What are the plans of FSFEurope to have an office in Belgium?
I ask the question because we've tried to create an Open Association around Free Software (see OpenBe.org for more info) but the project is still in StandBy for the moment.
I think good ideas could be exchanged between the FSF and OpenBe.
If you're interested, there's also a mailing-list on the OpenBe website if you want to talk about freesw in Belgium.
That's all...
What are the plans of FSFEurope to have an office in Belgium?
I ask the question because we've tried to create an Open Association around Free Software (see OpenBe.org for more info) but the project is still in StandBy for the moment.
I think good ideas could be exchanged between the FSF and OpenBe.
If you're interested, there's also a mailing-list on the OpenBe website if you want to talk about freesw in Belgium.
Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
In fact, here in Switzerland, collaboration between the 2 parts are quite limited due to language. I don't speak-read german and some others working in the other side speaks no french nor english.
Could we become more European and use language as a base for work. Documentation in national language is part of the point. And then, having subsection for each country speaking the same language but with different laws will be also very interesting to learn more about each others.
For example, I am sure that we could profit to share french between part of Belgium, France and part of Switzerland.
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
Cheers, Anne
Anne POSSOZ Anne.Possoz@epfl.ch [010426]:
What are the plans of FSFEurope to have an office in Belgium?
I ask the question because we've tried to create an Open Association around Free Software (see OpenBe.org for more info) but the project is still in StandBy for the moment.
I think good ideas could be exchanged between the FSF and OpenBe.
If you're interested, there's also a mailing-list on the OpenBe website if you want to talk about freesw in Belgium.
Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
In fact, here in Switzerland, collaboration between the 2 parts are quite limited due to language. I don't speak-read german and some others working in the other side speaks no french nor english.
Could we become more European and use language as a base for work. Documentation in national language is part of the point. And then, having subsection for each country speaking the same language but with different laws will be also very interesting to learn more about each others.
Yeah, it's a good reflexion because we (some participants of OpenBe) have improved some problems to talk in flamish. The meeting in December 2000 was taken in English (which is not an official language in Belgium) because of this problem (yes, Belgium is separated and it's often the source of misunderstandings).
We have also contacts with french organisations, such as AFUL.
(Parfois, j'ai vraiment du mal a parler Neerlandais, parce que je ne le pratique pas beaucoup).
BNJ
For example, I am sure that we could profit to share french between part of Belgium, France and part of Switzerland.
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
Cheers, Anne -- Anne Possoz Service Informatique Central Tel : (41/21) 693.22.49 Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)
Hi guys,
|| On Thu, 26 Apr 2001 17:08:17 +0200 || Anne POSSOZ Anne.Possoz@epfl.ch wrote:
What are the plans of FSFEurope to have an office in Belgium?
The FSF Europe has a central office for all of Europe, because the office-related stuff can relatively easily be bundled in once place, which is much more cost-efficient, too.
We definitely do want to have a Belgium chapter, though. There are some preliminary contacts, but nothing definitive, yet.
We need to finalize setting up our basic structure (we're pretty far on that) and then we'll expand to other countries. We do have contacts to Italy (not Alessandro, he is too busy to set up the chapter, but he will still remain in the FSFE as an advisor), Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Austria and started establishing contacts to the U.K.
There is a lot of work related to this and we're definitely trying to work as fast as we can. Doing something right sometimes means not to hurry it - and we definitely want to do it right.
I ask the question because we've tried to create an Open Association around Free Software (see OpenBe.org for more info) but the project is still in StandBy for the moment.
Although we would probably have preferred if it had been called FreeBe, but from what I have seen with a quick glance at the web site, it seems like OpenBe might be a good candidate for an FSF Europe associated organization in Belgium (like APRIL is in France).
ap> Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the ap> division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
I partially agree. We need to be careful not to chop the organization into too many parts, though.
ap> In fact, here in Switzerland, collaboration between the 2 parts ap> are quite limited due to language. I don't speak-read german and ap> some others working in the other side speaks no french nor ap> english.
Switzerland is certainly a pretty interesting special case. For a Swiss chapter I think we will need a chancellor / vice-chancellor pair that speaks both languages equally well. You were completely right to bring up this point.
So far there are no special plans for Switzerland (yet), but we definitely want to be present there, as well.
ap> For example, I am sure that we could profit to share french ap> between part of Belgium, France and part of Switzerland.
Absolutely. A lot of this can be done with coordination between the chapters by sharing mailing lists. So the people speaking french in Belgium can share their mailing list with the people in France and vice versa.
Regards, Georg
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
...
Could we become more European and use language as a base for work. Documentation in national language is part of the point. And then, having subsection for each country speaking the same language but with different laws will be also very interesting to learn more about each others.
