Hi Everyone!
Okay, I wanted to give you a quick update on the current situation of the FSF Europe.
First of all I'm sorry that we aren't more active on the list, but believe us, we are reading everything you guys say and it definitely does take a part in our considerations. In our perception of things it is quite important to think before we act in order to chose the best possible way. Your considerations on the FSF Europe in the discussion list are very important for us in this respect and we deem them most helpful.
Frederic Couchet fcouchet@april.org, Jonas Obergjonas@gnu.org and Alessandro Rubinirubini@gnu.org have joined the FSF Europe core team in the discussion of the structure we will have.
So far we are pretty sure about the fact that there will be one central hub organization (located in Germany with charitable status) that will provide office capacity, computer power, merchandising and all the things that can easily be centralized to minimize waste of resources. Attached to this central organization will be local chapters in each of the other European countries.
This FSF Europe will serve as the hard core/backbone of the European Free Software movement. A lot of its work will be political and communication between the countries.
As to how the organization will be controlled we are facing two problems: first of all the FSF Europe will need to be rock-solid in its philosophical standing and that means every member bears a huge responsibility. But of course we are aware that all of you would like to become part of it and we certainly don't mean to suggest that you aren't firm enough in your Free Software philosophy. However: we have to find a _general_ solution that has equal rules for everyone - even huge hordes of "Linux-enthusiasts" from the bandwagon.
This in effect means that we cannot afford to become a completely open organization - just like the original FSF. New members of this core organization will only become appointed after discussing this with the existing members and probably in consultation with RMS and the original FSF.
But we would still like to give you more ways of directly interacting and interfacing with us. So our current plans go into the direction that attached to this FSF Europe skeleton will be the muscles and various other tissues in form of associated local organizations that you all can become part of. That way you can become an "associate" of the FSF Europe, at least. In truth these organizations will do a lot of the work, they will organize booths at conventions (with the backing by the FSFE office), user-group meetings, courses and the like.
In countries where membership organizations exist (like April in France) that uphold the spirit of Free Software we will probably "make" those the associated organizations - and there is not necessarily a limit to the amount of local organizations that may become associated. In countries where such organizations do not exist or where enough people feel that another such organization should be created, we will help create it.
Okay, that is the general structure we have in mind right now. A lot of this isn't fully settled yet and we are working on some kind of "structure document" that will be posted once we feel it is ready to be seen without raising to many misunderstandings. Please keep in mind that these are "thoughts under construction."
Oh - and then there are two news that might be of interest. One is good, one bad.
First the sad news: the German Free Software based company ID-PRO won't make it despite an overfulfilled business plan. Break even would have been next year but the venture capital market is pretty catastrophic right now, it seems, so they didn't manage to raise the necessary money to bridge that gap.
This is sad news in two aspects: first of all it will look bad and German news services have already treated it as a "crisis on the Linux market" whereas it really has nothing to do with the business concept but is merely a reflection of a crisis on the capital market. If you are politically active be prepared that people will try to get you with this one - so I thought you should know what was going on there.
And furthermore it is pretty sad because they have been supporting me over the past couple of months very actively by employing me for development on GNU AWACS and giving me total freedom and support in terms of working for the GNU Project. Without their help I probably would not have had the time to work on the FSF Europe and GNU Business Network concepts as much as I did. Thanks a lot, guys.
Unfortunately this also means that I will have to find some new source of income... I'll be checking out my options in the next weeks. My work for the FSF Europe will continue regardless.
But we also have very good news: Mandrakesoft wants to donate EUR 2.500 to the FSF Europe. Apparently they had a challenge set up where the winning team could select a project that should be supported and the result was in favor of the Free Software Foundation Europe. Thank you so much!
This money comes at the right time, too, as we will have some legal consultation coming up (things need to be waterproof - so there is no way around this) that this money will be used for.
Alright, that's it from our side, we all hope you'll have nice holidays and a good new year!
On behalf of the FSF Europe team, Georg Greve