Discussion August 2018

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

31 participants
13 discussions

Mozilla: "We’re taking a break from Facebook"
by Jonke Suhr 04 Oct '21

04 Oct '21

Hey all, irregardless of the split in our community between privacy pragmatists and privacy absolutists, I think we should take note of this step Mozilla has taken, as I believe FSFE still has a Facebook page (last active on September 21st as far as I can ascertain). > Dear global community we’ve had the opportunity to interact with over the past several years here: > > We’re taking a break from Facebook. > > At Mozilla we champion platforms and technologies that are good for the web and good for the people that use it. > We stand up for transparency and user control because they make the web healthier for us all. > > That’s why we are pressing pause on any Facebook activity. Mark Zuckerberg has just promised to improve Facebook’s settings and make them more protective, which is a start! Please do that! But we can’t help but think we’ve heard it before, so we’re still going to wait and see what materializes before we resume spending our ad dollars or time here. > > IN THE MEANTIME: > If you need support for Firefox or want to tweet at us, you can find us here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/ > and https://twitter.com/mozilla (Non-tracked link to the source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180323091845/https://de-de.facebook.com/mozil…) What do you guys think? Best regards, Jonke

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transparency about the fellowship
by Daniel Pocock 20 Jan '20

20 Jan '20

Hi everybody, In the blog about fellowship elections being cancelled[1], the fellowship has been likened to a corporate donor. A similar comparison was made in the invitation to the extraordinary general assembly. On the transparency page[2], there is a link to donor information[3] where FSFE identifies the significant corporate donors, especially those who contribute more than 10% of the budget. The fellowship appears to contribute[4] about a third of the budget, more than any other single donor. That was almost EUR 190,000 in 2016 A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were not identified publicly. Every corporate donor who contributes over 10% is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency principle should apply in cases such as bequests? Corporate donors (whether they are publicly listed or private companies) typically have to publish some information publicly, at a bare minimum, we can see in which country they are domiciled and who their directors are. I feel it is a good idea to publish more details about FSFE membership and fellowship. In comparison, while at RMLL, I was at the session about April where they announced that they have 4,000 members[5] and clarified that these are all full members of the association with a right to vote. FSFE currently publishes[6] the names of all legal members (GA members), there are 29. FSFE has not directly published statistics about the fellowship though, although the page[7] about the last elections showed there were 1,532 people eligible to vote. There is a weekly report circulated in the team mailing list that gives a membership breakdown by country. As fellowship representative, I feel that the information in this report is quite important for the fellowship at large. I also feel that it is important for other reasons: - giving volunteers transparency, the same details that GA and team are aware of - being consistent with the availability of information about the corporate donors (e.g. we can see where corporate donors are domiciled, so it is important to know where the fellows are predominantly domiciled) - as the "E" in FSFE is for Europe, I feel it is important to demonstrate the extent to which FSFE is engaged in each European country The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly. I notice that the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors may be responsible: - the renaming of "fellow" to "supporter", many of the email templates and web pages only started using the new term in the last few months. I personally feel this is a downgrade, as a fellow is by definition a member of a fellowship while a supporter is a more external role. Other people may have had the same feeling and quit. - increasing awareness about the GA decision[8] in October to begin the process of abolishing elections There is also a report circulated each week about mailing list subscriptions. I notice in this report that there is a strong correlation between the number of fellows in each country and the number of mailing list users in each country. The blog[1] about removing the elections asserts that fellows are a "purely financial contributor" but if they are active in the mailing list and volunteering, I feel that statement does not adequately describe the fellowship and it is even more critical to have details on the transparency page and to ensure the GA meeting in October puts in place a new procedure for community members to vote. Regards, Daniel 1. https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180526-01.en.html 2. https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html 3. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html 4. https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2016.en.html 5. https://www.april.org/association#Chiffres_cles 6. https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html 7. http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_29119d29f759bbf8 8. https://danielpocock.com/our-future-relationship-with-fsfe-2018

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FSFE-in-2020: Who are we?
by Jonas Oberg 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

Hi everyone, I wanted to point you to this open internship position at the FSFE: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170811-01.en.html As you know, when the FSFE was founded, we put together a document describing our self conception. That was 16 years ago, and while I believe it to still be relevant, we'll be looking at making a new committment towards a revised organisational identity later this year. As a part of this work, we're looking for an intern to support the process for 3-6 months, working closely with me and others in the FSFE on analysing how the different groups within and outside of the FSFE perceive the organisation's identity, which will then work towards understanding how aligned they are, and supporting a renewed committment towards a self conception. We've already started the work, and will be looking for someone who could jump on board quite soon indeed, so don't wait to send this to someone you think might be interested! Work description and other application details on the page above. Sincerely, -- Jonas Öberg, Executive Director Free Software Foundation Europe | jonas(a)fsfe.org Your support enables our work (fsfe.org/join)

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to git or not to git
by Alessandro Rubini 19 Sep '18

