From: MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop To: discussion@fsfeurope.org Subject: FSFE ignoring OOXML? Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:22:59 +0100
There's just been a call for help on a debian mailing list. In amongst it, it includes the phrase "I did not get a response from the Free Software Foundation Europe." What's happened?
From bounce-debian-project=mjr=phonecoop.coop@lists.debian.org Tue Apr 24 06:41:23 2007 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:41:08 +0200 From: "Torsten Werner" twerner@debian.org Reply-To: mail.twerner@googlemail.com To: debian-project@lists.debian.org Subject: ballot period for ECMA 376 / DIS 29500 (aka OOXML) List-Id: <debian-project.lists.debian.org>
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If you are interested in preventing that scenario please take action *now*. Contact your national ISO bodies and tell them your interests. In Germany you can become a member of DIN's working group. I can explain the details if someone is interested. Maybe that is possible in other countries, too.
Hi all,
my name is Davide Dozza and I'm president of a new and small association which has the scope of supporting OpenOffice.org, Open Formats and more in general Free Software. I am also an FSFE Fellow.
Some days ago I asked Stefano Maffulli if it was possible to get some financial support from FSFE in order to subscribe and partecipate to OpenXML discussion inside the UNINFO, the italian national standardization body.
There was the concrete opportunity to influence the Italy's vote about Fasttrack. Unfortunately the Georg Greve answer was negative.
I was quite disappointed about. At least I expected an answer like, "yes, not for the whole, but we can contribute with few money. How much do you need?". But I didn't expect a "No, we don't have such sum available. We need to raise more funds, in particular in Italy. We are looking for volunteers.".
The cost for the subscription fee was not so much. Just 2.000 Euros. A lot for a 20-people association, but not a lot for an organization which receives 240.000 euros of Incomes and spends 31.000 Euros for travels.
As I think the OpenXML fasttrack is *very very* important for the future of free software I really wonder to know how Felloship fees are spent. More in general, *who* decides how felloships fee are spent? As I just received an answer from Greve, how are the decisions taken about?
Best regards
Davide Dozza
P.S: fortunately, thanks to a great friend, we managed to collect the necessary funds to pay UNINFO fee. Now we can vote for or against OpenXML fasttrack.
A good starting point for more information is http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671 .
Cheers, Torsten
-- blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/ homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/
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Hi Davide,
On Wednesday 25 April 2007 15:13, Davide Dozza wrote:
The cost for the subscription fee was not so much. Just 2.000 Euros. A lot for a 20-people association, but not a lot for an organization which receives 240.000 euros of Incomes and spends 31.000 Euros for travels.
some of the income actually is earmarked when it goes through our books. Like: Here you have 10 K Euro to invite speakers to a conference about GPLv3. A different view on the sum would be 10K spend on GPLv3. Or it is reembursement for us to speak, when we say: You can only have us speak if you pay the travel expenses. This is not budget we are free to spend.
As I think the OpenXML fasttrack is *very very* important for the future of free software
I personally tend to disagree a bit, see my post about this. To me software-patents, the anti-trust case, FTF, drm and GPLv3 are more important.
FSFE has spend significant resources on open standards, as Ciaran and I have pointed out. In the past it has been problematic to just give funds to other organisations, because we must be absolutely sure that this is spend within our constitutional goals and even very promissing individuals turned out to support "open source" in the end. So we only do this only on rare exceptional cases.
I really wonder to know how Felloship fees are spent. More in general, *who* decides how felloships fee are spent? As I just received an answer from Greve, how are the decisions taken about?
Georg is the elected president, running the operations and executing the decisions of the general assembly of the organisation. There is an extended executive comittee which supports him doing so. Furthermore some team leaders, like myself for Germany or Stefano for Italy do have a budget they can authorise on their own. For all those operational decisions we are liable to the general assembly which has access to the documents throughout the year and can call extraordinary meetings if then need arises. They are a bit like an advisory board.
