; although it is not universally supported (and didn't make into official RFCs...), there is a way to request these personal copies, the Mail-Followup-To header, which is rather widely supported in the unix clone hacker / floss MUAs at least. But I don't know any MUA that will link both copies and handle them in an integrated way.
I do remember I had in my Fidonet echomail setup a script that presorted some messages "on top" in the feed and then used the fact that my user agent's sort was stable to finish up the sort (that was before I had any instruction on how to actually write a sort algorithm... I just hunted for messages I wanted, writing a kind of finite state automaton by hand, and moved them to the top).
Lionel Élie Mamane lionel@mamane.lu wrote:
On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:13:41AM +0100, marc wrote:
Lionel wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Have you lived the heydays of Fidonet?
I am going to assume that Lionel's comment was meant snarkily.
No, it wasn't. As I remember things, Fidonet echomail & netmail was more "power user"-friendly than Usenet/NNTP.
Iʼm arfaid, you missed the key point while trying to compare Fidonet with Usenet.
Fidonet was not meant as an alternative to Usenet (or e-mail), it was designed as an amateur alternative to the whole Internet, where nodes were meant to connect each other over phone lines.
So it was doomed when it became more expensive to make a PPP call than connecting the same machine via Internet, so some nodes started to provide their points with access over IP, over NNTP and later even over web-browser.
Today, I believe, even the last remnants of the Fidonet backbone do not use phone lines but Internet to stay interconnected.
On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 01:41:06PM +0300, Dmitry Alexandrov wrote:
Lionel Élie Mamane lionel@mamane.lu wrote:
On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:13:41AM +0100, marc wrote:
Lionel wrote:
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
Full ACK.
Have you lived the heydays of Fidonet?
I am going to assume that Lionel's comment was meant snarkily.
No, it wasn't. As I remember things, Fidonet echomail & netmail was more "power user"-friendly than Usenet/NNTP.
Iʼm arfaid, you missed the key point while trying to compare Fidonet with Usenet.
Fidonet was not meant as an alternative to Usenet (or e-mail), it was designed as an amateur alternative to the whole Internet, where nodes were meant to connect each other over phone lines.
I didn't see it that way at the time. Fidonet was thriving at a time where commercial Internet access was not available, or in its very early infancy, for the general public. At least in Europe.
It was a communication network, yes a hobby / amateur network, that grew and developed in the "amateur" world parallel to the development of Internet/Usenet/email in academia. Not as something developed or launched as an alternative to Internet/Usenet/email.
But I see this as completely orthogonal to the user experience of actually using the user agent for group discussions, which is what I was referring to and discussing in my previous email.
Hi Geza,
Geza Giedke ggiedke@fsfe.org writes:
I've tried out the webbased platform (to complain about FSFE "welcoming" RMS' resignation)
I think that is a good use of it with the news items and I want to try using it as a comment module for the blogs.
I know that I'm old-fashioned in this respect, but I think for online discussions no better system than Usenet has been invented, but mailing lists are the next best options.
I'm generally with you, but I don't want to condemn a new solution if it has the potential to attract more people. But of course that means integrating existing community members as well. So I hope we can find a good solution.
Is there any software that could provide a (bidirectional) interface between a webforum and a mailinglist?
Discourse has a mailing list mode which I have been using (kind of) for a while. Why don't you try that and give some feedback here? You can activate it in the settings.
Happy hacking! Florian
Am Montag 27 Mai 2019 10:21:02 schrieb Christian Imhorst:
I think there should be more people in the FSF besides RMS talking at conferences.
There are already other people speaking, especially for FSFE.
And two challenges would need to be overcome to make it much more:
* Many conference organisers mostly care about the fame of the speaker, so they often invite RMS even if he is not especially flexible or well versed in the topic. It is like inviting the world soccer star to talk at an IT conference, it is not that she has deep insight on the main topic, it is that people attent just to see the famous person.
* Doing good talks needs a lot of time for preparations, practice, research and travel. This needs a lot of funding or someone who makes this her main personal mission in live (and thus disregards other goals family, health or securing a standard of living for retirement). Most people are not willing to make this sacrifices and money is scarce as well for FSFE independent mission. (Money is the reason why industry lobbyist get so much speaking time.)
Best Regards, Bernhard
On Thursday 13. June 2019 15.47.40 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
There are already other people speaking, especially for FSFE.
And two challenges would need to be overcome to make it much more:
- Many conference organisers mostly care about the fame of the speaker, so they often invite RMS even if he is not especially flexible or well versed in the topic. It is like inviting the world soccer star to talk at an IT conference, it is not that she has deep insight on the main topic, it is that people attent just to see the famous person.
Having been vaguely involved in discussions about inviting speakers to conferences, I have known there to be an inclination to invite well-known people from beyond the specific subject area of a conference, but usually there is some kind of credible connection. And genuinely famous people probably don't do things for free or for token amounts of money, so there were never any serious discussions about inviting any of those.
In fact, I felt that bringing in outsiders was a good thing. Otherwise, it can be the same people dusting off last year's material and perpetuating increasingly entrenched attitudes that are not particularly helpful.
Having outsiders come in and remind everyone about broader social and technological issues, for instance, means that people remain aware of the deficiencies of the things they are doing and of the tools they are using. Without such inputs, it easily becomes an echo chamber of self-congratulation with diminishing relevance.
- Doing good talks needs a lot of time for preparations, practice, research and travel. This needs a lot of funding or someone who makes this her main personal mission in live (and thus disregards other goals family, health or securing a standard of living for retirement). Most people are not willing to make this sacrifices and money is scarce as well for FSFE independent mission. (Money is the reason why industry lobbyist get so much speaking time.)
I know that various people in the Software Freedom Conservancy spend a fair amount of time and energy travelling and speaking at events. I imagine that this demands a certain proportion of the organisation's budget, although I also imagine that the money is spent responsibly.
But it is important that donors feel that this is a wise use of donated money. In the case of Conservancy, it does appear that such travel is often done as part of a broader outreach effort, not merely to appear, talk and disappear again as can be the case with speakers invited to events.
And it is true that it becomes a matter of resources. This is why I feel that "volunteer culture" can be very damaging. On the one side you have people squeezing in effort around their daily life to try and make a difference; on the other you have someone, maybe with a whole team of people, who is being paid to advance their employer's interests. The ethical side is not usually the one with all the money.
This has some bearing on discussions about funding and organisations like the FSFE. It can be tempting to collaborate with companies in order to advance a common agenda, not least because those companies will have people on staff who can do some of the tedious work that volunteers might otherwise have to do. But then you have to make sure that it isn't the FSFE who ends up advancing a particular company's agenda.
