Report from the fsfe-portugal mailing list

[Jaime E . Villate]

                       Activity in fsfe-portugal list
                                      
     [ Report prepared by members of [1]fsfe-portugal at gnu.org list.
     Author : Frederico S. Muñoz, modified by Jaime E. Villate ]
     June 7th, 2001
     
     The members of the list fsfe-portugal have taken the first steps
     towards the goal of forming a support association for a future
     Chapter of the [2]FSFE in Portugal.
     
     From the early moments when the FSFE created its public mailing
     lists, some Portuguese list members have been present in the
     discussion (Klaus Schilling, Frederico Muñoz); to give an example,
     Portuguese was the first language in which the [3]FSFE Press
     Releases were translated (F. Muñoz) - and are still being
     translated and sent to the local media - apart from the 3
     'official' languages; after an initial time were inertia won, it
     became apparent that a specialized list to deal with the number of
     Portuguese-speaking members was necessary, since there was much
     interest, among many subscribers, to form a Portuguese national
     Chapter of the FSFE; around April the [4]fsfe-portugal at gnu.org
     mailing list was set up by Loic Dachary who has encouraged us
     to follow the good example of the [5]French Chapter of the FSFE
     and [6]APRIL.
     
     The list began with around 12 people, and its first objective was
     to allow its members to get to know each other better; soon enough
     the discussion about the legal things needed to fulfill the goal
     begun, with several members already experienced in forming
     associations (Ruben Mendes, F. Muñoz, Hugo Nogueira) stepping up
     and advising on some initial decisions that would have to be made.
     Jaime Villate has served as a liaison with the FSF and the FSFE;
     with several years of participation in free software in general and
     his recent contributions to the GNU Project and personal
     acquaintance with some people in the FSF - not to mention the deep
     involvement in several national GNU/Linux websites and free
     software related activities - Jaime coordinates the efforts of the
     Portuguese group and has been influential in bringing more people
     to the project and in helping the FSFE in several ways.
     
     One of the first tasks was to help with the creation of a new site
     for the FSFE (J. Villate, Loic Dachary), in time for the public
     announcement of the creation of the FSFE; soon after, the members
     of the fsfe-portugal list undertook the translation of the FSFE
     website into Portuguese, and that was in a sense a proving ground
     for our ability to work together (João Miguel Neves coordinated the
     effort, with R. Mendes, H. Nogueira, F. Muñoz). It can gladly be
     said that such ability is present in a high degree, since most of
     the site was quickly translated into Portuguese, with the members
     sharing opinions and information about the translation of several
     terms, use of the XHTML scheme and [7]Savannah, etc. Not only
     that but some members are also taking up tasks in the FSFE website.
     
     New members are joining in a steady rate, partly due to the effort
     made to get the FSFE noticed by a larger audiency by releasing
     several messages and news to national websites; if the FSFE was
     largely unknown in Portugal some months ago, that situation has
     changed - and is changing more as time passes. There are roughly 30
     people subscribed to the list now, and an IRC channel (#fsfe-pt) on
     the OpenProjects Network was created (Matti Särkisitta) to allow
     more real-time contact between the members.
     
     One important step will be made in the 9th of June, when the
     [22]first meeting will take place in Oporto; this meeting is being
     prepared and anticipated from some time now and will provide a
     privileged occasion to discuss things in more detail and to meet
     personally. On the agenda is the discussion of the legal status and
     name of the organization, distribution of tasks, a general
     reflection about the FSFE and our collaboration with it and a small
     key-signing party.
     
     In conclusion, the initial steps to facilitate the participation of
     FSFE in Portugal have been taken, and the creation of a support
     association is underway; after this first meeting more work is to
     be distributed and we expect to see more members joining as we
     spread the word. After someone from our group is accredited by the
     FSFE core team, it is safe to assume that there will exists a real
     possibility of having a FSFE Chapter Portugal in the short/medium
     term; among GNU members, Debian developers, people involved in
     setting up some of the foremost national free software websites,
     people involved in several ways with the free software ideals for
     years and newcomers with a great will to get the work done, we have
     a good human potential to build this reality.
     
     The future looks bright :)

References
  1. http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-portugal/
  2. http://www.fsfeurope.org/
  3. http://www.fsfeurope.org/press/
  4. http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-portugal/
  5. http://france.fsfeurope.org/
  6. http://www.april.org/
  7. http://savannah.gnu.org/