When I spoke to Crowley, I'm not sure if he knew that "free" to us means "freedom". McGuinness knew free software was something about doing things openly and collaborating. One thing that we should be doing to help explain this to people we talk to is end all communications with an "About IFSO".
Here's a suggestion. It says all I think we'd want to say, but it doesn't read as well or as interesting as it could. This isn't urgent, so it can just sit in minds/inboxes until people have time+interest. After my draft, I've pasted the "About Us" blurbs used by FSFE and FFII for reference.
This would be a good candidate for a wiki page I think.
About IFSO
IFSO was founed in January 2004 to protect and promote software which comes with permission to run, study, modify, and redistribute it -- Free Software. IFSO would like to see more widespread use of Free Software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and the OpenOffice.org office suite. We would also like to see the encouragement of businesses based on the development, implementation, and support of Free Software. So that Free Software can continue to flourish, IFSO works to prevent new legislation from restricting the writing of Free Software. The Software Patents directive is the largest such proposed restriction, but copyright and other laws also need watching.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition- allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States.
About FFII:
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 300 members, 700 companies and 50,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.
Or the alternative FFII blurb:
FFII campaigns to promote competition and innovation in the field of software development. They seek a positive environment for the development of information goods, based on copyright, free competition, and open standards.
More than 700 companies and 60,000 registered supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their public voice in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing; and the FFII/Eurolinux petition against software patents now has over 330,000 signatories.
I made a wiki page for the About IFSO end-of-mail blurb: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/AboutIfsoBlurb
I added a half line. To then end of
``IFSO would like to see wider use of Free Software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and the OpenOffice.org office suite,
I added
as well as wider understanding of the benefits that software freedom brings through independence, transparency, and the ability to collaborate with others.''
Since a big userbase is near useless unless it values the freedom it has gained.
The current version still isn't great. It's complete, but not pretty. Edit the wiki page if you can.