Re: [Fsfe-uk] Membership

[Alex Hudson]

On Sat, 2003-05-24 at 12:04, ian wrote:
> I think part of the global problem is fragmentation. There are so many
> free software organisations springing up! SchoolForge UK was set up
> partly as a response to this. There is also OFSET. I would see something
> like this hierarchy
> 
>                FSF
> 
>           AFFS UK  AFFS Germany etc

Hmm, this is sort-of how it exists. There will (probably) never be an
AFFS Germany, for example, because we're just a UK organisation and
always will be a UK organisation. Similarly, AFFS is independent from
(but associated with) FSFE. At some point there may well be an FSFE-UK,
but that would be a very different organisation to AFFS (for example, it
would contain about three people tops). 

Remember, although we're an associate of the FSFE, we are actually a
completely independent organisation - association means that we work
very closely with the FSFE and are all friends and stuff, no more than
that. But clearly, they do fulfil the role of coordinators in Europe for
Free Software organisation, and we wouldn't want to take that on. One
thing people often don't realise is that there isn't one 'anointed'
associate organisation of the FSFE - there can be many in a single
territory. AFFS just happens to be the first, and fulfils a very
specific role.

> To be honest, I think most associate members would make absolutely no
> demands at all. Say a pro-free software school with 100 teachers
> enrolled all its staff as associate members, one or two would be active
> enough to join in, the others would ask them ;-)

Exactly. I think this is reason enough to go down such a route. I don't
think we can call them 'members', but that's just terminology.

Cheers,

Alex.

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