[Fsfe-uk] Re: Proposed roadmap

[John Seago]

On Thursday 01 Jan 1970 00:59, Tom Chance <address@hidden> wrote:

> IMHO, an AFFS that operates around a small membership, only makes
> decisions based on their opinions, and generally runs itself like a
> small club is going to totally fail the wider free software community.
> The current membership of the AFFS represents a small minority of the
> community, and a pinprick in the constituency that it works on the
> behalf of - the whole of society. The AFFS can either operate on behalf
> on its small membership, or it can try to reach out and provide the
> political arm to the UK free software community. Either goal is worthy
> in its own right, but, well, you can guess which one I'm more interested
> in :)
>
> Just leaving this to the AGM, then, would be totally unacceptable.

As the AGM is the only body that can make any decision at all on the 
direction or structure of the AFFS then you must find yourself in an 
unacceptable position.  

> A  room full of even fifty AFFS members isn't the right way to go about
> deciding the future of the AFFS I'd like to see. Nor would an all-day
> debate at the AGM ever fully settle these issues, IMO.

A room full of AFFS members, at an AGM, is the ONLY way of deciding the 
future of the AFFS, the fact that you feel it "isn't the right way to go 
about deciding the future of the AFFS" puts you in the position of holding 
an opinion, it is the opinion of the majority of the membership that 
counts. You are free to express your opinion, but for matters to go any 
further than that you will have to convince a majority of the members to 
agree with you.  Your 'roadmap' may indeed provide the vehicle to do so, I 
will watch with interest. 

> My proposal is that everyone willing coordinates some serious outreach
> work, and tries to work through some of the wider issues properly
> *before* the AGM. If it works, there will be broad consensus,
> representative of a large section of the community, on the key aims and
> activities of the AFFS... 

The only real aspect of 'outreach' has to be recruitment to the AFFS, as 
untill the AFFS and the 'community' are broadly the same, then the AFFS 
will stay as you so neatly put it "a small club", and as such the only 
group which can have any influence on it is its members.

> ...These can then be enshrined in constitutional changes and other
> decisions made at the AGM, according to the current rules, by the book. 

But only if the membership votes for the changes in sufficient number. 
-- 
John Seago
GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org
AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/