...
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
I like your proposal. Instead of having "Chapter Germany" and "Chapter France" how about "German Chapter" and "French Chapter"?
Jaime
Jaime E . Villate wrote:
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
....
Could we become more European and use language as a base for work. Documentation in national language is part of the point. And then, having subsection for each country speaking the same language but with different laws will be also very interesting to learn more about each others.
....
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
I like your proposal. Instead of having "Chapter Germany" and "Chapter France" how about "German Chapter" and "French Chapter"?
Yes, the proposal makes sense for me too - but we musn´t forget that we are very used to 'One Country/One Language' :)
For example, I can antecipate same complications in a Spanish Chapter, for example... Would a Spanish Chapter even exist? Catalan Chapter, Euskera Chapter, Galician Chapter (this latter one even more divided between normative galician and reintegrated galician)... I personally can see the logic and would seem to me to be The Right Thing, but then again people that live in Spain will probably strongly disagree or agree.
This is not an easy issue indeed... I'm looking forward to hear from ppl that live in multilingual/multicultural countries on this one.
Best Regards,
fsm
-- Frederico Serrano Muñoz GNU: http://www.gnu.org fsmunoz@sdf.lonestar.org Debian: http://www.debian.org
SDF - Public Access Unix Systems - http://sdf.lonestar.org
On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Frederico S. [ISO-8859-1] Mu�oz wrote:
Jaime E . Villate wrote:
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
Being a belgian in Switzerland, I would also suggest that the division is not by country but also with some share of languages.
Well what we could do is have a chapter in each country, and then have members of that chapter taking responsibility for a certain language (each coordinating with other per-country chapters)
We apparently need th per-country chapters for legal reasons.
Could we become more European and use language as a base for work. Documentation in national language is part of the point. And then, having subsection for each country speaking the same language but with different laws will be also very interesting to learn more about each others.
Something like that, yup.
For example, I can antecipate same complications in a Spanish Chapter, for example... Would a Spanish Chapter even exist? Catalan Chapter, Euskera Chapter, Galician Chapter (this latter one even more divided between normative galician and reintegrated galician)... I personally can see the logic and would seem to me to be The Right Thing, but then again people that live in Spain will probably strongly disagree or agree.
Netherlands have Dutch and Frisian, Belgium has Flemish and Wallonian, Great Britain has English and Gaelic. I think just about every country in Europe has a minority or 2 :-)
So things might get a bit hairy if we make chapters by-language. I would expect a large amount of fragmentation.
read you soon, Kim Bruning
|| On Thu, 26 Apr 2001 19:10:46 +0100 || "Jaime E . Villate" villate@fe.up.pt wrote:
jev> I like your proposal. Instead of having "Chapter Germany" and jev> "Chapter France" how about "German Chapter" and "French jev> Chapter"?
The reason for the formal chapters was not only the language issue, but also a legal point. For charitable status most countries want to have a local organization, so we need the country-specific organization form.
But it is only natural that people will interlink with all countries they speak the language of and this doesn't require formal steps.
Another point I think we should be very careful about is not to become too localized. The goal of the FSF Europe is to unite, not to divide.
One of the principles of the FSF Europe is to increase coordination and communication between the countries. Too much localized communication will reduce this benefit.
Just imagine there would be a German, French, Spanish, Portugese, Swedish, Italian and English version of this list. We would have to translate every single posting into six languages in order to establish communication among us.
Therefore we heavily rely on English.
Regards, Georg
El Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 08:31:57PM +0200, Georg C. F. Greve deia:
The reason for the formal chapters was not only the language issue, but also a legal point. For charitable status most countries want to have a local organization, so we need the country-specific organization form.
I can see sense in that. Let's have formal chapters where there are goals to accomplish. One for state, or one for country, or for shire or for any region where is a task to be done, people willing to do it and does not result in too many chapters.
One of the principles of the FSF Europe is to increase coordination and communication between the countries. Too much localized communication will reduce this benefit.
Just imagine there would be a German, French, Spanish, Portugese, Swedish, Italian and English version of this list. We would have to translate every single posting into six languages in order to establish communication among us.
I think lists should not be based on language in principle. Part of the freedom of speech is choosing the language one speaks in. So nobody should be surprised to see multilingual lists. I don't know much Italian or French, so I wouldn't join a list that requires to post in Italian or French, but I can understand some of it, so I'd like to be in a list where I can see messages in any language. I won't understand messages in German, but that is no problem, I'll simply ignore them, or guess their meaning. I think Europe is very multilingual, and people have different degrees of competence in many languages. Seeing messages in unknown languages is just a way to start knowing them, so I am against imposing a single language on any list. There is no need to translate every message to 20 languages, simply to translate public notices, press releases, web pages, etc. and ignore messages in a language that you don't understand. Translating every message you write to even only one language is a pain. Ignoring a message in an unknown language is easy.
