Hi Hannes,
* Hannes Hauswedell h2@fsfe.org [2010-07-10 10:46:36 +0000]:
We thought in organising a two-waves-event: the first part consisting in a contest, where Fellows, Fellowship groups country-team, and any volunteer we could enrol, would submit screen-shots from authorities' websites with links asking people to download Adobe, Foxit or any other non-free pdf reader.
What do you mean by "authorities"? Do we only aim at governmental institutions or also the private sector?
Yes it is mainly aimed at governmental organisations. We could also gather screenshots for private sites, but I that would be a lot of stuff and companies can make advertisement for whom they like.
This "bug hunt" would take place between the 15th August and the 31st September. As a motivation, a price will be given to the person who would have gathered the most screen-shots. A participation as a group will also be possible (the price for both categories must still be defined, any ideas ??).
We would have to make different categories for groups and individuals then (obviously an individual would have a hard time competing against a group). If we do that we can award different prizes, it does however make everything more complicated than it already is.
No you can be in both. In the formular you enter your name, and the group name. And we will award a prize for the individuals and one for the groups.
After a time of processing the results of the screen-shot-gathering, the second wave would begin with a petition on non-free software commercial on government website. Parallel to this, letters will be sent to the authorities from which the screen-shots were taken in order to have them react. This action should stand until the end of November.
You mean the people inquire at the sites, or we inquire at the sites? Or do you mean a real petition, where we collectively address all site- owners at once? If the former, do people only inquire at sites that they screenhotted? If anyone can email any site, how do we make sure a certain site is not emailed by 20 different people? Or is that a desired effect?
People gather address information when they enter the data from the screenshot. We write a petition like e.g. "No non-free software advertisement on governmental websites". We contact organisations to sign the petition, and individuals can sign it, too.
Than _we_ will contact the site owners pointing them to the petition. This will be done either by e-mail or by snail mail.
So to sum up, prizes are only awarded in the screenshot phase, not in the petition phase, right?
Right.
Couldn't we do something where the "screenshotter" of the site that was converted and directed the most hits to pdfreaders.org in 6 months (referrer-links) also gets something? That would be an incentive to try to convert "high-ranking" pages and not only your mom's blog.
The problem here is: When people contact governmental site owners themself that might become nasty. We want to approach them professional and friendly. But why should someone get a price when the institution changes its behaviour after _we_ contacted them?
[...]
Timeline seems good in general. I have to stress though, that I have university exams until 2010-07-23 and will be on vacation possibly through most parts of september and october, most definitely with a week or two of Berlin-time and maybe some internet connectivity in between, but I cannot guarantee a certain response-time or level of participation in this time.
Ok.
If you depend on me taking over more of the work, I would suggest pushing everything back by one month. I will definitely be available with more time during the next semester (2010-10-11+). However that would also move the last phase into the next year, which might not be desirable.
Yeah, that is a problem.
I am fine with it either way and leave it totally up to you to decide. I have a lot of work now, and will not have time to reply more than once or twice this weekend and no time for lengthier discussion during next week at all.
Ok, than we would stick to that timeline. There will be enough tasks for you in FSFE when you have time ;)
Whats the situation on Hennr's front?
Yeah... Henner feedback!! :) I have to send that out today so we have enough time to implement the technical stuff.
Best wishes, Matthias