19 Sep '18

This is the question. Or, better, to github or not to github. Once upon a time, github was a bad hosting site, because the site code is not free, and we should have rather preferred gitorious. I did. But then gitorious closed shop and I had to go to the various projects (hosted elsewhere) that had submodules and make a commit to change the link. Not many projects, I admit, but still an unpleasant operation. Besides, all past history is now broken because of the dangling submodule link. I'm able to bisect anyways, but will my user be able too? And this problem is replicated for all repo owners. Not nice. So, besides self-hosting (unfeasible for whole-kernel repos) I moved to github. Well, not using it other than as a git repo why should I care that the code (that I do not use) is not free? Maybe because I contribute visibility to that specific unfree provider, but they were "friendly" guys. Now, they are microsoft. Same people. Same site. Different owner, different money-flow. Shall I (we) change attitude? Most smart people say no, that nothing changed. I'm aware the new owner is not worse than most other companies -- but they are the same ones who wanted to kill us out of the market, before turning into friends who still would love if we disappeared. So, I feel a little uneasy, and I'm now wondering where to push my yet-unpushed projects (while keeping previous stuff on github for several reasons -- mostly link-rusting issues). How does the free software community feels in this respect? thanks /alessandro

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Talos II (FSF RYF candidate)
by Timothy Pearson 16 Sep '18

16 Sep '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Just wanted to pass this along from the FSF on this side of the pond in case you haven't seen it yet: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/support-the-talos-ii-a-candidate-for-re… - -- Timothy Pearson Raptor Engineering +1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line) +1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard) https://www.raptorengineering.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJZuEx+AAoJEK+E3vEXDOFbEI4H/ii1wPQbq6xhZF0F5hcS3Kfi 03oE0E1Xaj5IV2FM30sExO/Lf8I5jl+VQnVdrsiCoIIqBev4DcfxA/vfJ4SUY24y hmbwzafi8g2zffaLSICIChiAEEcDHlaQniTU4S6wxNWv4RyIUrkEYvqUvwRNnpUv g69V8VxYUqcjnHtZVpu9gwAmPgc1TXNW508i4fnMP3EHX1DEmW5pBLmRvPvGsRor 9th3F/ezacfqkPlkuWmL2YLb7wRvTzTJw6CMXInpKDyK+kQCMvL3Tgyp2HFZcCm7 skpS+uconvRQhpp/InVYYCh/e6CrHznpxyEhvug0elX0lZDpqvmv1Hv0sTY3mEU= =WEgY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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supporting our fellowship representative
by lukerogers＠tutanota.com 07 Sep '18

07 Sep '18

What I'm reading in this mailing list is scary I never saw an association cancel the elections. Is that legal? I want to give my full support to Daniel Pocock and commend him for his tenacity in the pursuit of transparency and truth. It looks like the GA is full of yes-men but Pocock is the fiercely independent advocate that us fellows need. If somebody isn't happy about the job Pocock does then instead of making insults and character assassinations, run for election against him. But you are all afraid Pocock or somebody else like him would be voted again by the silent majority, you abolished the elections. How pathetic you all are. No more elections? My fellowship contribution isn't going to FSFE next year, give the money to a local group where everything is done by volunteers and not careerists in Berlin. The FSFE transparency pages are hilarious. FSFE chose the transparency checklist from Transparency International because it lets them have transparency credentials but their checklist doesn't ask to publish the salaries like the FSF and other groups. Top marks to Pocock for exposing that in his thread on transparency. Keep it up.

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Re: terminating memberships responsibly (was: please be excellent to each other (Re: application for FSFE e.V. membership and resignation))
by Bernhard E. Reiter 03 Sep '18