Of course if several people from one place set up a list to discuss issues relating to that place (or about translations to one language), it is very likely that the languages used in that list will be those used in that place (or the language to translate to), and people that don't understand those languages will probably not join, but this should be an emergent phenomenon, not an a priori requirement or organising principle.
Hi!
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
Pardon, je ne parle pas le francaise tres bon...
I'd say, that a minority in another country typically speaks the official language of that country. So they should have no problem to participate in discussions going on in the language of that country in question. On the other hand, they will also most likely join the mailing list(s) of their original countr{y|ie} and thus form a very efficient crosslink between countries. As has been pointed out, the chapter idea comes from legal points of view. I think splitting by language would divide the community into too many too small parts. Thus bundling forces in country chapters is probably better.
Bye, Marc
PS: Yes, I'm also one of these minorities in another country. :-) _______________________________________________________________________________
email: marc@greenie.net email: m.a.eberhard@aston.ac.uk, web: http://www.aston.ac.uk/~eberhama/
On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Marc Eberhard wrote:
oh, you are here too, Marc ? :)
I'd say, that a minority in another country typically speaks the official language of that country. So they should have no problem to participate in
Switzerland has four official languages, which is the start of our problem.
I am considering making the trip to Hamburg on the 6th of May. As you maybe know, /ch/open, as the leading open systems association in Switzerland, is interested in helping FSFE.
Now, it is true that most of the members of /ch/open are German-speaking. I am French-speaking, and I can maybe do the link between the Swiss FSFE German and French language interests.
Hi Marc,
|| On Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:05:10 +0200 (MEST) || Marc SCHAEFER schaefer@alphanet.ch wrote:
ms> I am considering making the trip to Hamburg on the 6th of May. As ms> you maybe know, /ch/open, as the leading open systems association ms> in Switzerland, is interested in helping FSFE.
You mean Essen, right? Hamburg is a very nice city, but if you came to Hamburg on the 6th of May, we couldn't even meet. :)
Regards, Georg
Unfortunately, I will not be able to come to Essen, it seems impossible to find a return trip that would allow me to attend an important meeting on the next monday.
May I suggest that the next meeting be announced a bit earlier ?
Have a nice week-end.
Hi Marc,
|| On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 10:54:19 +0200 (MEST) || Marc SCHAEFER schaefer@alphanet.ch wrote:
ms> Unfortunately, I will not be able to come to Essen, it seems ms> impossible to find a return trip that would allow me to attend an ms> important meeting on the next monday.
I'm sad you cannot make it, I would have liked to meet you.
ms> May I suggest that the next meeting be announced a bit earlier ?
We'll try and I'm quite optimistic. :)
The date of the general assembly has been known about two or three weeks before announcing it. The reason why we didn't announce it earlier was that we didn't think of the possibility to add a public part to it until later.
I had the idea during a phone discussion with a journalist and suggested it to the other team members. Then we had to make sure we'd have the capabilities for such a meeting and the Villa Vogelsang was okay with it. As soon as that was cleared, we announced it.
If this works out well, we consider doing this regularly after our general assembly and then you'll know about it earlier.
Regards, Georg
On Apr 26, 21:19:48 Marc Eberhard wrote:
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list? At least french speaking ones...
(...)
I'd say, that a minority in another country typically speaks the official language of that country. So they should have no problem to participate in discussions going on in the language of that country in question. On the other hand, they will also most likely join the mailing list(s) of their original countr{y|ie} and thus form a very efficient crosslink between countries. As has been pointed out, the chapter idea comes from legal points of view. I think splitting by language would divide the community into too many too small parts. Thus bundling forces in country chapters is probably better.
Oh! Maybe some can learn from the others how some european contries are on the language matter. Switzerland has 3 official languages: German, French and Italian (there is a 4th, Romanche, language that is not official) Belgium has 3 official languages: Deutch, French and German (although German is a real minority). For those reading french, there are interesting pages at: http://www.ciral.ulaval.ca/alx/amlxmonde/Langues/3cohabitation_Etatsbilingue... tm and more specifically for french language: http://www.ciral.ulaval.ca/alx/amlxmonde/Langues/2vital_inter_francaisTABLO....
So there, it is absolutely not the case that people speaks "the" official language as there is none... In that sense, it is different from local languages in countries like France or Spain...
And so, there IS a problem to participate in discussions. It is not rare at all that english is the language to communicate, although english is not one of the official languages.
That was all the reason of my language question. You can also read emails from Marc Schaefer on that matter.
Anne