And it is also important for the FSFE to not act as an apologist for certain companies or to curtail any wider campaigning interests because certain companies provide financial support for the FSFE. For instance, I noticed that there were contributions to the brochure about public procurement of Free Software which featured representatives of various companies.
It may indeed be wonderful that those companies support Free Software, but when one of them is Facebook, it is a reasonable question to ask whether the brochure legitimises Facebook by giving the company a favourable, progressive portrayal more than it helps Free Software or reflects the ethics of much of the Free Software community. We might wish to see Free Software in wider use, but does it not seem unpleasant to seek to achieve this in collaboration with a notoriously unethical and predatory corporation?
I can't help feeling that such unresolved issues are part of the reason why there has been so much dissatisfaction and conflict around the FSFE of late. And since there has been relatively little engagement about that, I decided not to continue supporting the FSFE financially. Indeed, I feel that there is an otherwise unspoken crisis within and around the FSFE that, while it remains neglected, undermines general confidence and interest in the organisation.
There aren't figures for 2018 yet, but I would imagine that they would indicate a further decline of income from 2016 through 2017:
https://fsfe.org/about/funds/funds.en.html
I wonder what measures are being taken to remedy this unfortunate situation and to regain the trust and confidence that has seemingly been lost.
Paul
Am Freitag 14 Juni 2019 16:50:05 schrieb Paul Boddie:
It can be tempting to collaborate with companies in order to advance a common agenda, not least because those companies will have people on staff who can do some of the tedious work that volunteers might otherwise have to do. But then you have to make sure that it isn't the FSFE who ends up advancing a particular company's agenda.
This is one of the important aspects of FSFE's work: We need to keep the the different interests in mind and make sure they are balanced. It is a challenge.
Companies and other organisations are taking part in Free Software communities, other may oppose them. Many companies consists of different branches. Some are more inclined towards Free Software others are not. Same with people working there.
In order to spread knowledge about Free Software and to convince people, it makes sense to be positive towards actions, departments, business decisions and people that display openess towards Free Software and to applaud good steps, while still criticising bad one. This is a stance FSFE is taking in general: We believe that voicing criticism is necessary sometimes, while we probably reach better results if we reward steps in the right direction.
It may indeed be wonderful that those companies support Free Software, but when one of them is Facebook, it is a reasonable question to ask whether the brochure legitimises Facebook by giving the company a favourable, progressive portrayal more than it helps Free Software or reflects the ethics of much of the Free Software community.
When searching for Facebook on our Public Money? Public Code! Brochure https://download.fsfe.org/campaigns/pmpc/PMPC-Modernising-with-Free-Software... I'll only find "Facebook" being mentioned in Fernanda Weiden's short biography as her current workplace. Fernanda has done a lot for Free Software and FSFE even before she had worked for Facebook, so this is about a person foremost. (Facebook, just like the companies IBM, Microsoft and Google contribute quite significant amount code as Free Software and interact with the communities. Applaudable even if they do bad things in other areas.)
Seriously, I think that if we did not include who people are working for, someone would criticise us for not "disclosing" this potential conflict of interest. >:) Now readers can make up their minds from the article. This is good practice with the more serious scientific journals as well.
I decided not to continue supporting the FSFE financially.
Sad to see you stop donating. Thanks for the support to far! We hope to win you back some day!
(Our supporters and donors allow us to do more work and stay independent of single company donors!)
Best Regards, Bernhard
On Friday 28. June 2019 14.55.20 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
Companies and other organisations are taking part in Free Software communities, other may oppose them. Many companies consists of different branches. Some are more inclined towards Free Software others are not. Same with people working there.
We hear this a lot. It usually gets said when a company does something harmful and gets criticised, and when the people working for such companies want it both ways: the nice salary *and* to be able to work on things that interest them within Free Software without any nasty observations about how that salary was funded or the sort of organisation those people are working for.
[...]
When searching for Facebook on our Public Money? Public Code! Brochure https://download.fsfe.org/campaigns/pmpc/PMPC-Modernising-with-Free-Software .pdf I'll only find "Facebook" being mentioned in Fernanda Weiden's short biography as her current workplace. Fernanda has done a lot for Free Software and FSFE even before she had worked for Facebook, so this is about a person foremost.
I am sure Fernanda has done a lot for Free Software, although I am not familiar with the details. (I believe that Fernanda is also a FSFE General Assembly member along with various other people whose reputations are similarly established. This reminds me of the still-unresolved matter of organisational democracy that was helpfully shunted over to the rogue mailing list only to disappear.)
(Facebook, just like the companies IBM, Microsoft and Google contribute quite significant amount code as Free Software and interact with the communities. Applaudable even if they do bad things in other areas.)
So, does Facebook deserve any kind of promotional consideration in a FSFE brochure? Would it be OK if Mark Zuckerberg wrote a piece for such a brochure? Where do we draw the line if people think that a particular company is not inherently acceptable?
Should people be OK with harmful organisations as long as they throw code over the wall or parcel out gifts to Free Software developers occasionally? Is it acceptable for communities to be bought or bribed by corporate generosity that often comes at the expense of those communities and wider society?
Seriously, I think that if we did not include who people are working for, someone would criticise us for not "disclosing" this potential conflict of interest. >:) Now readers can make up their minds from the article. This is good practice with the more serious scientific journals as well.
Of course it is good practice to acknowledge affiliations. My point was that some affiliations are problematic regardless of whether they are acknowledged or not.
This does make me think of other campaigns and activities pursued by the FSFE. Although one can argue that certain things have been prioritised purely because of enthusiasm from various members and supporters of the organisation, I find it difficult to separate some of this enthusiasm from other concerns that might have something to do with personal affiliations.
I decided not to continue supporting the FSFE financially.
Sad to see you stop donating. Thanks for the support to far! We hope to win you back some day!
(Our supporters and donors allow us to do more work and stay independent of single company donors!)
Thank you for your sentiments! Unfortunately, with the FSFE appearing less than convincing as an effective organisation operating in the interests of Free Software, I can only repeat my final remark from before...
I wonder what measures are being taken to remedy this unfortunate situation and to regain the trust and confidence that has seemingly been lost.
Paul
On 7/1/19 12:12 PM, Paul Boddie wrote:
Should people be OK with harmful organisations as long as they throw code over the wall or parcel out gifts to Free Software developers occasionally? Is it acceptable for communities to be bought or bribed by corporate generosity that often comes at the expense of those communities and wider society?
I agree with this, which is the point Christian Imhorst is also making: Companies like Google and Facebook may contribute lots of software which is in principle free software, but they don't do it in the *interest* of Free Software, or of software freedom.
Take Android. AOSP may exist, but it's practically impossible to get a phone with it, and more and more of it has, over time, been taken out and transferred to the proprietary Play ecosystem. Google does not contribute to software freedom, it *uses* software freedom for its own ends; and these ends are: Monitoring and controlling users through proprietary software, at historically unprecedented levels of detail and scale. That's more or less *the opposite* of what free software is supposed to achieve.
