Re: [Fsfe-uk] AFFS still active?

[MJ Ray]

Andrew Savory <address@hidden> wrote:
> [...] I'd like to see more concrete
> action plan for "how to be more useful for free software".  By the
> way, 0 is the absence of a number and should not be used for
> enumerated lists in English language.

I think Tom Chance's suggestion of surveying is a good first step on
that plan.  I have some maybe-helpful notes at
http://people.debian.org/~mjr/surveys.html#advice

By the way, if it's meant to be in English, the singular noun seems to
be missing an article in the first sentence above - and these sort of
pedantic comments should not be posted here in this context, or else.

> On 26 Jan 2007, at 11:53, Alex Hudson wrote:
> > One thing which AFFS tried to do was represent free software  
> > businesses
> > in many ways (particularly, those involved in the community and
> > small/one-man-band businesses).
>
> There's other places for this now, such as the Open Source  
> Consortium. Some kind of partnership with them should be considered  
> essential, IMHO.

Cooperation would be good.  OSC has features which make it
unattractive to some free software businesses, so I don't see it as a
good reason to ignore business.

[...]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number) is a good starting point.

Never trust a reference people can edit themselves, but even that
ack's 0 as a number.  I wrote 1-4, then moved 4 to before 1 and picked
a different number instead of renumbering all or leaving disordered to
save time.  I'm surprised and disappointed that it got so much debate.


Alex Hudson <address@hidden> wrote:
> A lot of the reasons AFFS was started have more or less gone away;

Some of them remain, for sure:
- financing
- connecting UK supporters to other groups
- monitoring/helping UK l10n, i18n and politics

Some of those are now overlapped by others (ORG watches for some of
the same political changes, for example) but not duplicated.

> however, I think there are still problems specific to the UK which AFFS
> could address (I'm not, however, saying it should...).
>
> Specifically, I think the free software developer community in this
> country is disparate and not well networked: while LUGs provide this to
> an extent, we still rely on things like Linux Expos for hackers to meet
> up. [...]

Once it sorts itself out, AFFS could assist with the coordination and
chronicling.  Should AFFS run meets at other events?

> And, as I said in the last e-mail, I think the voluntary sector take-up
> of free software has been pretty awful.

When I was on affs-ctte, I suggested joining a Council of Voluntary
Service (CVS, now called a Voluntary and Community Action or VCA) and
IIRC others did before and since, without result.  Isn't that a good
first step to connect to the voluntary sector?

Also, I don't think the above suggestions ever reached a public forum.
If AFFS continues, the opaque operations need to be changed.

[...]
> I think Andrew's idea of a face to face meeting is the way forward,
> personally.

If that meeting happens at fairly short notice in one corner of the
country (as currently suggested), please offer some remote
participation, or at least record it well and let those who can't
attend review it.  I doubt I'm the only willing hand who might not
attend.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble.