Why “fellowship”?

[Matthias Kirschner]

* MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> [2012-01-05 12:13:47 +0000]:

> Tanguy Ortolo <tanguy+fsfe at ortolo.eu>
> > Yes it does. What I will remember is that our laws suck too much to
> > allow the creation of a true European association, so this has been
> > worked around this way. [...]
> 
> Is that actually true?  It thought it was a choice to have fellows
> instead of members.

There are two topics: 
- There is no European association. That is bad, because else FSFE would
  have choosen that one. As this is not possible, we set up a German
  association.
- Fellows not being members. It was a choice when we set up the
  Fellowship to have Fellows as non-members. Like most of the people
  doing work for FSFE are non-members. After some time we wanted to give
  the Fellows more legal power in our constitution, so we introduced the
  Fellowship seats in the GA, which Fellows can vote. (Of course one of
  the most powerful ways to influence FSFE is still to just do the work
  as a volunteer and to contact us on matters, and discuss with us.)

> Given what it is, I think "fellow" is much better than the misleading
> "associated members" used elsewhere (who aren't members and it's not
> an association).

I agree. That's why we try not talking about members, when it is not
members in the actual legal sense. Although there are team members (in
the web, translators, legal, etc. teams).

Regards,
Matthias

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Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator
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