Hi all,

first I'd like to thank all of you who have provided input and feedback. I have tried to incorporate it as well as I could also based on some communication by me and Nicola Bernardini with an EU official.

I have subscribed everybody who participated in the communication to the fp6noe@fsfeurope.org mailing list, which will probably be only temporary. If you wish to (un)subscribe, the interface can be found at

https://mailman.fsfeurope.org/mailman/fp6noe

In general, we are facing the problem that the funding structures of the EU are not very well-suited for Free Software. Also we should understand that the Expressions of Interest should not be too focused on what we think the structure will be, but rather on what we think the structure should be.

Therefore I have added some part explaining a few of the difficulties incorporating Free Software into FP6.

The problem being, that the document should really get shorter, not longer. The official guidelines say something about 5 pages, which means we should get rid of 1-2 pages.

I'm not sure how strict this is, though, and given the extraordinary situation of Free Software I'm considering to keep it like this. We have to remind ourselves that it is a preliminary consultation period,

IMPORTANT:

* We want more partners with experience in Free Software. Especially research institutes and Universities would be very useful to have. So please try to make contacts!

* Some of the people announcing their support have not yet submitted a subscription of their party.

If you find yourself in the list of "might be interested" parties although you have already sent mail telling me that you do support it - this is the reason.

If someone is interested, please tell them to write a mail containing something like: "[We] support the Expression of Interest for the Network of Excellence and would like to be added to the list. Here is our brief description:..." to president@fsfeurope.org.

Okay, we need to finish this by the end of the month. No time to keep it in your inbox too long!

Regards and thanks, Georg Greve