Take Facebook. Yes, they made some cool stuff - at least some people think React is cool (the front end people at my job think it's a untractable monolith). But once again, what they're doing is controlling their users through proprietary JavaScript and constantly nagging them to install proprietary "smartphone" apps.
For both companies, the same thing is true: They do *use* free software, and they (epecially Google) are also intelligent enough to give their developers considerable freedom to engage with communities, and they also benefit from software freedom, mixing the work of e.g. the Linux community with their own effeorts. But they, as a company, do this in order to *take away* users' freedom in order to fulfill their business model. Which is why both companies have often been caught messing around with privacy settings or lying about the consequences of their software's algorithmic surveillance of their users; which *also* is why both companies are normally *very* secretive about their operations and why *all* of their consumer-facing offerings are proprietary (I recognize Chromium as a good piece of free software, but for the masses that's not what they're promoting - but Chrome, the proprietary counterpart).
I think that the free software movement - we, as a movement - should know our friends, but to do this, we should start by knowing our enemies. And corporations that insist upon using and disseminating proprietary software in order to control their users, *are* enemies of free software, not friends. They may have sympatethic individuals working for them (obviously they do!), but that doesn't alter the fact that these companies, by their very operations and their very business model, are deeply hostile to ordinary users' freedom to use, inspect, change, share and generally control their own software.
Best Carsten
Paul,
Am Montag 01 Juli 2019 12:12:58 schrieb Paul Boddie:
This reminds me of the still-unresolved matter of organisational democracy that was helpfully shunted over to the rogue mailing list only to disappear.
the question of "organisation democracy" in the FSFE has been discussed many times (over the ~18 years of FSFE's existence).
(From my perspective it has been answered so many times that it is getting boring because arguments repeat themselfs, new arguments are rare. And without arguments people won't change their position.)
So a short summary from my personal perspective: * Democracy is "a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting." The question is: who are the citizens? * FSFE is a social group (which "can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity." backed up by a Germany registered association ("eingetragener Verein") and recognised tax charity to hold assets. * The association itself internally is governed by a membership assembly where votes are used according to the German association law https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vereinsrecht_(Deutschland) You could call this "democratic" if you accept the members of the association to be the "citizens". If so we are fully "democratic" as the German courts and tax office monitor this. * It is normal to only accept members in a social group, if they share similiar goals (and matching personal behaviourial standards). It is similiar normal for an association to only accept members if they share the constitutional goals. There is and cannot be a rule to accept everybody that is citizen in a country, aka real democracy, in an associations as this does not make sense for a social group holding on belive that wants to convice others. (As if the majority joins, it is the same representation that in the overal society, which already is reflected by the democratic government.) * To be able to hold and steer Free Software values for many years, FSFE was founded to rely on a number of trusted individuals (that originally FSF and Richard Stallmann approved of, and then let act in independency as a backup if they get in trouble somehow) in order to have long term stability. This was the reason the FSF* name could be used. * While everyone can easily join FSFE (as social group), the association is kept small, so that people individually know each other and can find a way to talk and come to an opinion over long term matters. But the association only facilities the work in many way. So the social group has a huge impact. But of course all social groups have power structures, so some people have more influence than others (just like everywhere). Introducing voting or more governance wouldn't change this. * There have been changes over the years in how many people join FSFE and its associations, so it is discussed, things are tried. A long term trend ended as we found that people were not really interested in holding temporary seats in the association. So we are doing something else, to make it easier to join FSFE (both) and to promote and help Free Software. * FSFE (in both senses) has been growing (most time of its existance), more people, more diversity, more employees, more topic, contacts and obligations. Which is a challenge as personal contact between people is becoming more difficult and there is so much going on. * This all is an ongoing challenge for 18 years and we are facing it.
Regards, Bernhard
Hi,
at the risk of beating a dead horse - repeating an argument does not make it tru-er. This issue does not go away because it remains the essential weakness of FSFE in its current form. Sure, "FSFE was founded to rely on a number of trusted individuals”, but that was 20 years ago. Outside of this echo chamber, 3/4 of them today are invisible or inactive. This hurts FSFEs reputation and impact.
To speak in Albert Hirschman’s terms, everybody faces the choice to raise their voice to influence an organisation their care about or to exit. If people’s voices are made irrelevant, they will eventually stop trying to change things and looks for better ways to invest their energy. I am contributing my time at OSI now. They do have elections.
Best,
Mirko.
On 26. Sep 2019, at 10:42, Bernhard E. Reiter bernhard@fsfe.org wrote:
Paul,
Am Montag 01 Juli 2019 12:12:58 schrieb Paul Boddie:
This reminds me of the still-unresolved matter of organisational democracy that was helpfully shunted over to the rogue mailing list only to disappear.
the question of "organisation democracy" in the FSFE has been discussed many times (over the ~18 years of FSFE's existence).
(From my perspective it has been answered so many times that it is getting boring because arguments repeat themselfs, new arguments are rare. And without arguments people won't change their position.)
So a short summary from my personal perspective:
- Democracy is "a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting." The question is: who are the citizens?
- FSFE is a social group (which "can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity." backed up by a Germany registered association ("eingetragener Verein") and recognised tax charity to hold assets.
- The association itself internally is governed by a membership assembly where votes are used according to the German association law https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vereinsrecht_(Deutschland) You could call this "democratic" if you accept the members of the association to be the "citizens". If so we are fully "democratic" as the German courts and tax office monitor this.
- It is normal to only accept members in a social group, if they share similiar goals (and matching personal behaviourial standards). It is similiar normal for an association to only accept members if they share the constitutional goals. There is and cannot be a rule to accept everybody that is citizen in a country, aka real democracy, in an associations as this does not make sense for a social group holding on belive that wants to convice others. (As if the majority joins, it is the same representation that in the overal society, which already is reflected by the democratic government.)
- To be able to hold and steer Free Software values for many years, FSFE was founded to rely on a number of trusted individuals (that originally FSF and Richard Stallmann approved of, and then let act in independency as a backup if they get in trouble somehow) in order to have long term stability. This was the reason the FSF* name could be used.
- While everyone can easily join FSFE (as social group), the association is kept small, so that people individually know each other and can find a way to talk and come to an opinion over long term matters. But the association only facilities the work in many way. So the social group has a huge impact. But of course all social groups have power structures, so some people have more influence than others (just like everywhere). Introducing voting or more governance wouldn't change this.
- There have been changes over the years in how many people join FSFE and its associations, so it is discussed, things are tried. A long term trend ended as we found that people were not really interested in holding temporary seats in the association. So we are doing something else, to make it easier to join FSFE (both) and to promote and help Free Software.
