Hello everyone,
As you already now, we had a work meeting for the free e-mail association last night. We decided that it is a good idea to found the association before FSCONS. This was deemed a too big of an opportunity to miss.
This means that we hastily need to get together for a founding meeting.
Our suggestion is to meet November 4, 18:00 at Gnutiken.
We wish to suggest the following points for that meeting: - membership fee: 300 SEK means we need 50 members to reach 15000 SEK - domain name: fripost.org is available
For FSCONS we wish to have the following: - Possibility to join the association for all Swedish attendants - Possibility to sign up for membership via a list (pay later) - Promotional material (Gustav is already working on this)
Having a founding meeting now also means we will have an annual meeting early next year where we will discuss among other things the declaration of principles. For now, the by-laws will have to do.
Gustav has written notes from our meeting last night that he will write and make available on the wiki ASAP.
There is a suggestion for a letter below that I think is suitable for spreading this invitation wider. Please voice any objections, suggestions or other thoughts. Otherwise, I will send this to:
- diskussion@lists.se.linux.org - Serengeti-listan - fosskalendern.se - any other places I did not think of?
- Stefan
#### INVITATION LETTER FOLLOWS ####
Subject: November 4, 2010 -- Welcome to founding meeting of the Free E-mail Association
I am proud to announce the founding of a new association: The Free E-mail Association (Den fria e-postföreningen).
We will have a founding meeting November 4, 2010 18:00 at Gnutiken. Please see the suggestions for by-laws on the website:
http://fellowship.se/wiki/Projekt/friepost
We need to elect: a chairman (ordförande), a board (styrelse), an accountant (revisor) and a nominating committee (valberedning).
We want to create an alternative to privately controlled e-mail services like Google or Yahoo mail where the users' freedom and integrity will always come second to the service providers interests. More concretely, this means we will collaborate around and run a number of mail servers.
The associations email service will be free as in free speech, but not as in free beer. Quite the opposite; we will be funded primarily by our membership fees. The association will be democratic and the e-mail service as transparent as possible. To guarantee this, we must be independent from any third parties.
We will suggest a membership fee of 300 SEK per year. This means that we need 50 members to reach 15,000 SEK, which is our estimate of what we need before we can begin doing the initial investments. Specifically, we need to buy storage and pay for hosting. The rest can be done by using already donated or otherwise borrowed hardware. We are already running temporary systems that will only need a tad bit more configuring and testing before we are ready to allow the members to start using them.
Everyone is free to become a member at the meeting, and everyone who is a member is electable for the board. There will be a nomination process during the meeting, and the elections will be done by a secret ballot.
To achieve a sufficient level of reliability, we need to do some investments in hardware and hosting. This means we need members. The problem is that some people might be less willing to join until everything is up and running.
However, we must not let ourselves be trapped by this deadlock. We need to do the opposite of waiting around: now is the time to act.
We invite you to join us and share our vision of a user controlled email service. All interested parties, whether they know for sure they want to join or not, are welcome to our founding meeting and to visit our presentation at FSCONS.
What better place than here? What better time than now?
Sincerely, Stefan Kangas
Hi!
The notes from yesterday's meeting are now available at http://fellowship.se/wiki/Projekt/friepost/Protokoll. The most important were summarised in Stefan's previous e-mail.
On Fri, 29 Oct 2010, Stefan Kangas wrote:
For now, the by-laws will have to do.
Don't forget to look through the suggestion of statues on the wiki, http://fellowship.se/wiki/Projekt/friepost/Stadgar, and also the suggestion for agenda, http://fellowship.se/wiki/Projekt/friepost/%C3%85rsm%C3%B6te.
There is a suggestion for a letter below that I think is suitable for spreading this invitation wider. Please voice any objections, suggestions or other thoughts.
Comments and questions follows.
Otherwise, I will send this to:
- diskussion@lists.se.linux.org
- Serengeti-listan
- fosskalendern.se
- any other places I did not think of?
Doesn't Piratpartiet have a sending list? they should be interested.
#### INVITATION LETTER FOLLOWS ####
Subject: November 4, 2010 -- Welcome to founding meeting of the Free E-mail Association
I am proud to announce the founding of a new association: The Free E-mail Association (Den fria e-postföreningen).
Will the name not be /Fripost, den fria e-postföreningen/?
We will have a founding meeting November 4, 2010 18:00 at Gnutiken.