03 Sep '18

Hi Daniel, [while I am quoting from this mail which I understand you have intended to be public, I only quote and respond on the points I believe the public can understand. My aim is to protect you, me and others from writing something in anger that afterwards cannot be retracted from public archives.] Am Dienstag 28 August 2018 22:05:05 schrieb Daniel Pocock: > On 28/08/18 09:27, Bernhard E. Reiter wrote: > > any organisation(+) reserves the right to exclude members that heavily > > obstruct the way it works. There is a point where this has to be done > > just so that people can go seperate ways. > > I would agree with that, but normally that involves a process of > mediation and then a specific communication with the member about it. What I've noticed in the e.V. interaction were that many people gave you feedback and offered help in getting your positions heard and acted upon. I did so on a number of occasions by mail. From what came out of if, I can only conclude that I was not good enough in helping you personally into the group and understand how it works. I'm sorry for this. > The FSFE constitution requires a member be given a reason for exclusion > and an opportunity to appeal. Those processes were not followed. [..] > It was attempted in [..] > an administrative motion tacked onto the last page of a 9 page notice > (attached), reading "The current Fellowship representatives' membership > ends immediately after the this extraordinary General Assembly." The other interpretation of the May assembly, that we wanted to be extra clear what happens to the existing fellowship representatives, so they are treated with respect and not having their term terminated by a formal oversight. In the end this documented that you and Mirko could stay longer (than some legal interpretations implied). > If people had differences of opinion with me, there have been many > opportunities to discuss that with me at events but for the record, I'd > like to make it clear no other member ever did so. Unfortunately we did not meet at events, because I rarely make it to events these days being a Dad, instead I wrote several emails stating my disagreement (or agreement) with your points. > However, even though I agree with you for the general case that a member > may need to be excluded from time to time, in this case we are talking > about an elected representative. As you can see from the email of our care team: You are sometimes perceived as being offensive and making information public that others trusted you with in private without a good reason they can understand. If a large majority of e.V. members believe this to be a major problem they could formally exclude you, no matter how you have become a member of the e.V. . So far, they haven't. > Also, it is not correct to moan about a democratically elected > representative "obstructing" anything: it is their responsibility to > speak up. An elected representative would have no reason to exist > otherwise, would they? It is helpful to have a different view on things, but if it is getting highly unconstructive I believe that a large majority has to make sure that other people's, ways of working and views within the organisation are protected as well. Speaking up in itself is not a virtue, bring up important points and convincing others to do something about them is. > So why is FSFE afraid to allow the full community to vote for president > or allow anybody from the community to nominate for the role of president? Essentially, because we are not a "state". I've explained this elsewhere. We cannot say who is part of the "demos". If we are open to everybody, we would have the majority opinion which for instance would mean a certain proprietary operating system on desktops. And FSFE is about a smaller group in society trying to convince others about Free Software, otherwise we would be unnecessary. > I feel a duty to see out the term for the benefit of those people > who don't have a voice in our general meetings or don't even get invited. Are you really helping other fellows by bringing up a number of motions where many others signalled you that this is a formal style that would not help the intended course? What do the heating and repeating formal discussions like this one do to help FSFE get better to help people get educated about Free Software? Everybody's opinion is invited in FSFE, and then we need to find a course of action making practically the best out of our limited resources. I am human, you are human we all are humans, we are making mistakes. Now we are here. It seems to not work out between you and FSFE, so my suggestion is let us agree on this and split. Best Regards, Bernhard -- FSFE -- Founding Member Support our work for Free Software: blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard https://fsfe.org/donate | contribute

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application for FSFE e.V. membership and resignation
by Daniel Pocock 03 Sep '18

03 Sep '18

This e-mail contained information published in error and is no longer available.

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Is organisational identity the key to all of this?
by Jonke Suhr 30 Aug '18

30 Aug '18

Hey all, Daniel wrote on February 1st 2018: > Understanding where the organization will go beyond the extinction of > the fellowship representative is critical. The Identity review process, > championed by Jonas Oberg and Kristi Progri, is actively looking at > these questions. Please contact Kristi[5] if you wish to participate > and look out for updates about this process in emails and Planet[6] > FSFE. Kristi will be at FOSDEM[7] this weekend if you want to speak to > her personally. You should all have this email, but I'm attaching it again just in case. The email refers to a blogpost dating September 20th 2017 (almost one year already): https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170911-01.html In which it says: > As we work on this for the next few months, there will be several > opportunities for all parts of our community to be heard: we will ask > individuals to participate in interviews, sometimes directly, > sometimes by asking for people who are interested in participating. > We’ll conduct surveys circulated through our community and > newsletter, and we will share our findings regularly, on our web > pages, and on our team wiki. This is the wiki page: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/FSFE-in-2020 As far as I can tell, the last edits were sometime in late 2017. I participated in the survey and I had a very nice phone interview with Kristi, I still hope we will eventually see some results. You can see the kinds of questions I was asked on the wiki page. Maybe it's still possible to participate, I don't have any information on that. Personally, I would like to see a better form of governance for the FSFE, I know that it's extremely difficult. I view the "FSFE in 2020" initiative as a form of democratic outreach to the FSFE community as a whole, which IMHO should be embraced and built upon. Cheers, Jonke

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The take-away message?
by Joe Awni 30 Aug '18

30 Aug '18

I see the same patterns showing up in this discussion again and again. Most reasonable, sane, and modern people would have quietly excused themselves from fruitless communication. I would like to do the same, but my obligation will not allow it. I've been privately corresponding with a number of folks from the discussion-list. We suspect that not everyone understands the contemporary context or history of this software movement and therefore could be forgiven for kind-of defaulting to just-a-private-German-club status where a dozen legal members are in absolute charge. This seems to be the direction the office in Berlin would be most pleased with. But, as I said before, in that case I would consider them domain-name-squatters. We need the answer to a basic question from paid staff: Besides the obvious recent trend of taking offense at the suggestion that you should do, claiming that most people don't actually want you to do, or just hoping that this discussion will fade-away, soon, what do you consider your job at FSFE to be? And before you try to flame-bait me into a discussion about your feelings I include this disclaimer: I am not responsible for your feelings weather they be true or not, and I am not willing to see the discussion diverted into minutia. I have to protect myself; I have already been victim of physical bullying while attending Free Software events. You can read my thread for more info on the beat-down in Brussels at FOSDEM 2016. Therefore, I apologise in-advance, I will not be physically attending any meetings or naming individuals.

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Discussion August 2018