You read about details on http://www.fsfeurope.org/about/about.en.html
Best, Bernhard
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 19:04 +0200, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
Furthermore some team leaders, like myself for Germany or Stefano for Italy do have a budget they can authorise on their own.
This needs correction: I don't have a budget, neither for Italy nor for Fellowship (the two activities I'm in charge for FSFE). For any expense or for any other decision I need to ask permission to team@ or to ga@ or to EEC.
Interesting points have been raised. I'll elaborate more later. Cheers stef
On Thursday 26 April 2007 08:47, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 19:04 +0200, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
Furthermore some team leaders, like myself for Germany or Stefano for Italy do have a budget they can authorise on their own.
This needs correction: I don't have a budget, neither for Italy nor for Fellowship (the two activities I'm in charge for FSFE). For any expense or for any other decision I need to ask permission to team@ or to ga@ or to EEC.
According to the financial plan you have, I have pointed this out internally several times. (And we should continue this clarification internally.)
Bernhard
Dear Davide,
I understand that you are unhappy about FSFE having to decline the supplying of funds to your activities. For obvious reasons, giving money to third parties is always a difficult decision -- especially when there is no track record of working together yet.
Part of that extreme caution on behalf of FSFE is our awareness that most of our money comes from people who donate this money to FSFE in the expectation that we will spend it directly and immediately on projects for the benefit of Free Software and software freedom.
Our constitution in fact obliges us to do so: giving funds to third parties is something that is strictly regulated and monitored by the German authorities.
So when we received your request for 2.4k EUR (later 2k EUR), it was clear that this would be a borderline case of what we could do. It would have required some very good argument why this was the best way to spend 2k EUR, in particular considering that this money translates to months of full-time work in Eastern Europe and at least several weeks in Western Europe.
Should we give those 2k EUR to another organisation without common track record only for getting its foot into the door of a national body of standardisation so it might or might not be able to swing the Italian vote in ISO on OpenXML? Or should we save that money so someone else can do work that directly benefits Free Software?
I'm sorry, but my answer would still remain the same.
But yes, it is important to do the work in the committee, which is why I offered you concrete, substantial cooperation on this. I could have seen various ways of working together, but unfortunately you did not follow up on that offer and invitation.
Regards, Georg
|| On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:13:02 +0200 || Davide Dozza davide@flossconsulting.it wrote:
dd> The cost for the subscription fee was not so much. Just 2.000 dd> Euros. A lot for a 20-people association, but not a lot for an dd> organization which receives 240.000 euros of Incomes and spends dd> 31.000 Euros for travels.
For your information: Of those 31k EUR, the largest part was related to the international conference on GPLv3, which FSFE organised last year and for which it received specific and dedicated funding from Stichting NLnet in the Netherlands.
Usually FSFE insists on invitations to cover travel expenses, or covers them through European Union projects or other external sources of funding, whenever possible.
At the end of the day most of our funds are spent on personell, which translates to work done for Free Software. And as you can see from the numbers, our overhead is quite low in comparison with other organisations.
And yes, we still consider 2k EUR a significant sum, as also explained in my other email.
dd> As I think the OpenXML fasttrack is *very very* important for the dd> future of free software I really wonder to know how Felloship dd> fees are spent. More in general, *who* decides how felloships dd> fee are spent? As I just received an answer from Greve, how are dd> the decisions taken about?
Decisions about significant sums (and 2k would already be in that category) are generally taken by online consultation of the members of the general assembly.
Decisions about smaller budgets and expenses within defined budgets on projects are authorised by the responsible project coordinators, or (as fallback) the Extended Executive Committe of FSFE.
Every decision that was not made by the general assembly directly remains a personal liability of the person taking the decision until the general assembly exonerates that decision.
But as the president of FSFE it is usually my duty to convey bad news, although this is certainly something I could do without.
Regards, Georg