[Fsfe-se] Jabber official meeting

[Jeremiah Foster]

On Aug 22, 2007, at 2:46 PM, Henrik Sandklef wrote:

>
> Jeremiah Foster wrote:
>> On 8/21/07, Irina Dzhambazova <irina at fsfeurope.org> wrote:
>>> Dear Swedish fellows,
>>>
>>> in an attempt to make the Free Software Fellowship in Sweden a more
>>> democratic and homogeneous community
>>
>> But not the Free Software community at large? Just the Fellowship?
>
> I am a bit confused here. We cannot do anything directly about the  
> Free
> Software community at large, because they are free to do what they  
> want.
> And should be so. I'd say that the Free Software community at large is
> democratic in its nature as far as software goes. This is so since we
> have GPL and people can do what they want with the software (as  
> long as
> they don't take away the four freedoms). What FSFE can do for the FS
> community is to work for the sake of Free Software, and this is  
> what we
> do. Every day. So I hope (and believe) that the FS community think  
> that
> we represent them.
>
> Perhaps you mean that FSFE needs to do an attempt to do the above
> instead of "Free Software community at large"? If that's the case,  
> then
> I've heard complaints about the openess and transparency of FSFE  
> before.
> Is that what you mean?

In general the point of democracy is that _everyone_ has a vote. When  
just the party members have a vote, and you can think of the  
Fellowship as a political party, you get oligarchy. It seems  
hypocritical that a political action group (the FSFE) who lobbies on  
behalf of the people of Europe is steered by an unelected board and  
that only Fellows can interact via Jabber with the FSFE.

Here art two easy steps toward transparency and openness:

	1. Let anyone who wants to participate in the FSFE Jabber meetings -  
don't limit them to Fellows.
	2. Describe the process by which the leadership of the FSFE gets  
elected

Until things like this are done, the FSFE will continue to receive  
criticism for its lack of openness. And not just from me. :)

>> Will there be a session for those of us who want to remain outside  
>> the
>> Fellowship?
>
> We will have to find a new chat room somewhere. But that should be a
> really easy task.

Not necessary since there are already numerous IRC channels and the  
like.

	Jeremiah