Re: Our approach (was Re: [fsf-community-team] !!! An intro to the wiki, and an initial team project.)

[Holmes Wilson]

> Let's talk about our approach to various sorts of issue. For example,
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/04/open_source_america_lobbies_government/
>
> I suggest that we all bring to the list's attention whatever
> problematic articles catch our eyes, wherever we happen to look.

Yeah, people should definitely feel free (especially in this "warm-up" 
phase) to send articles to the list!  Then, let's focus on formulating a 
response.

In this case, a classically FSF response would be something like:

 "Pushing governments to use free software is extremely important work, 
and it's good to see more energy behind this.  But by choosing to call 
the goal "open source" rather than "free software" we omit the most 
important reason why governments should support it: that by giving users 
control over the software they use, it supports a free society.  To 
learn more, check out: 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html";

The goal is to get everyone to the point where they can rep FSF and make 
responses on the fly, but we need to lay the groundwork first.

> I
> call dibs on Voodoo Markets, including supposedly Free Markets for
> nonfree software, or those that are Free for corporations but not for
> living human beings. The delusion of corporate personhood, while we
> are at it.

:)  There are a ton of important political issues out there, they're all 
interconnected, and we won't be able to tackle them all on this list. 
Let's keep things focused on software freedom, even at the risk of being 
narrow.

-Holmes

> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 06:44, Holmes Wilson<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Thanks so much for all the introductions.
> >
> > It seems like most people got the fact that there were trick questions
> > buried in there, on points like price vs. freedom, free software vs. open
> > source, and bogus terms like "intellectual property".
> >
> > I'd like for us to hold off on discussing the introductions for now, though
> > (the pace of these will calm down anyway as the list gets going) and get
> > started on a few essential tasks.
> >
> > First, I wanted to introduce the LibrePlanet wiki, which we'll be using as
> > an organizing space!   Have a look around, starting with these couple pages.
> >
> > http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Group:FSF/Community_Team
> > http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Group:FSF/Community_Team/Planning
> >
> > So, two things I need folks to do with the wiki:
> >
> > 1) Get familiar with the markup language, and add your name here, with a
> > link to your introduction.  For those who haven't posted intros yet, this
> > would be a good way to do it!
> >
> > http://groups.fsf.org/wiki?title=Group:FSF/Community_Team/Planning&action=edit&section=1
> >
> > 2) I've started a skeletal list of important news sources.  Have a look, and
> > add anything that you plan on following daily, or that you think should be a
> > high priority:
> >
> > http://groups.fsf.org/wiki?title=List_of_important_news_sites&action=edit&redlink=1
> >
> > Thanks!  Looking forward to working with all of you!
> >
> > -Holmes