* MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop [2012-01-05 12:13:47 +0000]:
Tanguy Ortolo tanguy+fsfe@ortolo.eu
Yes it does. What I will remember is that our laws suck too much to allow the creation of a true European association, so this has been worked around this way. [...]
Is that actually true? It thought it was a choice to have fellows instead of members.
There are two topics: - There is no European association. That is bad, because else FSFE would have choosen that one. As this is not possible, we set up a German association. - Fellows not being members. It was a choice when we set up the Fellowship to have Fellows as non-members. Like most of the people doing work for FSFE are non-members. After some time we wanted to give the Fellows more legal power in our constitution, so we introduced the Fellowship seats in the GA, which Fellows can vote. (Of course one of the most powerful ways to influence FSFE is still to just do the work as a volunteer and to contact us on matters, and discuss with us.)
Given what it is, I think "fellow" is much better than the misleading "associated members" used elsewhere (who aren't members and it's not an association).
I agree. That's why we try not talking about members, when it is not members in the actual legal sense. Although there are team members (in the web, translators, legal, etc. teams).
Regards, Matthias