The take-away message?

[Bernhard E. Reiter]

Hi Joe,

Am Donnerstag 30 August 2018 09:57:04 schrieb Joe Awni:
> I see the same patterns showing up in this discussion again and again.

to me there are two topics:

 * How should FSFE improve involving supporters and active Free Software
   people?

 * What is respectful behaviour and how do we get there?
   This includes the unpleasant topic of how single people behave within FSFE
   and what to do in case friendly talking did not help?

Please let us detangle those topics to make progress.

> I've been privately corresponding with a number of folks from the
> discussion-list. We suspect that not everyone understands the contemporary
> context or history of this software movement and therefore could be
> forgiven for kind-of defaulting to just-a-private-German-club status where
> a dozen legal members are in absolute charge. 

Well you can have your view on things of course, but note that the FSF (US) 
started as Richard Stallman's private club and may still be one, he is an 
American white male. If you value the contributions of the FSF to the world 
(Richard personally has gotten more than 20 awards for his work with FSF)
then you probably recognise that an association that does not accept everybody 
as a member does have its merits and can more effectively contribute on a 
special topic.

Note that there is no "in absolute charge" as we are judged by our actions and 
in public. As you can see from our PDFreaders, Free your Android or PMPC 
campaigns, there is a lot of public recognition in Europe and world-wide.
There a donors, financial and other supporters, increasingly so over the years
(of course with slight ups and downs, but a general trend has continued).

> This seems to be the direction the office in Berlin would be most 
> pleased with. But, as I said  before, in that case I would consider 
> them domain-name-squatters. 

Your tone can be understood as offensive against our Berlin staff members,
also note that most members of the e.V. are not in Berlin, nor in the "Berlin 
office". I would be pleased with a friendly and respectful tone and I'm in 
Osnabrück. :)

> We need the answer to a basic question from paid staff:

Given that I haven't fully understand your question and the overall demanding 
tone I would understand if most of our people would like to expose themself
by trying to answer.

> I have to protect myself; I have already been victim of
> physical bullying while attending Free Software events. You can read my
> thread for more info on the beat-down in Brussels at FOSDEM 2016.
> Therefore, I apologise in-advance, I will not be physically attending any
> meetings or naming individuals.

I am sorry to learn that you have been bullied, I am interested in your story 
to learn from it for other Free Software events and want to know what the 
connection to the two topics is. Can you point me to your writings about 
this? I've browsed your posts, your website and used a search engine, but 
could not find it. (Feel free to mail me personally.)

Meilleures salutations,
Bernhard
-- 
FSFE -- Founding Member     Support our work for Free Software: 
blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard     https://fsfe.org/donate | contribute
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