- FSFE (in both senses) has been growing (most time of its existance), more people, more diversity, more employees, more topic, contacts and obligations. Which is a challenge as personal contact between people is becoming more difficult and there is so much going on.
- This all is an ongoing challenge for 18 years and we are facing it.
Regards, Bernhard
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Hi Mirko,
Am Donnerstag 26 September 2019 22:27:17 schrieb Mirko Boehm:
repeating an argument does not make it tru-er.
that is correct, but the same holds for critical arguments: Just repeating them, does not convince more people.
Still to know the arguments and positions is the basis for a constructive discussion.
This issue does not go away because it remains the essential weakness of FSFE in its current form.
Or it is a strength, depending on the viewpoint. FSFE could avoid a number of drawback of other organisations.
Sure, "FSFE was founded to rely on a number of trusted individuals”, but that was 20 years ago. Outside of this echo chamber, 3/4 of them today are invisible or inactive. This hurts FSFEs reputation and impact.
Depends on the task, if the idea is to support the social group, I'd rather have people that do not want to be in public light and work constructively in the background.
To speak in Albert Hirschman’s terms, everybody faces the choice to raise their voice to influence an organisation their care about or to exit. If people’s voices are made irrelevant, they will eventually stop trying to change things and looks for better ways to invest their energy.
Like everywhere people will have to convince others that their proposed change is for the better. Same with FSFE and a lot of change done over the years. If you propose something and cannot convice enough others, you can leave but you can also stay in the organisation sharing the same values, as you never get all proposal implemented.
I am contributing my time at OSI now. They do have elections.
If OSI with their less political position is a better fit for you, I'd say this is natural. And FSFE and OSI can cooperate on good occasions.
Best Regards, Bernhard
On Friday 27. September 2019 12.30.19 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
Sure, "FSFE was founded to rely on a number of trusted individuals”, but that was 20 years ago. Outside of this echo chamber, 3/4 of them today are invisible or inactive. This hurts FSFEs reputation and impact.
Depends on the task, if the idea is to support the social group, I'd rather have people that do not want to be in public light and work constructively in the background.
It seemed to me when I last looked at any minutes from FSFE meetings that a lot of people eligible to vote were either delegating their votes to the leadership or just not voting at all. They might be happy with the way everything is going but what does that actually mean, ultimately? Especially if those people are inactive and just retain their membership because it is nice to have.
Some people might claim that various voting members are not really inactive because they still develop or promote Free Software, or whatever. Well, if so, that doesn't make them any different from the rest of us. (Admittedly, the rest of us don't tend to do things like park $100000 destined for improving Free Software in a bank account for four years and not communicate with the people whose money that was, but apart from small things like that.)
To speak in Albert Hirschman’s terms, everybody faces the choice to raise their voice to influence an organisation their care about or to exit. If people’s voices are made irrelevant, they will eventually stop trying to change things and looks for better ways to invest their energy.
Like everywhere people will have to convince others that their proposed change is for the better. Same with FSFE and a lot of change done over the years. If you propose something and cannot convice enough others, you can leave but you can also stay in the organisation sharing the same values, as you never get all proposal implemented.
I think that after a while it becomes tiresome to play the games of convincing people supposedly working towards the same goals to step outside their comfort zone and to pay attention to matters of genuine concern amongst those who support and fund the organisation. Democratic mechanisms are meant to provide ways of informing the leadership and direction of organisations; removing them puts an obligation on the organisation to discover whether it is still doing the right thing by its supporters.
Of course, people can withdraw their support at any time, too, if they feel that the direction of the organisation has diverged from their own priorities, or even if they simply feel that the sense of community is no longer there. Although this will happen anyway because you cannot satisfy everyone completely, if the only alternative to complete (and probably passive) satisfaction (or apathy) is to quit then the result will not be a vibrant and healthy organisation.
Now, there was that FSFE-in-2020 survey done a while back. I asked about it again in February, but no response was forthcoming. If supporters cannot be fully included in processes that some of them may have participated in themselves, then they aren't going to feel very included or that the organisation is very transparent. They will feel that the organisation is not being run for them or for their benefit, that it is an "inhibitor" rather than an "effect multiplier" of their own activities furthering supposedly shared goals.
(Which brings me to the matter of FSFE's opaque legal conference that may or may not be funded by the supporters, out of which they get a list of vague topic headings and reassurances that it was a worthwhile exercise.)
Paul
Hi Paul,
Am Freitag 27 September 2019 18:00:28 schrieb Paul Boddie:
It seemed to me when I last looked at any minutes from FSFE meetings that a lot of people eligible to vote were either delegating their votes to the leadership or just not voting at all.
those formal meetings of the association are best done briefly. This keeps the minutes small and makes it easy for the tax and courts to verify that it is formally fine. This is good as it is a formal framework. The actually work is not in different times and places.
Admittedly, the rest of us don't tend to do things like park $100000 destined for improving Free Software in a bank account for four years
This is book-keeping, the association is the formal employer of people and because some incomes and costs for FSFE's mission come unplanned, we want to make sure there is a reserve so we can be a proper employer. Because FSFE is a public charity we must give a reason for the reserve.
and not communicate with the people whose money that was, but apart from small things like that.
People trust us to treat other people fine, this includes being a good employers, paying all releveant social security taxes and a lot more. I don't believe we should communicate all those details which are "normal" for an organisation that has a few employees.
On the scale of what FSFE does, we write, microblog and even video a lot, this increases over time. For this year I've quick-counted 26 entries on https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.html so far.
I think that after a while it becomes tiresome to play the games of convincing people supposedly working towards the same goals to step outside their comfort zone and to pay attention to matters of genuine concern amongst those who support and fund the organisation.
The main concern of FSFE is furthering Free Software, empower people and society in the area of software technology. As there are many volunteers within FSFE and we are all humans, there are different ideas how to pursue this goal. And from them there are directions formed (and asked and communicated about). This also means that no all ideas can be followup on equally. Still what we as social group FSFE know is evolving, this process is never to end for the good, because the world keeps turning.
Democratic mechanisms are meant to provide ways of informing the leadership and direction of organisations; removing them puts an obligation on the organisation to discover whether it is still doing the right thing by its supporters.
FSFE has this obligation anyway, which is good. Also if our supporters were in the majority going to support non-free software, FSFE cannot follow suit because this is outside the limits of our constitution.
There are many way how supporters, (previously) external people and folks can influence what we (as FSFE) do and where we go. One is to bring up a good idea here on the public discussion list or voice it in one of the meetings.
Now, there was that FSFE-in-2020 survey done a while back. I asked about it again in February, but no response was forthcoming.
Answered now, sorry for the late response, thanks for the reminder.
