Hi
Hopefully this is not seen as off topic. Now the Euro Elections are over and I am guessing within the next couple of days we should be getting information on how we can contact our respective representatives
https://www.european-elections.eu/
I think it is a great opportunity to get in touch and help push what we would like from them.
Perhaps we can gather a few ideas here, links etc, get sometemplates for e-mails so we can get in touch and hopefully put on a united front.
It seems the UK voted quite substantially in favour of the Euro copyright directive, however these MEPs are now out. The Brexit Party MEPs are in, so perhaps we can, over the next few months, start to ask them to help make a difference, as they are against the EU laws, however there may be one or two laws that would work in our favour. lets push Public Money , Public code.
These MEPs are in for 5 years, However I am guessing If the UK should hold and vote in yet another referendum there is a chance the previous referendum result will be reversed, this won't stop the Brexit MEPs staying for their full term. So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of.
Just a thought
Paul Sutton
Hello,
"So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of".
I believe you propose a strong political association with euro "sceptics". May be stronger than non-political organisation such FSFE can and should have.
I am also afraid that it can be a dangerous signal towards FSFE supporters. E.g., I am not ready to support eurosceptics movement to the least possible degree. I strongly support EU and absolutely sure that it shall be improved, not destroyed.
If FSFE takes a stand in this political debate (what to do with EU?), it will introduce turmoil to the FSFE itself as FSFE members have different opinion on this matter.
Den mån 27 maj 2019 kl 23:46 skrev Paul Sutton zleap@zleap.net:
Hi
Hopefully this is not seen as off topic. Now the Euro Elections are over and I am guessing within the next couple of days we should be getting information on how we can contact our respective representatives
https://www.european-elections.eu/
I think it is a great opportunity to get in touch and help push what we would like from them.
Perhaps we can gather a few ideas here, links etc, get sometemplates for e-mails so we can get in touch and hopefully put on a united front.
It seems the UK voted quite substantially in favour of the Euro copyright directive, however these MEPs are now out. The Brexit Party MEPs are in, so perhaps we can, over the next few months, start to ask them to help make a difference, as they are against the EU laws, however there may be one or two laws that would work in our favour. lets push Public Money , Public code.
These MEPs are in for 5 years, However I am guessing If the UK should hold and vote in yet another referendum there is a chance the previous referendum result will be reversed, this won't stop the Brexit MEPs staying for their full term. So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of.
Just a thought
Paul Sutton
Paul Sutton http://www.zleap.net https://www.linkedin.com/in/zleap/ Twitter : @zleap2018 gnupg : 7D6D B682 F351 8D08 1893 1E16 F086 5537 D066 302D _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
On 28/05/2019 06:47, Vitaly Repin wrote:
Hello,
"So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of".
I believe you propose a strong political association with euro "sceptics". May be stronger than non-political organisation such FSFE can and should have.
I am also afraid that it can be a dangerous signal towards FSFE supporters. E.g., I am not ready to support eurosceptics movement to the least possible degree. I strongly support EU and absolutely sure that it shall be improved, not destroyed.
If FSFE takes a stand in this political debate (what to do with EU?), it will introduce turmoil to the FSFE itself as FSFE members have different opinion on this matter.
Den mån 27 maj 2019 kl 23:46 skrev Paul Sutton zleap@zleap.net:
Hi
Hopefully this is not seen as off topic. Now the Euro Elections are over and I am guessing within the next couple of days we should be getting information on how we can contact our respective representatives
https://www.european-elections.eu/
I think it is a great opportunity to get in touch and help push what we would like from them.
Perhaps we can gather a few ideas here, links etc, get sometemplates for e-mails so we can get in touch and hopefully put on a united front.
It seems the UK voted quite substantially in favour of the Euro copyright directive, however these MEPs are now out. The Brexit Party MEPs are in, so perhaps we can, over the next few months, start to ask them to help make a difference, as they are against the EU laws, however there may be one or two laws that would work in our favour. lets push Public Money , Public code.
These MEPs are in for 5 years, However I am guessing If the UK should hold and vote in yet another referendum there is a chance the previous referendum result will be reversed, this won't stop the Brexit MEPs staying for their full term. So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of.
Just a thought
Paul Sutton
Ok take the EU copyright directive as an organization the FSFE seemed to be pretty much against this, and we were asked to contact our MEPs to this effect.