Add the address: Övre Husargatan 27, 41314 Göteborg,
Please see the suggestions for by-laws on the website:
http://fellowship.se/wiki/Projekt/friepostWe need to elect: a chairman (ordförande), a board (styrelse), an accountant (revisor) and a nominating committee (valberedning).
I suggest that we use, "president" and "auditor". A /chairman/ is more of an meeting officer.
We want to create an alternative to privately controlled e-mail services like Google or Yahoo mail where the users' freedom and integrity will always come second to the service providers interests. More concretely, this means we will collaborate around and run a number of mail servers.
-> "With privately controlled e-mail services, like Gmail or Yahoo mail, the users' freedom and integrity always come second to the service providers interests. We want to create an alternative. More concretely, this means that we will collaborate around and run a number of mail servers."
The associations email service will be free as in free speech, but not as in free beer. Quite the opposite; we will be funded primarily by our membership fees. The association will be democratic and the e-mail service as transparent as possible. To guarantee this, we must be independent from any third parties.
"Quite the opposite" -> "In fact the opposite holds" "funded" -> "financed" "democratic and" -> "democratic, and"
We will suggest a membership fee of 300 SEK per year. This means that we need 50 members to reach 15,000 SEK, which is our estimate of what we need before we can begin doing the initial investments. Specifically, we need to buy storage and pay for hosting. The rest can be done by using already donated or otherwise borrowed hardware. We are already running temporary systems that will only need a tad bit more configuring and testing before we are ready to allow the members to start using them.
"begin doing" -> "begin with"
Everyone is free to become a member at the meeting, and everyone who is a member is electable for the board. There will be a nomination process during the meeting, and the elections will be done by a secret ballot.
-> "and elections will be made ballots" or "and the elections will be secret"
To achieve a sufficient level of reliability, we need to do some investments in hardware and hosting. This means we need members. The problem is that some people might be less willing to join until everything is up and running.
However, we must not let ourselves be trapped by this deadlock. We need to do the opposite of waiting around: now is the time to act.
-> "take action"
We invite you to join us and share our vision of a user controlled email service. All interested parties, whether they know for sure they want to join or not, are welcome to our founding meeting and to visit our presentation at FSCONS.
What better place than here? What better time than now?
-> "What better place than here, and hat better time than now is there?
-------------------------------- Gustav Eek Volrat Thamsgatan 12, läg 6551 412 60 Göteborg tfn: 031-24 55 86, 0709-58 85 93 e-post: gustaveek@student.gu.se
PS. Nästa kritisk massa: 29 oktober, http://gothenburgcriticalmass.blogspot.com. DS.
PPS. Presstödsförändringar gör att FRIA tidningen behöver prenumeranter för att kunna fortleva. Jag hjälper till med att värva fyra innan oktobers slut: tre månader, 93 kr. Fråga gärna! DDS.
Gustav Eek gustaveek@student.gu.se writes:
Doesn't Piratpartiet have a sending list? they should be interested.
Agreed. Does someone have an e-mail adress?
Will the name not be /Fripost, den fria e-postföreningen/?
Yes, my bad.
- Stefan
On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Gustav Eek gustaveek@student.gu.se wrote:
Hi!
Hi!
The associations email service will be free as in free speech, but not as in free beer. Quite the opposite; we will be funded primarily by our membership fees. The association will be democratic and the e-mail service as transparent as possible. To guarantee this, we must be independent from any third parties.
"Quite the opposite" -> "In fact the opposite holds" "funded" -> "financed" "democratic and" -> "democratic, and"
In fact, what it the opposite of:
"free as in free speech, but not as in free beer" ?
It's a rather complex textual construct which translates logically to something like
Free speech & Not Free beer
for which the opposite would be
NOT (free speech & Not free beer)
which would be:
Not free speech OR Not Not free beer
wich would be
Unfree speech OR Free beer
which is not what the Association wants to offer I guess? ;-) (even though some like free beer, none like unfree speach, and you shouldn't have to choose between the two ;-)
I suggest leaving out the "opposite" part and start the next sentence as follows:
"We will be funded primarily by our membership fees."
Sorry for the rant, I couldn't help myself ;-)
Never mind the ramblings of hobby booleanisms above, I think the word "opposite" is not necessary for the sentence above to explain that we have a member fee ;-)
Rikard