Hello,
My brief answers to your specific questions is below and after that is
some extra information and some personal opinions.
I apologise for my lousy spelling, but it is late and I'm tired and I
lack time to proof read this.. you should also take that into count when
you think about the contents ;)
ti, 2010-06-08 kello 14:00 +0200, Karsten Gerloff kirjoitti:
...
> In order to get a picture of the current situation, inform the General
> Assembly, and improve the coordination between country teams and hub,
> I'd like to ask you as coordinators to briefly answer the following
> questions about your country team:
>
>
> - How has your team developed over the past 12 months? Did you gain
> or lose members, and did you gain or lose active people?
The Finnish team was officially established at FSCONS in the fall of
2009. The team consisted and still consists of me, Henri Bergius (deputy
coordinator) and Timo Jyrinki (translation coordinator).
> - Please give a brief summary of your activities over the past 12
> months, since June 2009.
- 2009-10-11: on the request of Karsten, I contacted some Finnish
government officials to ask them about how Finland is going to vote
about the EIFv2 draft the following week. Good for us: I was told
Finland was going to vote against. Later I was called by the assistant
of the Finnish national MP Jyrki Kasvi who asked about some additional
intel on the matter. Unfortunately I could only referr him to the FSFE
and FFII websites.
- spring 2010: I had some talks with Validos ry and COSS about how to
steer public tender makers into taking FOSS into account. Nothing
concrete followed - yet.
- spring/summer 2010: I tried to organise a gathering for all the FOSS
related organisations in Finland to discuss co-operation. There was not
much interest (passive board members in all organisations) but we now
have decided to meet during Akademy in Tampere, where I've booked a
conference room (to be exact: 2010-07-03 17:15-19:15).
- We did *not* publish any press releases.
- I held a FSFE presentation in Tampere on the 14th of April.
14 peope attended and it seemed successful. My slides are available at
http://otto.kekalainen.net/FSFE/fsfe-esitelm%c3%a4.odp (in Finnish)
- A second FSFE Fellowship meeting was held at the same location
on May 15th (10 people attended) and a third meeting on June 10th
(6 people attended). (All three events are listed and described on
the http://fsfe.org/events/ page, but I can't link to individual
entries since there are no link anchors.)
- I also held the opening presentation about Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in the
release party in Tampere May 5th, where I also briefly told about FSFE
to the audience of about 150 people.
- Timo has translated the FSFE.org website for before the Finnish team
was formed and he has kept on doing it, keeping the FSFE website very
well translated into Finnish.
- Personally I've also been active on the web@-list pointing out some
usability issues with the FSFE website and the underlying FSFE
terminology and "mental structures".
- I also took responsibility of the Google Awords account of the FSFE
but I haven't done much with it besides adding some FSFE-ads in Finnish.
- Sent a usability "report" to the PDFreaders.org webmasters, but they
didn't do much with it else than argument why their current design is
good.
> - What plans do you have for upcoming activities in the next 3-6
> months?
- I'll continue to organise monthly FSFE-event / Fellowhip meetings in
Tampere
> - What ideas do you have for activities that you'd like to undertake?
- We'll hope the cooperation with other FOSS orgs will lead to something
> - Where do you have Fellowship meetings? How often?
We'll, those who attend are mostly not Fellows and come there for a
specific topic (like FOSS in schools or OpenStreetMap) but it could be
also called a Fellowship meeting. They have been once a month since
2010-04-14.
> - What are your plans to enlarge the Fellowship in your country?
The admin of the fsfe-fi-list does not return my mails, so I don't know
how many subscribers we have now. At least the traffic is very low. It's
good to have subscribers who listen to us, but real Fellows is of course
the main goal.
I've been trying hard to recruit more Fellows, but it seems difficult.
When I started this task 2009-11-01 there where 15 Finnish fellows. Now
7 new Fellows have joined and 2 memberships expired, so we are now at 20
Fellows in Finland.
This is way too little compared to the effort put on it. E.g. at the
Ubuntu release party there was a room with 150 people, who were very
enthusiastic about supporting the FSFE especially to help break the
Windows OEM monopoly. Many people said to me that they'd like to join.
For the following weeks however only one person joined. I don't know
what it is, but there is something wrong somewhere.
I'd also like to note, that the Finnish Ubuntu-fi.org website has had a
recommendation for Ubuntu users to join FSFE for a few years. The
website has about 50 000 unique visitors per month and it is the third
largest referrer of visitors to the FSFE.org website.
I don't think this problem is specific for Finland. The stats at
https://stats.fsfe.org/awstats.pl?config=fsfe show there are 30 000
unique visitors a month. Why can we convert only so few of these to
Fellows or donators?
According to the stats at
https://stats.fellowship.fsfe.org/awstats.pl?month=05&year=2010&output=main…
the join page receives 1100 views a month, but only a dozen joins. Why
is the conversion rate so low?
