On Aug 22, 2007, at 2:46 PM, Henrik Sandklef wrote:
Jeremiah Foster wrote:
On 8/21/07, Irina Dzhambazova irina@fsfeurope.org wrote:
Dear Swedish fellows,
in an attempt to make the Free Software Fellowship in Sweden a more democratic and homogeneous community
But not the Free Software community at large? Just the Fellowship?
I am a bit confused here. We cannot do anything directly about the Free Software community at large, because they are free to do what they want. And should be so. I'd say that the Free Software community at large is democratic in its nature as far as software goes. This is so since we have GPL and people can do what they want with the software (as long as they don't take away the four freedoms). What FSFE can do for the FS community is to work for the sake of Free Software, and this is what we do. Every day. So I hope (and believe) that the FS community think that we represent them.
Perhaps you mean that FSFE needs to do an attempt to do the above instead of "Free Software community at large"? If that's the case, then I've heard complaints about the openess and transparency of FSFE before. Is that what you mean?
In general the point of democracy is that _everyone_ has a vote. When just the party members have a vote, and you can think of the Fellowship as a political party, you get oligarchy. It seems hypocritical that a political action group (the FSFE) who lobbies on behalf of the people of Europe is steered by an unelected board and that only Fellows can interact via Jabber with the FSFE.
Here art two easy steps toward transparency and openness:
1. Let anyone who wants to participate in the FSFE Jabber meetings - don't limit them to Fellows. 2. Describe the process by which the leadership of the FSFE gets elected
Until things like this are done, the FSFE will continue to receive criticism for its lack of openness. And not just from me. :)
Will there be a session for those of us who want to remain outside the Fellowship?
We will have to find a new chat room somewhere. But that should be a really easy task.
Not necessary since there are already numerous IRC channels and the like.
Jeremiah