Hello all,
This is something I identified some time ago when I started subscribing to the FSFE, so here it is.
I have seen two domain names in use by the FSFE: <fsfe.org> and <fsfeurope.org>. I guess that would be a kind of historic legacy, but I think it weakens the image of FSFE somehow, because even though these domain names may be used in some interchangeable way, people cannot help from hesitating, not knowing if this is FSFE http://www.fsfe.org/ or FSF Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/. This goes for the Web site, but also for any other service: mailing-lists, Jabber or whatever.
Has one of these domain names been chosen eventually? And do you think not that it would be advisable to actively retire the other one?
Hi Tanguy,
* Tanguy Ortolo tanguy+fsfe@ortolo.eu [2012-01-05 09:33:08 +0000]:
I have seen two domain names in use by the FSFE: <fsfe.org> and <fsfeurope.org>. I guess that would be a kind of historic legacy, but I think it weakens the image of FSFE somehow, because even though these domain names may be used in some interchangeable way, people cannot help from hesitating, not knowing if this is FSFE http://www.fsfe.org/ or FSF Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/. This goes for the Web site, but also for any other service: mailing-lists, Jabber or whatever.
I agree that this is confusing. I suggested in the past to get switch with all e-mail, mailinglists, jabber to fsfe.org, and not use fsfeurope.org any more. If and how to do this exactely should be implemented is currently discussed by our European core team (team@fsfeurope.org). As everybody you are welcome to send your position on this to them, or even better, send a summary of the outcome from this dicsussion to the list.
Has one of these domain names been chosen eventually? And do you think not that it would be advisable to actively retire the other one?
For the background: fsfeurope.org was used at the beginning. Than we registered fsfe.org. We used that as a short sexy domain for the Fellowship, when we started it in 2004. Than we changed our outside communication from "FSF Europe" to FSFE. Than people got confused, because they expect that fsfe.org is the website of FSFE, not just of the Fellowship. So we changed that and made fsfe.org the main website. But e-mail, jabber, mailing lists were not changed.
I hope you understand it a bit better now.
Regards, Matthias
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org
For the background: fsfeurope.org was used at the beginning. Than we registered fsfe.org. We used that as a short sexy domain for the Fellowship, when we started it in 2004. Than we changed our outside communication from "FSF Europe" to FSFE. [...]
I feel that was a backwards step because "FSF" and "FSF Europe" reinforced each others names and some technical audiences already knew FSF. FSFE is just another non-intuitive ETLA which has to be expanded more often.
But if you go ahead with fsfe.org as a primary, please keep the List-Id values the same on the mailing lists. I think that might require fixing an old bug in Mailman, to make List-Id configurable and independent of the email domain, but it would be good to fix that at last.
Hope that informs,
Seeing as fsfeurope.org redirects to fsfe.org, I don't think the brand is being weakened. "FSFE" would seem to be the leading acronym, with "FSF Europe" maybe used at times to show stronger affiliation as "a European branch of the FSF". Not having reviewed any charters, though, I can't be sure how accurate the real situation is or should be.
Compare: - "FSFE initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> An org called FSFE is talking with MEPs in Denmark. - "FSF Europe initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> The FSF is talking with Danish MEPs through it's EU office.
A primary acronym should be official, but a balanced "E vs Europe" mix can be useful in raise public awareness depending on context.
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:03 PM, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org
For the background: fsfeurope.org was used at the beginning. Than we registered fsfe.org. We used that as a short sexy domain for the Fellowship, when we started it in 2004. Than we changed our outside communication from "FSF Europe" to FSFE. [...]
I feel that was a backwards step because "FSF" and "FSF Europe" reinforced each others names and some technical audiences already knew FSF. FSFE is just another non-intuitive ETLA which has to be expanded more often.
But if you go ahead with fsfe.org as a primary, please keep the List-Id values the same on the mailing lists. I think that might require fixing an old bug in Mailman, to make List-Id configurable and independent of the email domain, but it would be good to fix that at last.
