Hey all,
irregardless of the split in our community between privacy pragmatists
and privacy absolutists, I think we should take note of this step
Mozilla has taken, as I believe FSFE still has a Facebook page (last
active on September 21st as far as I can ascertain).
> Dear global community we’ve had the opportunity to interact with over the past several years here:
>
> We’re taking a break from Facebook.
>
> At Mozilla we champion platforms and technologies that are good for the web and good for the people that use it.
> We stand up for transparency and user control because they make the web healthier for us all.
>
> That’s why we are pressing pause on any Facebook activity. Mark Zuckerberg has just promised to improve Facebook’s settings and make them more protective, which is a start! Please do that! But we can’t help but think we’ve heard it before, so we’re still going to wait and see what materializes before we resume spending our ad dollars or time here.
>
> IN THE MEANTIME:
> If you need support for Firefox or want to tweet at us, you can find us here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/
> and https://twitter.com/mozilla
(Non-tracked link to the source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180323091845/https://de-de.facebook.com/mozil…)
What do you guys think?
Best regards,
Jonke
Hi everybody,
In the blog about fellowship elections being cancelled[1], the
fellowship has been likened to a corporate donor.
A similar comparison was made in the invitation to the extraordinary
general assembly.
On the transparency page[2], there is a link to donor information[3]
where FSFE identifies the significant corporate donors, especially those
who contribute more than 10% of the budget.
The fellowship appears to contribute[4] about a third of the budget,
more than any other single donor. That was almost EUR 190,000 in 2016
A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were
not identified publicly. Every corporate donor who contributes over 10%
is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency
principle should apply in cases such as bequests?
Corporate donors (whether they are publicly listed or private companies)
typically have to publish some information publicly, at a bare minimum,
we can see in which country they are domiciled and who their directors are.
I feel it is a good idea to publish more details about FSFE membership
and fellowship. In comparison, while at RMLL, I was at the session
about April where they announced that they have 4,000 members[5] and
clarified that these are all full members of the association with a
right to vote.
FSFE currently publishes[6] the names of all legal members (GA members),
there are 29. FSFE has not directly published statistics about the
fellowship though, although the page[7] about the last elections showed
there were 1,532 people eligible to vote.
There is a weekly report circulated in the team mailing list that gives
a membership breakdown by country. As fellowship representative, I feel
that the information in this report is quite important for the
fellowship at large. I also feel that it is important for other reasons:
- giving volunteers transparency, the same details that GA and team are
aware of
- being consistent with the availability of information about the
corporate donors (e.g. we can see where corporate donors are domiciled,
so it is important to know where the fellows are predominantly domiciled)
- as the "E" in FSFE is for Europe, I feel it is important to
demonstrate the extent to which FSFE is engaged in each European country
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list
stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly. I notice that
the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few
months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors
may be responsible:
- the renaming of "fellow" to "supporter", many of the email templates
and web pages only started using the new term in the last few months.
I personally feel this is a downgrade, as a fellow is by definition a
member of a fellowship while a supporter is a more external role. Other
people may have had the same feeling and quit.
- increasing awareness about the GA decision[8] in October to begin the
process of abolishing elections
There is also a report circulated each week about mailing list
subscriptions. I notice in this report that there is a strong
correlation between the number of fellows in each country and the number
of mailing list users in each country. The blog[1] about removing the
elections asserts that fellows are a "purely financial contributor" but
if they are active in the mailing list and volunteering, I feel that
statement does not adequately describe the fellowship and it is even
more critical to have details on the transparency page and to ensure the
GA meeting in October puts in place a new procedure for community
members to vote.
Regards,
Daniel
1. https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180526-01.en.html
2. https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html
3. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
4. https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2016.en.html
5. https://www.april.org/association#Chiffres_cles
6. https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html
7. http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_29119d29f759bbf8
8. https://danielpocock.com/our-future-relationship-with-fsfe-2018
Hi everyone,
I wanted to point you to this open internship position at the FSFE:
https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170811-01.en.html
As you know, when the FSFE was founded, we put together a document
describing our self conception. That was 16 years ago, and while I
believe it to still be relevant, we'll be looking at making a new
committment towards a revised organisational identity later this year.
As a part of this work, we're looking for an intern to support the
process for 3-6 months, working closely with me and others in the
FSFE on analysing how the different groups within and outside of the
FSFE perceive the organisation's identity, which will then work
towards understanding how aligned they are, and supporting a
renewed committment towards a self conception.
We've already started the work, and will be looking for someone who
could jump on board quite soon indeed, so don't wait to send this
to someone you think might be interested! Work description and other
application details on the page above.
Sincerely,
--
Jonas Öberg, Executive Director
Free Software Foundation Europe | jonas(a)fsfe.org
Your support enables our work (fsfe.org/join)
Dear FSFE Community,
As February 14th, most commonly known as the "I love Free Software" Day
is around the corner, I am contacting you with a warm invitation to
participate in the online and/or offline promotion of the day.
As in previous editions, the campaign foresees spreading the visuals and
graphics of the "I love Free Software" Day initiative (which will also
include pictures & videos when possible) on various social media
platforms, websites, blogs, and etc.
The offline campaign envisages spreading the word by giving away
stickers, balloons, sending postcards and taking photos of the Free
Software fans with versions of the slogan, which will also be involved
in the online outreach. Additionally, some Free Software supporters will
hold a short talk/presentation about the benefits of software freedom in
front of students in a few tech oriented universities.
In case, you would be able to find time to share and spread the love for
Free Software locally, or why not even globally, online and/or offline,
please send me an email back. I will make sure you receive a supporter
package with materials and coordinate possible further actions with you.
Kind Regards,
Galia
--
Galia Mancheva- Project Manager
Free Software Foundation Europe | www.fsfe.org
+49-30-27595290 (office)
+32 488 070 135 (mobile)
fingerprint: 4195 1315 E14A A00A 0119 6F17 8040 8B16 CADD 6573
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany
Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030
Hi all,
I guess you all know that on February 14 there will be another I love Free
Software day. Which goes perfect together with a current "photographic contest
organized by Wikimedia community to document love testimonials in various
cultures and regions of the world":
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Love_2019
Wikimedia Commons is the database of pictures that are used in the wikipedia.
They regularly do contests to get pictures from monuments and other areas of
Wikipedian interest. But in contrast to them this contest is not limited to
"sites, whether of regional or national importance but on the widest variety
of love testimonials possible. This means that most users will be able to find
several pertaining subjects close to them, whether heritage sites or daily
life event."
Means that you can do a picture of your IloveFS-day contribution or of your
group and upload it to wikimedia : ) The contest is running from February 1 to 28.
Best,
Erik
--
No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software
Erik Albers | Communication & Community Coordinator | FSFE
OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net