hi Tanguy,
* Tanguy Ortolo tanguy+fsfe@ortolo.eu [2012-01-05 09:45:41 +0000]:
My interrogation is quite simple: what is the purpose of the use of the word “fellowship”?
I am a member of several associations, and in all of them, except FSFE, I am called a “member” of the “association” itself. On the contrary, here in the FSFE, I am called a “fellow”, or perhaps a “member” of the “fellowship” of FSFE, I am not sure. Anyway, this is not natural at all, and I really do not understand why there seems to be a specific program, with a dedicated, separated website for people that want to support the FSFE?
That is because legally you are not a member of the association when you are a Fellow of FSFE (see the buttom of https://fsfe.org/about/members.en.html). FSF calls their supporters associated members, but FSFE decided in 2004 to call them Fellows. Actually the name was decided before I joined FSFE, but afaik it was choosen because it sounds cool. A little bit like the Fellowship of the ring :)
The first time I subscribed, I must tell that when I got redirected to the “fellowship” website, I really wondered if I that was right and if I was not subscribing to something else. Even now, I still do not understand what that “fellowship” is about and how it is different from the association itself, assuming that there is an actual difference. And I also wonder if other people understand: if they do not, then would confuse them as it confuses me.
We are improving this at the moment. Currently we move the sites from the current fellowship.fsfe.org to fsfe.org/fellowship/. So we will include it better in the general fsfe.org website, and explain it better. (Now you can reach it under join in the main fsfe.org menu. Not "Fellowship" anymore, which will be confusing for a lot of people.)
Did that answer you question?
Regards, Matthias