"Shane M. Coughlan" shane@shaneland.co.uk
[...] In other words, CSR is a great selling point to large enterprises but it might make up a much smaller part of the decision-making process in a SME.
It might also backfire horribly. I think casting GBN as a feel-good CSR initiative would contaminate it for a whole range of potential collaborators and supporters: "Right now a more accurate meaning of 'CSR' would be 'corporate suppression of regulation'. Multinationals are islands of central planning in a sea of failed markets. CSR is used as a PR weapon to help corporations maintain market power, when it is precisely that power that is the problem. [...] We need road signs and traffic lights for corporate juggernauts, not a donkey derby of promises, good wishes and crossed fingers." -- Andrew Simms, policy director, New Economics Foundation, in The Observer 2006-06-18
For a more direct example: cooperatives have concern for community as part of the foundation and it's not just a public relations exercise for members. I think we should help make this important structural change, as in other bad markets of old: "In 1876 a travelling salesman/auctioneer [...] decided to assist the widow of a railwayman by donating five per cent of his takings [...] The local traders decided that with the sale of 1400lbs of tea, he needed to be stopped from trading [...] The court decided to let him off with two hours detention until the end of the sitting but he decided to leave the traders a legacy and from his knowledge of co-operative societies urged his supporters to hold a meeting in his tent and form a Society." -- Anglia Society : A Potted History
but it sometimes feels like FSF* prefers to court Big Software and their big lawyers and ignore the possibility of directly influencing markets. Please don't let GBN fail in a similar way by bending to approve those who sell free software short. We need a CSR tie-in and its jargon about as much as we need to utilise a multitined eating implement on our cranium.
Best wishes,