(Which brings me to the matter of FSFE's opaque legal conference that may or may not be funded by the supporters, out of which they get a list of vague topic headings and reassurances that it was a worthwhile exercise.)
The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html and we report on it each year.
The main advantage of the meeting that people can exchange themselves, so there is no direct aim for a result. (FSFE was criticised before for not forcing the agenda, but most people in FSFE believe that we cannot force people's opinion, while it is good at the same time to bring people together that are genuinely interested in Free Software licensing together.)
https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201907.en.html only has a short report and it could be longer. The one from 2018 almost seems too long for most readers https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180530-02.de.html Some donors of FSFE specifically sponsor the Legal conference, so I'd personally expect this actually to be something that financially supports other activies of FSFE. However this probably varies from year to year.
Best Regards, Bernhard
On Tuesday 8. October 2019 17.44.02 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
Am Freitag 27 September 2019 18:00:28 schrieb Paul Boddie:
Admittedly, the rest of us don't tend to do things like park $100000 destined for improving Free Software in a bank account for four years
This is book-keeping, the association is the formal employer of people and because some incomes and costs for FSFE's mission come unplanned, we want to make sure there is a reserve so we can be a proper employer. Because FSFE is a public charity we must give a reason for the reserve.
I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/
Some people might remember that although I broadly supported this campaign, I was rather annoyed by the suggestion that other people get on board to be part of a "community". My own experiences with related projects indicated that community-building and working with other projects was not exactly a priority amongst the people involved:
https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2015-June/010578.html
Four years on, and I guess I was right to express what I did back then. I feel sorry for anyone who put up money and expected to see anything come out of it.
[...]
and not communicate with the people whose money that was, but apart from small things like that.
Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point meaningful engagement ends.
But I presume that many people involved with Free Software advocacy are not satisfied with a bunch of other people telling them that "we got this" (that is, they will deliver a solution on behalf of everyone else), not least because Free Software is a collaborative endeavour.
There is a risk of sending the crude message that "we just want your money" (not any expertise you might have) which can also be demotivating and disempowering if it anoints a chosen entity to deliver "the solution" and relegates everyone else to being the unhelpful "competition". It is even worse when the money could have been doing some/more good elsewhere.
[...]
(Which brings me to the matter of FSFE's opaque legal conference that may or may not be funded by the supporters, out of which they get a list of vague topic headings and reassurances that it was a worthwhile exercise.)
The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html and we report on it each year.
The main advantage of the meeting that people can exchange themselves, so there is no direct aim for a result. (FSFE was criticised before for not forcing the agenda, but most people in FSFE believe that we cannot force people's opinion, while it is good at the same time to bring people together that are genuinely interested in Free Software licensing together.)
https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201907.en.html only has a short report and it could be longer. The one from 2018 almost seems too long for most readers https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180530-02.de.html Some donors of FSFE specifically sponsor the Legal conference, so I'd personally expect this actually to be something that financially supports other activies of FSFE. However this probably varies from year to year.
The problem when reconciling this activity with an organisation seeking to cultivate some kind of membership, community or broad support is in convincing this latter group that such an activity, from which they are largely excluded, is working in their interests and deserves to be part of the same organisation.
In other words, when told that the organisation has "got this" (meaning that it is providing some kind of solution), the supporters can only assume and trust that the outcomes will be beneficial to them. Meanwhile, other organisations with arguably less "democracy" pursue such activities transparently and let their supporters know what they have been saying and doing.
The impression this leaves is that there is the VIP track, with all the benefits and a degree of opacity within which conflicts of interest could easily develop, and then there is the ordinary supporter track. The inevitable tensions that such distinctions introduce tend to be rather damaging to any kind of collaborative endeavour in the long run.
Paul
Am Mittwoch 09 Oktober 2019 15:16:23 schrieb Paul Boddie:
I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark
Thanks for clarifying. I think it is clear that FSFE volunteers have other professional lives and need to earn their living. Many of them are still related to Free Software and thus FSFE may report on their activities and these lists can be used to chat and talk about all Free Software activities. If someone mails here, it can be completely unrelated to FSFE itself.
Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns.
In my observation the FSFE tries to address all genuine concerns and does get a grade B ("good" over the average) on transparency compared to a large group of organisation and charities. We can and should improve. In addition our balances are checked by the tax office, we must use the money for our constitution.
What we do *not have to do* is: * Bring in specific decision processes (e.g. ones that are too heavy) * Let everbody join * Record and publish everything that is said or written for our decision processes.
Coming to opinions need protected spaces (even in governments), not everybody likes this, but the majority in FSFE and democracies in Europe do.
Most of our supported - as I take it - do not want the FSFE to become an organisation that has elaborate public decision processes, they want us to to campaigns like "public money public code", support that Free Software can be written, used and people, organisations and government are educated about it. We also are a counter weight to commercial interest lobbying that serves interest of single individuals.
The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html and we report on it each year.
The problem when reconciling this activity with an organisation seeking to cultivate some kind of membership, community or broad support is in convincing this latter group that such an activity, from which they are largely excluded, is working in their interests and deserves to be part of the same organisation.
The people participating in the legal network are not necessarily members of FSFE (association and social group). FSFE provides a space for them to exchange, while at the same time FSFE can participate, which is a bit of influence. So we get a bit of influence without costs about what legal experts that have an interested in Free Software are talking about and what their organisations (if they represent them) are taking a focus in. To me this sounds like a good thing.
In other words, when told that the organisation has "got this" (meaning that it is providing some kind of solution), the supporters can only assume and trust that the outcomes will be beneficial to them.
Or read the reports and look at other actions of FSFE close the the legal field, like: Router Freedom https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/ Rooting keeps your warranty https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.en.html
Meanwhile, other organisations with arguably less "democracy" pursue such activities transparently and let their supporters know what they have been saying and doing.
Please make an example here. FSFE publishes more and more stuff over the years as far as I observe. (Because this is also a matter of bandwidth.)
The impression this leaves is that there is the VIP track, with all the benefits and a degree of opacity within which conflicts of interest could easily develop, and then there is the ordinary supporter track.
The "VIP track" is called "volunteer". :) Go to one of the local meetings, help with a booth, join the social group FSFE and you see that you'll learn much more details about the many things that we do.
https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
Best Regards, Bernhard
On Thursday 10. October 2019 10.45.48 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
Am Mittwoch 09 Oktober 2019 15:16:23 schrieb Paul Boddie:
I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark
Thanks for clarifying. I think it is clear that FSFE volunteers have other professional lives and need to earn their living. Many of them are still related to Free Software and thus FSFE may report on their activities and these lists can be used to chat and talk about all Free Software activities. If someone mails here, it can be completely unrelated to FSFE itself.
