Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Mission statement - request for comments

[Michael Dorrington]

Simon Ward wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 09:30:58PM +0100, Michael Dorrington wrote:
> > > Manchester Free Software serves a growing need for a group in the
> > > Manchester area that focuses on free software, including GNU/Linux.
> > > The group also covers topics which impact on the freedoms of computer
> > > users, such as Digital Restrictions Management.
> > I'll have to disagree. :)
>
> So:
>
>     Manchester Free Software serves a growing need for a group in
>     the Manchester area that focuses on free software.  The group
>     also covers topics which impact on the freedoms of computer
>     users, such as Digital Restrictions Management.
>
> I don’t feel “copyleft” or any other subset of free software is worth
> mentioning if GNU/Linux isn’t, and I don’t think we can mention them
> all, in the same way as Mozilla/VLC/KDE/QT/X/GNU/Linux (or whatever
> floats it for you).
>
> If we’re really trimming it down, we should also remove the example
> topic of Digital Restrictions Management:
>
>     Manchester Free Software serves a growing need for a group in
>     the Manchester area that focuses on free software.  The group
>     also covers topics which impact on the freedoms of computer
>     users.
>
> It’s concise, and doesn’t say more than we need to, but where does that
> leave people who won’t have the slightest clue that it affects them?
>
> Simon

I see your point, they are both useful hooks in getting people to 
understanding what the group is about. I do like the concise version 
though. :) If these hooks are in then the abbreviation for Digital 
Restrictions Management (DRM) needs to be in there because if they don't 
understand what free software is then I doubt they'll recognise Digital 
Restrictions Management either.

M.