Hope that informs,
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
William from Texas williamfromtexas@gmail.com
Seeing as fsfeurope.org redirects to fsfe.org, I don't think the brand is being weakened. "FSFE" would seem to be the leading acronym, with "FSF Europe" maybe used at times to show stronger affiliation as "a European branch of the FSF". Not having reviewed any charters, though, I can't be sure how accurate the real situation is or should be.
I wasn't saying it was weakened - just that FSFE alone lacked the reinforcement from FSF, so I feel it's slightly fiddlier to use because it needs explanation to more people.
If you'd like to review it, the constitution is at http://fsfe.org/about/ and I feel it shows how arbitrary all this is in practice. FSFE theoretically means Free Software Foundation Europe, but it's actually a part-democratic federal association (a German e.V.) rather than a foundation (there are no founders with special powers or rights AFAIK).
So given the name is arbitrary anyway, how did they arrive at FSFE instead of FSF Europe?
Compare:
- "FSFE initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> An org called FSFE is
talking with MEPs in Denmark.
- "FSF Europe initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> The FSF is talking
with Danish MEPs through it's EU office.
Should there be any significant difference between the two?
Anyway, we should say something like "European Free Software association FSFE talked with Danish Euro-parliamentarians" and avoid EU TLAitis.
A primary acronym should be official, but a balanced "E vs Europe" mix can be useful in raise public awareness depending on context.
Indeed!
On 05/01/2012 01:04 μμ, William from Texas wrote:
Seeing as fsfeurope.org http://fsfeurope.org redirects to fsfe.org http://fsfe.org, I don't think the brand is being weakened. "FSFE" would seem to be the leading acronym, with "FSF Europe" maybe used at times to show stronger affiliation as "a European branch of the FSF". Not having reviewed any charters, though, I can't be sure how accurate the real situation is or should be.
Compare:
- "FSFE initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> An org called FSFE is
talking with MEPs in Denmark.
- "FSF Europe initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> The FSF is talking
with Danish MEPs through it's EU office.
This would be very misleading, given that FSFE is not the European branch of the FSF. Even FSF, at their page calls it "sister organisation". (See above the www badges at the bottom of the page).
A primary acronym should be official, but a balanced "E vs Europe" mix can be useful in raise public awareness depending on context.
In many ways we could raise public awareness. We could for example make a hack and rename FSFE to EFSF so journalists, governments, the whole world could take it for European Financial Stability Facility and so we could be famous in dt.
But how effective this would be for GNU/Linux to raise its market share on desktops more than 1,2%?
We could change the name to "Fellowship of the Software Freedom e.V (FSFE)" and address the fellow membership issue as well!
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:48 PM, Kostas Boukouvalas boukouvalas@fsfe.orgwrote:
On 05/01/2012 01:04 μμ, William from Texas wrote:
Seeing as fsfeurope.org http://fsfeurope.org redirects to fsfe.org http://fsfe.org, I don't think the brand is being weakened. "FSFE" would seem to be the leading acronym, with "FSF Europe" maybe used at times to show stronger affiliation as "a European branch of the FSF". Not having reviewed any charters, though, I can't be sure how accurate the real situation is or should be.
Compare:
- "FSFE initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> An org called FSFE is
talking with MEPs in Denmark.
- "FSF Europe initiated talks with Danish MEPs." -> The FSF is talking
with Danish MEPs through it's EU office.
This would be very misleading, given that FSFE is not the European branch of the FSF. Even FSF, at their page calls it "sister organisation". (See above the www badges at the bottom of the page).
A primary acronym should be official, but a balanced "E vs Europe" mix can be useful in raise public awareness depending on context.
In many ways we could raise public awareness. We could for example make a hack and rename FSFE to EFSF so journalists, governments, the whole world could take it for European Financial Stability Facility and so we could be famous in dt.
But how effective this would be for GNU/Linux to raise its market share on desktops more than 1,2%?
-- FSFE Fellow
2012/1/9 William from Texas williamfromtexas@gmail.com:
We could change the name to "Fellowship of the Software Freedom e.V (FSFE)" and address the fellow membership issue as well!
Aside from the initial legal trouble of dividing the FSFE, it would bring extra costs (administering two organizations instead of one) and increased friction. What advantages would it have?
Regards,