[Global-orgs-general] How far to go with GNU/Linux Users groups?

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Work has finally begun on building a better world-wide coordination system
of organizations that support software freedom.  The first task is
creating a web page that lists the organizations, and keeping it updated
as organizations makeup and principles change over time.


Of course, official country-level FSF's won't require "checking" to see if
they change over time; if they do change in their principles, we'll have
bigger problems on our hands than fixing a web page that lists orgs!


I also think that we'll not have to do a lot of checking with
organizations like ANSOL and APRIL.  These organizations (AFAIK) have
by-laws that state principles of software freedom.  We'll need to keep in
touch, but we won't likely need to "check" with anyone to see if such an
organization has strayed from its principles; such changes will likely be
apparent in other ways.


My main concern is with users' groups.  There are two issues that I'd like
you all to consider:


Naming Issue
------------

Of course, we won't list an organization if they haven't made some
commitment to call the system, "GNU/Linux".  Some organizations may do
this in the name itself.

However, many organizations are well established as "LUGs" and may be
reluctant to change the official name.  it seems to me that we don't want
to be too rigid on that matter.  Thus, I'd like to make the rule that we
consider the naming matter "resolved" if at least one person (whose
contact info we have, and) who has *editing access* to most published
documents (primarily the website) agrees to say GNU/Linux consistently,
even if the name of the organization itself is still a "LUG".

What do you think?


Adherence to Principles
-----------------------

[ This concern is based on my extensive experience with starting and
  helping to run the Cincinnati GNU/Linux User Group (CGLUG). ]

User groups tend not to have any clear set of principles.  Some user
groups (be they "Free Software User Groups", "GNU/Linux User Groups", or
"Linux User Groups") have a strong commitment to software freedom.  Others
do not.  And, the commitment changes over time: the year I was on the
CGLUG board of directors, the official policies stood pretty firmly for
software freedom.  I was voted out, and then the official policies began
to be more proprietary-software-oriented.

Yet, we can't decide the nature of an organization from only "official
policies".  First, many (G)LUGs don't even have official policy; CGLUG was
rare in that it was an incorporated non-profit.  Most are loose-nit groups
of people who meet somewhere.  Second, even if official policies are
unfriendly to software freedom, there might be a core group of people who
support software freedom and show up each month to make the key points of
software freedom.


Here's an example: even when the CGLUG leadership as a whole was making
edicts that were almost in direct opposition to software freedom, I was
still involved.  Based on my involvement, every meeting included some
discussion of why the proprietary software program being presented was
bad, the concerns of the Free Software Movement, etc.  A lot of people
were reached and were able to hear both sides of the story.  Thus, the
overall impact of CGLUG was acceptable to the Free Software Movement, even
though the official policies of the organization were opposed to our
principles.

In fact, our chief webmasters today are two people who showed up at CGLUG
and were convinced by the points I made concerning software freedom, and
now they are dedicated to the Free Software Movement.

Thus, I think that as long as a given user group has a core team of strong
software freedom supporters, we should seriously consider listing the
group.  In my experience, if just 5 of every 40 *active* participants are
vocal supporters of software freedom, the message gets across to new
members.

Thus, for each such group, I suggest that we find a core group of 3-5
people whom we trust.  We can check in with them for reports every six
months or so to see how the advocacy is going in their organization.


   -- bkuhn

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