Hi,
I just wanted to remind the german-speaking subscribers to this list that Matthias Kabel, me and some more guys from Austria are planning to create some kind of national austrian fsf-europe subsection. The legal construct of an association (=Verein) seemed the best to us (AFAIK this is the way a lot of Non-Profit Organizations, including Greenpeace, work).
Matthias has put a draft for a statuatory on the web which can be found at http://www.salzburg.luga.or.at/fsf-statuten.tex
Such a statutuatory is required by austrian Law and our draft is structured in the way it should be. But the impüortant thing is that we should discuss the content, e.g. how could we formulated what the intention af the association will be in a better way. This does not necessarily mean the legal way of formulating it, but rather the ideologic component - what has to be in it, what should be changed/avoided.
This has been posted some time ago here, but it seems that we've been carried away a bit by the Logo-Issue (wich is also important, but we shouldn't forget about the rest).
It would be great if some of you would be willing to take the time and have a critic look at it ...
Thanks a lot,
--Georg
|| On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:44:06 +0100 (MET) || Georg Jakob jack@unix.sbg.ac.at wrote:
gj> I just wanted to remind the german-speaking subscribers to this gj> list that Matthias Kabel, me and some more guys from Austria are gj> planning to create some kind of national austrian fsf-europe gj> subsection.
Shouldn't you do that together with the people organizing the FSF Europe? At least if you plan on making it part of the FSF Europe?!
gj> Matthias has put a draft for a statuatory on the web which can be gj> found at http://www.salzburg.luga.or.at/fsf-statuten.tex
Last time I tried the resource was not available. I will try again.
gj> It would be great if some of you would be willing to take the gj> time and have a critic look at it ...
Will do.
Later, Georg
On 9 Jan 2001, Georg C. F. Greve kindly wrote:
Shouldn't you do that together with the people organizing the FSF Europe? At least if you plan on making it part of the FSF Europe?!
Yes, you're right. But isn't this list a way of doing so? On the other hand: As opposed to the U.S., national european Law can be quite troublesome regarding different aspects that might concern the fsf-europe in some essential ways: tax deductability/funding is only one, another might be enforcement of the GPL in court (should that ever be necessary). Taking care of these kinds of problems is what "locals" could (and should) for an international/european organization.
gj> Matthias has put a draft for a statuatory on the web which can be gj> found at http://www.salzburg.luga.or.at/fsf-statuten.tex
Last time I tried the resource was not available. I will try again.
... should work.
gj> It would be great if some of you would be willing to take the gj> time and have a critic look at it ...
Will do.
Thank you,
Later, Georg
Another Georg
Hi Georg!
|| On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:58:49 +0100 (MET) || Georg Jakob jack@unix.sbg.ac.at wrote:
Shouldn't you do that together with the people organizing the FSF Europe? At least if you plan on making it part of the FSF Europe?!
gj> Yes, you're right. But isn't this list a way of doing so?
Kind of. If you have read the postings and announcements by the FSF Europe (and our postings on this list) you will know that we asked people who are interested in getting involved to subscribe to this list and people who think about founding local FSF branches to get in touch with us at team@fsfeurope.org (mapping to all 7 current core members from Germany, France, Italy and Sweden) and tell us a bit about you so we can hopefuly get to know each other and start building up the mutual trust that is necessary for such an important project.
As I have said once or twice before: as we are the acknowledged branch of the FSF in the U.S., we need to be as philosophically firm and clean as well as have the same level of lastingness. This requires a lot of dedication by every member and quite some trust into the members.
Since this isn't something that everyone can (or wants to) do, there will be the "associated" organizations that are a little less restrictive and (in general) open to everyone regardless of the amount of commitment and Free Software & GNU awareness.
gj> On the other hand: As opposed to the U.S., national european Law gj> can be quite troublesome regarding different aspects that might gj> concern the fsf-europe in some essential ways:
Which is why the status update before christmas gave details on how the structure will be set up as this will solve allow us to have one organization that can act Europe-wide instead of just locally on behalf of Free Software.
Local organizations are important and the FSF Europe has been structured in a way that it can network with local organizations throughout Europe.
From what I have read so far from you, it seems that a local membership-based Free Software oriented organization is what you have in mind. That means that you'd probably be perfect candidates for becoming an associate organization - this is the course that APRIL in France will probably take, too.
However. We very much welcome your enthusiasm and we'd like to get to know you, so if you want to introduce yourself, your idea(l)s and concepts to us, we'd be happy to listen and get to know you.
I will take a look at your statutes soon... but probably only after Thursday when I had the meeting with the FSF Eruope lawyers.
Regards, Georg
On 9 Jan 2001, Georg C. F. Greve kindly wrote:
--snip--
From what I have read so far from you, it seems that a local membership-based Free Software oriented organization is what you have in mind. That means that you'd probably be perfect candidates for becoming an associate organization - this is the course that APRIL in France will probably take, too.
Personally I don't care if what we are trying to start might turn out as a subbranch or an associate organization. I hope I do not sound to pathetic by saying that I belive in freedom (like in free speech) and want to give something back if I can.
However. We very much welcome your enthusiasm and we'd like to get to know you, so if you want to introduce yourself, your idea(l)s and concepts to us, we'd be happy to listen and get to know you.
http://www.users.sbg.ac.at/~jack
There's not that much at the moment and I am aware of the fact that what's there needs to be worked on. I am way behind schedule, but, well ... working on it.
Regards,
--Georg
Georg C. F. Greve greve@gnu.org wrote:
[...] get in touch with us at team@fsfeurope.org (mapping to all 7 current core members from Germany, France, Italy and Sweden) [...]
The website references at www.fsfeurope.org and mailman.fsfeurope.org need updating then (they list four people). May be a copy of the new people/country annoucement should be included in the site too?
Georg Jakob jack@unix.sbg.ac.at schrieb/wrote:
I just wanted to remind the german-speaking subscribers to this list that Matthias Kabel, me and some more guys from Austria are planning to create some kind of national austrian fsf-europe subsection. The legal construct of an association (=Verein)....
I wonder if this is a good idea at all? Maybe this shold just be the "German-speaking part of FSF Europe".
Further, it might make sense to have a single association for the whole German-speaking region, including Germany and Switzerland.
Claus
On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Claus Färber wrote:
Further, it might make sense to have a single association for the whole German-speaking region, including Germany and Switzerland.
I don't think that the language is an important fact which hinders the communication in our area of work. The main reason for local chapters are the different legal requirements and they are still different between Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Werner
|| On 10 Jan 2001 00:22:00 +0100 || list-fsf-eu-discussion@faerber.muc.de (Claus Färber) wrote:
I just wanted to remind the german-speaking subscribers to this list that Matthias Kabel, me and some more guys from Austria are planning to create some kind of national austrian fsf-europe subsection. The legal construct of an association (=Verein)....
cf> I wonder if this is a good idea at all? Maybe this shold just be cf> the "German-speaking part of FSF Europe".
As far as I know there is no common tax law between Germany, Austria and Swizerland, which would be the prerequisite for such a thing.
cf> Further, it might make sense to have a single association for the cf> whole German-speaking region, including Germany and Switzerland.
I'm not so sure of that - this is going into the wrong direction (isolation instead of cooperation). There will be several people speaking German and they will be speaking German with their national people/representatives just as the French representatives will be speaking French with their folks or the Swedish will be speaking their language. This has been one of the reasons why there will be a local chapter in every country.
Regards, Georg