I am aware of all of this, and I wouldn't want to stop anyone earning their living. But what I take exception to is the way that people do things in the name of furthering Free Software that end up being ineffective or even counterproductive or harmful.
And, bringing back my original point about people in privileged positions versus everybody else, while some apparently random individual appealing for interest in his crowdfunding campaign might not get much traction, it is a different matter for people with a certain reputation and stature within a community.
To be fair, I have also written content about various crowdfunding exercises that have not yet delivered anything, and I do feel a certain level of regret that people might have taken my writing as a kind of recommendation, even though I probably made it clear that I was bringing it to the attention of the readership and hopefully allowing them to make an informed decision by themselves.
But then again, I have not been running any such campaigns myself, and despite the current status of the campaigns I have written about and even supported myself, those responsible have given some indication of having tried to realise their goals. Indeed, I recognise that those responsible have endured hardship in attempting to deliver what they envisaged. Once again, we all become victims of "performance capitalism" as the funding platforms take their cut regardless of the outcome.
[...]
Most of our supported - as I take it - do not want the FSFE to become an organisation that has elaborate public decision processes, they want us to to campaigns like "public money public code", support that Free Software can be written, used and people, organisations and government are educated about it.
How do you know in any detail what most of the supporters want?
[...]
The people participating in the legal network are not necessarily members of FSFE (association and social group). FSFE provides a space for them to exchange, while at the same time FSFE can participate, which is a bit of influence. So we get a bit of influence without costs about what legal experts that have an interested in Free Software are talking about and what their organisations (if they represent them) are taking a focus in. To me this sounds like a good thing.
It could be, yes. But what are the motivations for the other participants? For example, there is some controversy about licence enforcement and there are various commercial interests who probably do fairly well offering services to companies around releasing software that complies with the obligations in various Free Software licences.
It appears that some of those commercial interests might not entirely welcome initiatives to make licence compliance more obvious and transparent, mostly because their businesses are predicated on the idea that such stuff is difficult to get right, that professional help is necessary to get it right, and that companies can be offered services to make some kind of "threat" disappear.
What are the rest of us to make of an event where the proceedings are not readily available and where the participants discuss topics directly connected to their business models that depend on limited transparency?
Are we left to assume that whatever consensus was reached at this event is the reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending code.)
And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who presumably does not participate in this event)?
Ultimately, the danger here is that people supporting an organisation end up also supporting counterproductive or harmful behaviour, all because it is not possible to scrutinise what people are saying and doing.
[...]
Meanwhile, other organisations with arguably less "democracy" pursue such activities transparently and let their supporters know what they have been saying and doing.
Please make an example here.
In the context of legal initiatives around Free Software licensing, the Software Freedom Conservancy is my example.
[...]
The impression this leaves is that there is the VIP track, with all the benefits and a degree of opacity within which conflicts of interest could easily develop, and then there is the ordinary supporter track.
The "VIP track" is called "volunteer". :)
Not really. Like others, I have made my thoughts available to those willing to document and understand the mechanisms of volunteer culture and the deficiencies of organisations in engaging, motivating and recognising volunteer contributions.
Paul
On 10/10/19 2:04 PM, Paul Boddie wrote:
Are we left to assume that whatever consensus was reached at this event is the reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending code.)
Excuse me, but I don't understand the reference. Could you clarify?
And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who presumably does not participate in this event)?
Ditto, i.e., re: the lawsuit.
Best, Carsten
On Thursday 10. October 2019 18.33.57 Carsten Agger wrote:
On 10/10/19 2:04 PM, Paul Boddie wrote:
Are we left to assume that whatever consensus was reached at this event is the reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending code.)
Excuse me, but I don't understand the reference. Could you clarify?
https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/
And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who presumably does not participate in this event)?
Ditto, i.e., re: the lawsuit.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2017/nov/03/sflc-legal-action/
Paul
<disclaimer> I'm both a participant of the FSFE legal network since its very first incarnation as well as a member of the FSFE legal team. I've also been sitting on the programme committee of the annual legal network conference. I am not a formal member of FSFE GA, I don't represent FSFE formally, but I do care deeply about FOSS and copyleft. </disclaimer>
On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 02:04:29PM +0200, Paul Boddie wrote:
The people participating in the legal network are not necessarily members of FSFE (association and social group). FSFE provides a space for them to exchange, while at the same time FSFE can participate, which is a bit of influence. So we get a bit of influence without costs about what legal experts that have an interested in Free Software are talking about and what their organisations (if they represent them) are taking a focus in. To me this sounds like a good thing.
It could be, yes. But what are the motivations for the other participants? For example, there is some controversy about licence enforcement and there are various commercial interests who probably do fairly well offering services to companies around releasing software that complies with the obligations in various Free Software licences.
As somebody with a strong interest in license compliance and license enforcement and somebody who has been participating the FSFE Legal Network, let me share my view:
The FSFE LN is amazing. I am certain there is no other community on this planet that brings together legal experts around FOSS from all different backgrounds.
It is very clear that some of those people attending (or their employers) have completely different interests and motivations as those with a strong "pro community" or "pro copyleft" point of view like myself, or like the FSFE position would be.
But it's great that people can exchange their different points of view in a professional and respectful manner, and engage in relatively open discoures [facilitated by the Chatham House rule].
Not only is there a mixture of different positions and agendas, but it's also a mixture of people with [formal] legal background with people from the developer communities, including some very high-profile developers from the Linux kernel community.
The FSFE hosting the legal network, and organizing the related annual events puts it in a very good position to not only observe and watch, but to actually influence (whether formally or informally) the discourse in the world-wide FOSS legal community at the highest level.
In fact, those members with "adverse" or "controversial" agendas perceive the fact that the FSFE runs the LN as a problem. I've seen rumours about some behind-the-scenes scheming to remove the FSFE from the equation. Alternative groups and events hosted by less community-based and more industry-friendly organizers have meanwhile been established, although AFAICT of still lesser significance/profile.
Having the FSFE hosting the netowrk and the related event is a strength from the point of the community.
It appears that some of those commercial interests might not entirely welcome initiatives to make licence compliance more obvious and transparent,
I think that's a myth. I think the only group that *might* have an interest in that direction are vendors of [proprietary] tools for license compliance checking.
mostly because their businesses are predicated on the idea that such stuff is difficult to get right, that professional help is necessary to get it right, and that companies can be offered services to make some kind of "threat" disappear.
The participants of the legal network are mostly lawyers on staff of various for-profit and non-for-profit entities. They are not service providers earning money off consulting. I'd argue you wouldn't find anyone among the LN who would intentionally want to keep license compliance less obvious or less transparent. To the contrary (see initiatives such as SPDX or openchain, etc.