>From the http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ log we know that there are
about 126 000 Ubuntu users in Finland and I'd guess that there are lots
of more people using other distros or even FOSS in Windows. Personally
I'd very much like to see that at least 10% of these would join some
organisation. If FSFE can attract only 20 Finns, maybe I should invest
my energy in some other organisation, e.g. the Finnish Linux user group?
I really don't know why others are not interested in joining (I know I
was :)) but here are some possible reasons, which of some or all may
apply:
1) FSFE does not communicate well enough _why_ anybody should support
it. Maybe we should have a better listing of our activities and
microfeeds about every issues current status? I know the web team has
done a great job since last FSCONS, but the issue feeds are still
missing and for that we need content that the issue teams should
produce, not the web team.
2) Maybe the FSFE/Fellowship thing is confusing? Maybe people want to be
"proper" members or just pure donators, and some special "donating
membership" is not interesting? Or maybe people just don't understand
what the Fellowship is? We have so many structures that we need a
terminology page
(http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/wordlist.en.html) Maybe the
organisation need to be simplified? We also how special protocols, like
we differentiate between official and inofficial mail whether it is sent
from a fsfe.org or fsfeurope.org mail address, though nobody who recives
the mail is likely to know anything about our protocols.
3) Maybe the Fellowship fee is too high? Maybe we should lower the fee
into 20-30 €/year and have donators clearly separated as those who can
afford to contribute financially?
4) Maybe the pages or the join form has usability issues? It's good that
the certificate "error" was fixed, but still e.g. the mailing list
subscription page only works for people who have installed CA-Certs and
for the rest it gives a nasty security warning. Maybe join page has
usability issues?
I don't know. I hope that the GA would come up with a plan to address
this so that that it would be easier to get more Fellows. At the moment,
the Fellowship amount is the main metric of a country teams our success.
> - what help and support do you expect / need / wish for from the
> European hub?
>
> - what would you like to do as a team in order to support the
> European hub of FSFE?
We are willing to help get more Fellows and donators so that you can do
the much needed lobbying for us at the EU and UN level. We'll also
willing an capable to do quick local actions if you start some
coordinated effort (like the EIFv2 voting thing described above).
> - as coordinators, what are your personal plans for the coming year?
> Do you think that you will be able spend more or less time on FSFE
> activities?
We'll, I'm always busy. I think that I'll have to allocate less time for
the FSFE in the future than what I've done until now. I know the other
team members are also very busy, so it would be good to find new team
members in the long run.
Remember it's not a bad thing that we are busy - all of us work
professionally with FOSS and when we are busy it means that the market
for FOSS solutions is growing in Finland.
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/ finland(a)fsfe.org
Terve,
FSFE-illassa oli tänään kuusi henkilöä minut mukaan lukien.
Laitan osavuosiraporttia sekä vuosiraporttia Karstenin pyynnön
mukaisesti lähipäivinä menemään. Jos ehdin, laitan teille vuosiraportin
oikoluettavaksi/kommentoitavaksi, jotta se edustaisi koko tiimiä eikä
vain minua.
Tavataanko me muuten Akademyssä?
------- Välitetty viesti ---------
Lähettäjä: Karsten Gerloff <gerloff(a)fsfeurope.org>
Reply-to: gerloff(a)fsfeurope.org
Vastaanottaja: kekalainen(a)fsfeurope.org, bergius(a)fsfeurope.org
Kopiot: council(a)fsfeurope.org
Aihe: Input needed: FSFE country team Finland
Päiväys: Tue, 8 Jun 2010 14:00:27 +0200
Dear Otto, Henri,
the weekend after next, FSFE's General Assembly will take place. We'll
discuss how the past 12 months went, and set FSFE's strategy for the
coming year.
Country teams are an important part of FSFE's work. They know best
what needs to be done in their countries, and can tell the European
hub about it. They can also take the work of the European hub to the
local level.
The past year has been challenging, as the new executive team has had
to settle in and find its way around the organisation. This has meant
that the coordination between country teams and the hub has not been
as vibrant as we would like it to be. We're working hard to improve
this, and need your input to do so.
In order to get a picture of the current situation, inform the General
Assembly, and improve the coordination between country teams and hub,
I'd like to ask you as coordinators to briefly answer the following
questions about your country team:
- How has your team developed over the past 12 months? Did you gain
or lose members, and did you gain or lose active people?
- Please give a brief summary of your activities over the past 12
months, since June 2009.
- What plans do you have for upcoming activities in the next 3-6
months?
- What ideas do you have for activities that you'd like to undertake?
- Where do you have Fellowship meetings? How often?
- What are your plans to enlarge the Fellowship in your country?
- what help and support do you expect / need / wish for from the
European hub?
- what would you like to do as a team in order to support the
European hub of FSFE?
- as coordinators, what are your personal plans for the coming year?
Do you think that you will be able spend more or less time on FSFE
activities?
Please send your answers to these questions to
council(a)fsfeurope.org
by *Sunday June 13* at the latest.
Thank you very much for your answers, and for your work with FSFE!
