Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: Minutes of FSFE-UK List, 18th November 2001

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, 2001-11-23 at 09:51, Loic Dachary wrote:
> > [Action 1 (ALL): look at the aims on the FSFEurope web site]
> > [Action 2 (ALL): look at APRIL statute concerning these aims, and 
> > other similar organisations]
> 
>       I'd suggest also looking at the statute of ANSOL (ansol.org)
> since they are available in english (which is not the case of APRIL
> statute, AFAIK).

I'll add that to the post-meeting references.

>       Are 'industrial provident society', or 'private limited company'
> a kind of non profit organization ?

An I&PS essentially is non-profit: you can, of course, make money, but
the money has to go back into the organisation (& therefore should be
spent by the organisation furthering it's aims). The particular type of
I&PS is known as a "benefit of the community society" - there is another
sort, which basically is a "benefit our members" society.

Limited companies are usually profit making organisations, but again,
the setup here would be a non-profit organisation. The definition of
"non profit" here is not returning money to members or directors as
captial or divendends on shares - and again, any monies made would be
spent furthering the aims of the organisation, not making people rich.
It is possible that we might need to do more legal work to make the
framework of a Limited Company acceptable to our needs.

> Is the final decision to build 
> a company that is for profit (in theory if not in this specific case) ? 

I think it went without saying that it was not going to be a company, in
the sense of trying to turn a profit to make people rich. Obviously,
making money might be an aim of the organisation if that money could
then be re-invested in Free software: however, making money is not a
primary aim (as far as I understand, anyway!!). 

We discussed the possibility of the FSFEurope setting up a Chapter in
the UK, and the preferred legal form for this would probably be a
charity, so this organisation wouldn't be looking to take donations or
things like that - we'd probably direct that towards FSFE (UK). However,
this is an independent organisation, so it would have to aim to survive
on it's own, and if it can contribute back, all the better.

>       It is interesting that you plan to release a newsletter. This
> is a lot of work but very useful. 

We realise the amount of work involved; Alasdair Kergon in particular
has given good examples of where the UKUUG (UK Unix Users Group) have
had particular trouble in this regard. However, like you, we see that
this could be very important. The lack of UK-centic Free Software
information is quite noticable.

> Limiting membership to individuals for the
> first year or the first two years and then reconsider the question is
> a good solution, IMHO.

That sounds a good idea - certainly, I don't think we'd entertain the
idea of expanding too quickly and too artificially.

>       You mean GLUGs ?

I know what you're getting at :-) Unfortunately, in the UK we have a
very big LUG called GLLUG (Greater London Linux User's Group), and any
reference to a 'GLUG' would confuse people mightily. However, there is a
case for informing people why we say "GNU/Linux" - ShefLUG
(http://www.sheflug.co.uk/), for example, have made a real effort to do
this. I think this area (talking about Free Software in general) is
something we would look to do, in terms of education, etc.

> I like the GNU day idea because it would nicely
> complement the purely technical activities of most GLUG with some
> philosophy and ethics.

Exactly. On of the things I like about it also is that it would be aimed
at those who haven't necessarily got a technical background, and may
well have not heard of Free Software or even Open Source. We would then
get to educate them in the ways of Free Software, and they don't need to
'unlearn' things. The idea of someone talking about Free Software and
not having heard of Open Source is fantastic....

> >     pro-actively create copy for magazines, etc., so that we have
> >     materials ready to go when the opportunity to publish an
> >     article/advert/whatever comes around.
> 
>       I do not understand this. Could someone explain please ?

Some of the people at the meeting have links with people who are
producing magazines in the UK - often, they have pressing needs for copy
(i.e., they have an odd number of pages, or a writer has missed a
deadline, etc.) and it was thought to be a good idea to have things
ready in that event. Also, if someone wants to publish an article about
Free Software, and Free Software authors/events in the UK, we ought to
have some ready-made copy and research for these people.

>       Is there a pointer to this PKI ? 

Alasdair Kergon pointed us at:
http://www.skills-1st.co.uk/papers/planning-os-pki/paper-for-workshop-15-06-2001.html

> I found that the most useful
> way to approach Free Software developers (individuals or organizations) is
> to offer them help. That's often not very time consuming. By talking during
> a few minutes about the project one can usually make a useful remark
> that helps the Free Software developer. That starts the dialog in good
> conditions.

Yep. We thought of this also because of the recent SmoothWall stuff
(Richard Morrell's article on advogato, on whether or not the FSF should
educate Free Software projects) - it would be useful to be seen as a
support to projects, either people coming to us for advice, or us
proactively making ourselves known.

>       I'd like to add that it would be useful to identify people in
> AFFS (chosen name of the organization, right ?)

Not officially chosen, but it looks like no-one has a better idea :-)

> countries. AFFS is also in a unique position in Europe since your
> native language is english and everybody is able to understand what
> you say. That's an advantage but that's also a burden since all other
> organizations will more or less rely on you to provide english
> linguistic expertise ;-)

I also wonder whether or not we would be required to support Welsh
speakers also :)

Seriously, I don't think any of us see this as a solitary organisation:
independent, yes, but we'd definitely be looking to form closer links to
organisations abroad to share expertise, for example.

Cheers,

Alex.

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