Your accusations sound like "You cannot trust software developers attending a technical conference, because their main motivation is to sell their own software development services, so they will perpetually make software more complex to sell even more software development services". While for some sales/business people that might be true, the actual experts in this area for decades (whether engineers or legal experts) are the ones that want to simply stuff, whether it's license compliance or code architecture.
What are the rest of us to make of an event where the proceedings are not readily available and where the participants discuss topics directly connected to their business models that depend on limited transparency?
The fact that legal counsels of major corporations come together to meet with both their peers at the competition as well as formal and informal community representatives is worth a lot. It will be quite obvious that they cannot join discussions if they have to fear that every word they say can an will be used against them.
I do think that more information about the LN could be published, in terms of statistics (like number of members from corporate legal counsels, independent lawyers, software engineers, geographic distribution, etc.), but I am confident it can only work if the actual discussion content can be kept private to that group, guarded by the Chatham House rule.
reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending code.)
It is new to me that the FSFE is being indifferent about license compliance. In fact, for many years virtually everyone there have been pushing me to resurrect gpl-violations.org - which I still have not and cannot due to time constraints. I work 60-80 hours per week on FOSS as it is, and I have to set priorities.
I've been attending court hearings of GPL compliance related lawsuits in Germany (not referring to those I was involved as a plaintiff or side intervener, but merely watching/observing), and often Max or Matthias (or others) were present, too. At no point during the conversations I ever had any doubt that they are against license compliance or against enforcement. The thought seems absurd to me.
And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who presumably does not participate in this event)?
Maybe the process/structures of the LN could be made more public. During my time at the programme committee I never have seen any influence from sponsors in terms of the agenda of the event. So if you're worried about sponsors being able to set the agenda: I have no concerns there.
Ultimately, the danger here is that people supporting an organisation end up also supporting counterproductive or harmful behaviour, all because it is not possible to scrutinise what people are saying and doing.
I guess you will have to have some level of trust for the people who are actually involved with the related activities.
On Wednesday 16. October 2019 16.24.37 Harald Welte wrote:
Not only is there a mixture of different positions and agendas, but it's also a mixture of people with [formal] legal background with people from the developer communities, including some very high-profile developers from the Linux kernel community.
Amongst this group of developers, are there any of the usual suspects who believe that promising future compliance is better than actually delivering compliant software here and now or righting previous or ongoing licence violations? This being the "jam tomorrow" doctrine that has seen people hounded by the kernel development community for wanting to obtain the source code for things that people have actually spent their own money on.
[...]
In fact, those members with "adverse" or "controversial" agendas perceive the fact that the FSFE runs the LN as a problem. I've seen rumours about some behind-the-scenes scheming to remove the FSFE from the equation. Alternative groups and events hosted by less community-based and more industry-friendly organizers have meanwhile been established, although AFAICT of still lesser significance/profile.
Well, if transparency isn't a priority, I'm sure there will be all sorts of scheming going on.
Having the FSFE hosting the netowrk and the related event is a strength from the point of the community.
It might be, but how does the community measure the benefits this event supposedly delivers?
[...]
Your accusations sound like "You cannot trust software developers attending a technical conference, because their main motivation is to sell their own software development services, so they will perpetually make software more complex to sell even more software development services". While for some sales/business people that might be true, the actual experts in this area for decades (whether engineers or legal experts) are the ones that want to simply stuff, whether it's license compliance or code architecture.
Software developers do not typically go to technical conferences where the proceedings are not available and where everyone is bound by rigid "think tank" rules on reporting what anyone may or may not have said.
[...]
I do think that more information about the LN could be published, in terms of statistics (like number of members from corporate legal counsels, independent lawyers, software engineers, geographic distribution, etc.), but I am confident it can only work if the actual discussion content can be kept private to that group, guarded by the Chatham House rule.
The problem with this from the perspective of an outsider, who is or has been supporting a community-oriented organisation like FSFE, is that it doesn't give me anything more than "indicators". It reminds me of corporate surveys of employee satisfaction where high-quality information may have gone into the process but at the end all that came out in the presentation made to employees was a bunch of vague satisfaction numbers and the usual self-congratulatory conclusion that "things are good but we can be even better".
Or, in other terms, a particular tree may fall down in the woods, but at best we will only ever get a breakdown of fallen trees by species over a particular reporting period.
reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending code.)
(I assume that you would have already known which case I am referring to here even before I posted a link about it the other day.)
It is new to me that the FSFE is being indifferent about license compliance. In fact, for many years virtually everyone there have been pushing me to resurrect gpl-violations.org - which I still have not and cannot due to time constraints. I work 60-80 hours per week on FOSS as it is, and I have to set priorities.
So why are they pushing you to do something and not doing something themselves?
I've been attending court hearings of GPL compliance related lawsuits in Germany (not referring to those I was involved as a plaintiff or side intervener, but merely watching/observing), and often Max or Matthias (or others) were present, too. At no point during the conversations I ever had any doubt that they are against license compliance or against enforcement. The thought seems absurd to me.
I said that they were indifferent about a particular case. Sadly, I cannot readily search the FSFE site to see whether the organisation did take a clear and active position on that case, nor is it as obvious as it used to be that the organisation is taking a stand on such issues generally. Maybe the way things are communicated is so diffuse that it becomes difficult to perceive what the organisation prioritises any more.
And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who presumably does not participate in this event)?
Maybe the process/structures of the LN could be made more public. During my time at the programme committee I never have seen any influence from sponsors in terms of the agenda of the event. So if you're worried about sponsors being able to set the agenda: I have no concerns there.
I am more worried about organisations supposedly serving the Free Software community spending more time and effort attacking each other and dividing up into factions, potentially driven by agendas we cannot readily perceive (even if they may not be more complicated than greed or self-interest), than those organisations actually focusing on furthering the cause of Free Software.
Ultimately, the danger here is that people supporting an organisation end up also supporting counterproductive or harmful behaviour, all because it is not possible to scrutinise what people are saying and doing.
I guess you will have to have some level of trust for the people who are actually involved with the related activities.
Of course. But we end up once again in a situation where us outsiders only hear "we got this" and merely have to take people's word for it, even though there are plenty of situations in the wider world where people gladly make such statements and then proceed to do whatever they see fit, which may range from actually doing what they promised, through doing nothing at all, all the way to actively working against what people want and expect.
And I understand that it can be tiresome to hear people like me complaining about it, just as it is tiresome for me to do the complaining. I'm quite sure that this isn't the only mailing list where people wonder "why is this guy still here?".
But if everything ends up only being about what a select group of "top men" think about some topic or other - because who are these other people anyway? - then it becomes a matter of the "top men" doing their own thing and everyone else struggling to see what relevance it has to them. And the next thing that happens is that everyone else just leaves them to it.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk writes:
The problem with this from the perspective of an outsider, who is or has been supporting a community-oriented organisation like FSFE, is that it doesn't give me anything more than "indicators".
