[Fsfe-se] [diskussion] Microsofts nya hot.

[Jonas Oberg]

Jeremiah,

First of all let me say that it's a *good* thing that you raise the
questions that you do. While I don't necessarily agree with all of them,
I do take them to heart and consider them seriously.

> Why are they not posted on the web site?

You're the first one I've heard ask for them. So I'll raise the issue
and see if we should do that, but since you're the first one to ask, it
doesn't seem terribly important to people.

> So it is an entirely personal system - with no public accountability?

Well, if people don't like what the FSFE is doing, there's no need to
support us. The FSFE relies to a very large extent on donations from
private individuals, so if we do bad things, I imagine that people won't
continue to donate.

> A mission statement merely states the mission of the organization. This would 
> be good because any Fellow who joins the FSFE would know concretely the goals
> of the organization before hand, avoiding surprise or disappointment if they
> found the policies of the FSFE to not be what they expected.

It's too long to quote here, but the goals and mission of the FSFE is in
the constitution as well. You can find the constitution here:

  http://www.fsfeurope.org/about/legal/constitution.en.html

> Has any one other that Georg Greve been President in the history of the FSFE?

No.

> I'll ask the question again - consensus amongst whom?

Amongst the people that is relevant for the decision: this is not a
precise art, it depends a lot of what kind of question is up for
discussion. For changes to the web pages, consensus would generally be
sought amongst the web team, for things related to our Swedish
activities, among the swedish team, and so on.

Some things we've felt require a broader consensus as well. For
instance, when deciding on our new logotype (the new web pages will go
public on sunday), we invited the Fellows to participate in the
consensus finding process as well.

> So all decisions are made with _unanimous_ approval?

I think it's a mistake to equal consensus with unanimous approval.
Consensus is a softer approach, whereas unanimous approval implicitly
requires everyone to stand up and say "Yes" (or No). Compare this to the
IETF for instance, which is goverened in many parts by "rough consensus
and working code".

> I think there are quite enough organizations already. I would like accountability from
> those groups that already exist, specifically the FSFE.

It would seem to me that the accountability that you seek cannot be
gotten from organisations like the FSF or the FSFE. This is why I would
recommend that you look for it elsewhere.

-- 
Jonas Öberg
Free Software Foundation Europe			( Join the Fellowship )
Tel. +46-31-780 21 61  Mob. +46-733 423 962     (   http://fsfe.org   )