Best regards,
Karsten
Best regards,
Karsten
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/ finland(a)fsfe.org
Hello,
I've been rather busy (again), so the report about our FSFE activites is short.
This is the report for Q2 even though it's not yet over, since the GA is coming up.
I'll also send a report that covers all activities of that last 12 months
(or 2009/09-2010/06 to be specific).
- Finnish member count changed from 19 to 20 (two new members, one didn't renew).
- I held a FSFE presentation in Tampere on the 14th of April.
14 peope attended and it seemed successful. My slides are available at
http://otto.kekalainen.net/FSFE/fsfe-esitelm%c3%a4.odp (in Finnish)
- A second FSFE Fellowship meeting was held at the same location
on May 15th (10 people attended) and a third meeting on June 10th
(6 people attended). (All three events are listed and described on
the http://fsfe.org/events/ page, but I can't link to individual
entries since there are no link anchors.)
- I also held the opening presentation about Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in the
release party in Tampere May 5th, where I also briefly told about FSFE
to the audience of about 150 people.
- No press releases or other activities. I tried to organise a
co-operation meeting between the Finnish FOSS-organisations,
but it didn't catch fire.
- Akademy 2010 at Tampere is coming soon, and I hope to meet other
FOSS evangelists and FSFE members there.
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/ finland(a)fsfe.org
*********************
Muistutus huomisesta!
*********************
(in English below)
*Fellowship-tapaaminen Tampereella*
Paikkatietoasiantuntija Jukka Rahkonen kertoo miten omalla GPS-laitteella
voi osallistua OpenStreetMapin parantamiseen sekä miten OSM-aineistoja
hyödyntää omien OGC-standardin mukaisten karttojen ja palveluiden tekemiseksi.
Tilaisuuden järjestää Euroopan vapaiden ohjemistojen säätiö
(http://www.fsfe.org). Tilaisuus on ilmainen ja avoin kaikille. Jotta
voimme mitoittaa tarjoilun, toivomme osallistujien ilmoittavan tulostaan
etukäteen osoitteeseen finland(a)fsfeurope.org, mutta ilmoittautuminen ei ole
pakollista.
http://www.vapaasuomi.fi/Kalenteri/OpenStreetMap_-_karttojen_Wikipedia
*Fellowship meeting in Tampere*
GIS-expert Jukka Rahkonen tells about the OpenStreetMap-project and
how you can contribute to it with your own GPS-device and how you
can use OSM-data to make your own maps and GIS-services that comply
with the OGC-standards.
Admission to the event is free. No registration is required, but if you
plan to attend, please drop us a line at finland(a)fsfeurope.org.
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Tampere 2010-06-10
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/ finland(a)fsfe.org
(in English below)
*Fellowship-tapaaminen Tampereella*
Paikkatietoasiantuntija Jukka Rahkonen kertoo miten omalla GPS-laitteella
voi osallistua OpenStreetMapin parantamiseen sekä miten OSM-aineistoja
hyödyntää omien OGC-standardin mukaisten karttojen ja palveluiden tekemiseksi.
Tilaisuuden järjestää Euroopan vapaiden ohjemistojen säätiö
(http://www.fsfe.org). Tilaisuus on ilmainen ja avoin kaikille. Jotta
voimme mitoittaa tarjoilun, toivomme osallistujien ilmoittavan tulostaan
etukäteen osoitteeseen finland(a)fsfeurope.org, mutta ilmoittautuminen ei ole
pakollista.
http://www.vapaasuomi.fi/Kalenteri/OpenStreetMap_-_karttojen_Wikipedia
*Fellowship meeting in Tampere*
GIS-expert Jukka Rahkonen tells about the OpenStreetMap-project and
how you can contribute to it with your own GPS-device and how you
can use OSM-data to make your own maps and GIS-services that comply
with the OGC-standards.
Admission to the event is free. No registration is required, but if you
plan to attend, please drop us a line at finland(a)fsfeurope.org.
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Tampere 2010-06-10
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/ finland(a)fsfe.org
Olisin valmis osallistumaan kokoontumiseen tuolloin Akademyn aikaan.
Olemmeko päättäneet 3. ja 4. päivän välillä?
Yksi päivä kuitenkin riittänee :)
JS
On May 3, 2010 10:40 PM, "Otto Kekäläinen" <otto(a)fsfe.org> wrote:
Terve!
Valitettavasti tämä sähköpostitse aikojen sopiminen on edennyt vähän
hitaasti ja ehdotetut ajankohdat tulevat vastaan niin nopeasti, että
tässä vaiheessa lienee järkevintä sopia suoraan, että pidetään
VALO-yhdistysten yhteistyötapaaminen 3. tai 4. heinäkuuta Tampereella.
Silloin moni meistä on joka tapauksessa Tampereella Akademyn merkeissä,
ja sieltä lähteminen yhteiselle lounaalle tms onnistunee kohtuullisen
helpoin järjestelyin.
OK?
http://akademy.kde.org/
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe || ...