FSFE Finance

[João Miguel Neves]

On 24 Jul 2001 17:15:54 +0200, Anders Lindback wrote:
> Usually one then hold a yearly general assembly where all members can be present
> and where they have their chance to vote. In a larger organisation this
> is not the members themselves but representatives of the members who are
> alected in an local assembly. In FSFE the chapters would elect representatives 
> which would then go on to the european assembly.
> 
> The most common in an elcttion is to let the board remain in place. Actually
> I've never been at an assembly where it's not be know beforehand who
> will be elected. Usueallay they have a election committy who gives one candidate
> to each position thus limiting the choice to pre-screened candidates who
> has no oposition.
> 
I've also noticed that you've never watched a "hostile takeover" in this
kind of organization. I've not been so fortunate. The technique is
simple, you get a lot of your "friends" to join the organization and
then get democratically ellected to the board of the organizations.

If you think that's difficult to do in an organization like the FSFE,
just imagine the following: It's standard for a company to pay
employees' assotiations dues. Imagine company X (or a big multinational
company or a group of companies who have money to loose from Free
Software's presence in the market) making all its employees members of
FSFE. Then the company X would, helpfully, offer a place for the next
assembly, and, coincidently, have a meeting with all their employees at
the same place a few hours before (and maybe even later with the
assembly in the middle). Imagine that company X put one of their
directors in from of a team of candidates to the board and that all
company's employees voted on him.

Tell me how do you protect yourself from this scenario? Every protection
I've thought about I've also found either a easy work-around or that it
made joining so difficult that it would never any member. This was the
kind of protective measure FSF and FSFE decided to take.

--
						Joao Miguel Neves