[Fsfe-ie] topic for tonights meeting: companies supporting IFSO (Business Freedom)

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

James Heald <j.heald at ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> From: "Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran at member.fsf.org>
> >
> > I propose gathering a list of companies (using the list of directories
> > James Heald posted yesterday as a starting point).  We could then
> > contact these companies and see how many we can get to sign up to our
> > "Business Freedom" project (or whatever it's called).
> >
> 
> Any thoughts on the suggestion of sending out a semi-academic software
> patents questionnaire, as per the second half of that email ?

Yes, it's a good idea.
We should definitely send out something, possibly a questionaire.

Teresa Hackett (working on the IPR Enforcement Directive) is also
looking for a list of companies that we can gather support from.

So lets split the work rather than duplicating it.

A possible implementation would be:

Draw up Preamble, Principles, and Current Projects.  Ask companies for
their approval of our work for a 12 month period.  At the end of this
period, we'd summarise our work and produce an updated Current Projects
notice, and ask companies if they will continue supporting out work for
an additional 12 month period.

This would give us business support without us having to ask for
signatures every time we write a new letter.

I don't know.  I haven't ironned it out fully, but with limited
resources, I want to figure out the most efficient way to work this.

This would be similar to software-using companies forming a union.  They
don't have to agree 100% with everything, but solidarity would be
beneficial to all.

-- 
Ciaran O'Riordan - http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/