I agree that we should be more transparent about the Legal Network. I am sure it does great work, but even as a GA member, I still have a very limited perspective. I noticed that on several occasions. I think there have been some improvements in that regard, but not enough yet. I think something that would be good is news items about the work there. Without knowing exactly what happens in the LN, it is hard for me to say if that would be feasible, but I would imagine there are success stories that all parties involved would be happy to talk about.
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi Bernhard,
"Bernhard E. Reiter" bernhard@fsfe.org writes:
The "VIP track" is called "volunteer". :)
Really nicely said. It took me half a paragraph to express the same idea.
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi Paul,
Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk writes:
I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member:
I am also very unhappy with how that went. I backed the campaign as well and got nothing out of it. I need to go back and find the original announcement e-mail on this list, but I sincerely hope there was no advertising *as* as GA member. I would expect this to be clearly marked as a private opinion. If it was not, we need to communicate that better for the future.
Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point meaningful engagement ends.
That is indeed something we need to watch out for. I personally feel that people who engage with us, either here on the list or in our teams, have access to a lot of information. We usually share it within teams because those teams work on those topics. And if it sounds interesting to everyone, we make it a news item or so. We also work hard to make those ways to engage more visible: That is why we have a redesigned contribute page on our website and why we don't have guest accounts anymore. If someone supports us by dedicating time, they get the same benefits as a supporter and I feel that is a meaningful way to engage. I know this is all anecdotal, but I very much felt that when I started engaging with the FSFE. I very quickly became part of many teams and my opinion is always valued, especially because I tend to disagree. So what I understand from you is that we should do the same for people who don't engage with us in our work, but who give us money. What would you feel is a good way to achieve that?
Happy hacking! Florian
On Monday 21. October 2019 07.20.49 Florian Snow wrote:
Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk writes:
I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member:
I am also very unhappy with how that went. I backed the campaign as well and got nothing out of it. I need to go back and find the original announcement e-mail on this list, but I sincerely hope there was no advertising *as* as GA member. I would expect this to be clearly marked as a private opinion. If it was not, we need to communicate that better for the future.
Well, I didn't back it because I felt I had already spent enough time and energy on various related projects - with rather little to show for it, ultimately - and I therefore felt that people could decide for themselves whether it was worth the risk. As the thread at the time can attest, I was somewhat irritated by the appeal to community being made, so people probably got a bit more information to digest before making a decision.
From what I understand, the campaign's chief protagonists are doing other
things now: one is apparently doing something with blockchain, the other was last seen working at the Wikimedia Foundation. I can understand that it can be awkward to revisit things that did not work out, but as far as I know the funds were never spent, so it is not necessarily a failure situation. However, it is not really my role to investigate such matters.
Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point meaningful engagement ends.
[...]
If someone supports us by dedicating time, they get the same benefits as a supporter and I feel that is a meaningful way to engage.
I agree with this approach, in fact. That said, organisations have to be very careful not to have people doing an actual job without getting paid for it.
I know this is all anecdotal, but I very much felt that when I started engaging with the FSFE. I very quickly became part of many teams and my opinion is always valued, especially because I tend to disagree. So what I understand from you is that we should do the same for people who don't engage with us in our work, but who give us money. What would you feel is a good way to achieve that?
Well, just as with the average crowdfunding campaign, communication is the principal remedy for any perceived lack of transparency. It really shouldn't be the case of people either giving money or volunteering their time, however. The attraction of FSFE, at least for me, was the level of engagement that appeared to be possible, where one would be happy donating *and* getting involved in activities within a community around the organisation.
But I rather perceive that things seem to happen in a more top-down fashion now. Important and strategic things seem to be the preserve of a few, admittedly very dedicated, individuals. Eventually, everyone else gets to hear about what has been going on, giving feedback about things very late in the day (like whether it really is a smart thing to endorse legislative concessions that mostly benefit only GitHub).
Paul
Hi Bernhard,
Am 28.06.2019 14:55 schrieb Bernhard E. Reiter:
(Facebook, just like the companies IBM, Microsoft and Google contribute quite significant amount code as Free Software and interact with the communities. Applaudable even if they do bad things in other areas.)
nope, they didn't. They are contributing a significant amount of code to Open Source Software and take a significant amount of Open Source Software to lock their users to their proprietary cloud services. The idea of 'free as in free speech' becomes 'free as in free beer' for these companies and that's the opposite of Free Software.
It's really important to remind us of the moral dimension of software freedom and to link this to human freedom: Free Software is primarily for people and not to create freedom for companies. We've got to keep the social dimension of Free Software in perspective. Like free speech, Free Software should be a fundamental right and we should fight the proprietary vendor lock-in of cloud providers.
Best Christian Imhorst
For further watching: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/libreplanet-2018-keynote
Hi Christian, Carsten, Paul,
thanks for your thoughs on this thread! My response is coming late because school holidays were in between.
Am Dienstag 02 Juli 2019 15:36:10 schrieb Christian Imhorst:
Am 28.06.2019 14:55 schrieb Bernhard E. Reiter:
(Facebook, just like the companies IBM, Microsoft and Google contribute quite significant amount code as Free Software and interact with the communities. Applaudable even if they do bad things in other areas.)
nope, they didn't.
[..]
It's really important to remind us of the moral dimension of software freedom and to link this to human freedom: Free Software is primarily for people and not to create freedom for companies. We've got to keep the social dimension of Free Software in perspective. Like free speech, Free Software should be a fundamental right and we should fight the proprietary vendor lock-in of cloud providers.
In my view a society can only prosper and give human freedom if we have companies, because currently a "social, ecological market economy" (as it is called in Germany, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy) is wordwide the socioeconomic model which is perceived as most successful. (Even needing adjustment and balancing.)
If there are companies, we can see that they'll produce something within the laws of a democratic system which people have demand for and they are more or less progressive towards Free Software. For larger companies are so big, that they are like a hydra (the classic "monster") with many heads and some heads can be "good" and others can be "bad". Those companies evolve due to law, democratic trends, customer demands.
If we want Free Software to succeed we must transform companies towards being more compliant with the social values of Free Software, like being able to help your neighbour. So we want their "better" heads to grow in power. We want more customers demanding more products with more freedom for them and we want more services offered where this is a key selling point.
To do this we need to applaude steps that are in the right direction. It is good that Android and Chromium is Free Software, it raised the chances over Windows CE and Internet Explorer of people running this on other hardware and studying and rebuilding it for their needs (LineageOSMicroG, Iridiumbrowser).
On a more philosophical note: Altruism and self-interest can be align. (Here is a German campaign https://www.unperfekthaus.de/altruismus/ You'll also find this in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Grant 's Give or Take as "otherish". )
Regards, Bernhard