Hi Stian,
* Stian Rødven Eide stian@fsfeurope.org [2008-07-03 13:57:01 +0200]:
I found the document and it was not too difficult for me to read. I might even be able to translate it to English for the wiki, though some of the information should probably be updated.
Yes, it has to be updated. I think it is from 2003 :)
What I really was after however, is a practical how-to for the organising of a booth. Where do I ask for volunteers to help?
booth@fsfeurope.org and perhaps the national discussion lists. You can ask Reinhard to sent an e-mail to Fellows from that region.
Should we register before we know whether we'll have volunteers?
That depends on how many volunteers you need. Most of the time I would register and than look for volunteers.
Should the funding be done by the local branch of FSFE (in this case, Hesa said it probably should)?
I think that depends from case to case.
What information material is available, and, presuming it exists in abundance, should it be included in the budget?
Information material: http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/leaflets/ I found some gnu.org/philosophy articles good. And in Germany we have one book at the moment, and perhaps we will add more.
How do we sign up new fellows analogue-wise?
I have never done that. But I know that it is not good with this small "enter your e-mail alias here" green leaflets. The field is not even big enough to enter an e-mail alias if you cannot write font size 8 ;)
If we find a good solution how to do this, it might be handy sometimes. But Reinhard should be able to give more feedback here.
Another relevant issue, one that the fsfe-bv-faq probably should include some words about, is the question of what I can or cannot say on behalf of the FSFE (as opposed to what I should say, which I think is rather clear).
I think that is difficult. My rule of thumb would be: as FSFE talk about our topics. Everything else is _your_ personal opinion. And you should express it as such. And at the booth I would often try not to talk about the personal stuff as people do not differ between your personal thoughts and those of FSFE.
For instance, the ESF is largely about democratising society - how people can and should be involved in decisions that affect us all. This is more or less exactly what the FSFE is working for and I therefore thought about having a big banner at the booth stating that "Free Software is Democratic Software" or something similar. Am I free to do this?
I think this slogan would be ok. As FSFE agrees with democracy (at least I hope so ;) ).
Am I also free to put the FSFE logo beneath a slogan that really hasn't been officially approved, but very likely would resonate positively among its members?
As booth organiser you have to approve slogans as you have the responsibility for the booth. If you are not sure about one, you should ask before.
In this regard, I am also thinking about something Georg mentioned in his speech at the last FSCONS, where we were encouraged to prominently display our FSFE-membership when advocating digital freedom. To what extent can we do this? I am sure that the level common sense among our members is very high, but still wouldn't mind some guidelines on the issue. An example that springs to mind is the debate on legalising non-commercial file sharing, something that RMS has been very vocal about. Of course, I am not saying I would claim that the FSFE supports it, but rather wonder whether it would be regarded as problematic to use an FSFE-signature in such cases.
My personal opinion on this: Every Fellow can express that he is Fellow. I think that is different for your FSFE title / work. E.g. in some discussions I would not use my FSFE signature.
And it might not be good to use "Stian, Intern Free Software Foundation Europe" on a public mailinglist and argue that all music labels are criminals. You could express that with your Fellowship alias, or your personal alias. For others in the organisation it might already not be that good.
I think we cannot have a written rule for everything. Your are an intelligent person, and I think most of our Fellows are. I think they are able to decide those things on their own... and everybody is free to write others when they think they did a mistake.
Best wishes, Matthias