Now that the UK has more Brexit party MEPs perhaps they will be more supportive of our concerns about this and other bill, and they can perhaps help to get the changes that we want to amend to these bills (this sort of worked as there were concessions for free software IIRC).
So What should we ask our new MEPs for?.
First thing should we perhaps contact them about PMPC, raise awareness of PMPC for example.
Paul
Hello,
I believe constructive work with any MEPs is possible in order to influence them on the FSFE agenda. Regardless of the political movement they belong to. Strong assiociation with any political movement (eurosceptics, liberals, social democrats etc) is a mistake in my opinion.
I would like to put this idea even further. Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
I believe this tool can provide a very good guidance for future elections as it will help us, Europeans, to know the position of MEPs and their parties on free software-related matters much better than now. This initiative can also be seen as a tool to provide an addiitonal pressure on MEPs when they vote for copyright laws.
Thanks!
Den tis 28 maj 2019 kl 09:24 skrev Paul Sutton zleap@zleap.net:
On 28/05/2019 06:47, Vitaly Repin wrote:
Hello,
"So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of".
I believe you propose a strong political association with euro
"sceptics".
May be stronger than non-political organisation such FSFE can and should have.
I am also afraid that it can be a dangerous signal towards FSFE
supporters.
E.g., I am not ready to support eurosceptics movement to the least
possible
degree. I strongly support EU and absolutely sure that it shall be improved, not destroyed.
If FSFE takes a stand in this political debate (what to do with EU?), it will introduce turmoil to the FSFE itself as FSFE members have different opinion on this matter.
Den mån 27 maj 2019 kl 23:46 skrev Paul Sutton zleap@zleap.net:
Hi
Hopefully this is not seen as off topic. Now the Euro Elections are over and I am guessing within the next couple of days we should be getting information on how we can contact our respective representatives
https://www.european-elections.eu/
I think it is a great opportunity to get in touch and help push what we would like from them.
Perhaps we can gather a few ideas here, links etc, get sometemplates for e-mails so we can get in touch and hopefully put on a united front.
It seems the UK voted quite substantially in favour of the Euro copyright directive, however these MEPs are now out. The Brexit Party MEPs are in, so perhaps we can, over the next few months, start to ask them to help make a difference, as they are against the EU laws, however there may be one or two laws that would work in our favour. lets push Public Money , Public code.
These MEPs are in for 5 years, However I am guessing If the UK should hold and vote in yet another referendum there is a chance the previous referendum result will be reversed, this won't stop the Brexit MEPs staying for their full term. So 5 years of euro sceptic MEPs something that we can surely take advantage of.
Just a thought
Paul Sutton
Ok take the EU copyright directive as an organization the FSFE seemed to be pretty much against this, and we were asked to contact our MEPs to this effect.
Now that the UK has more Brexit party MEPs perhaps they will be more supportive of our concerns about this and other bill, and they can perhaps help to get the changes that we want to amend to these bills (this sort of worked as there were concessions for free software IIRC).
So What should we ask our new MEPs for?.
First thing should we perhaps contact them about PMPC, raise awareness of PMPC for example.
Paul
Hi Vitaly,
Vitaly Repin vitaly_repin@fsfe.org writes:
Strong assiociation with any political movement (eurosceptics, liberals, social democrats etc) is a mistake in my opinion.
I agree. That is why the FSFE does not associate itself with a political movement. We want to be able to talk to any politician.
Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
I like the idea, but I also worry about its effect. Other groups have similar lists, for instance the NRA about gun control in the US, and there's a guy who makes US politicians sign a pledge to never raise taxes and he tracks that. It creates a problem when people take this lists about singular issues as the sole basis for their vote. Politics is more complicated than that and I personally feel that while Free Software is important, there are clearly more existential issues out there that should take precedence. Some politicians will be more knowledgable about those than about Free Software and when it comes to technology, they will vote with their trusted colleagues. I would not want to fault them for that.
That being said, if you think, if you think this is an important matter, would you be able to compile and maintaint the data?
Happy hacking! Florian
Hi all,
On 29.05.19 07:43, Florian Snow wrote:
Hi Vitaly,
Vitaly Repin vitaly_repin@fsfe.org writes:
Strong assiociation with any political movement (eurosceptics, liberals, social democrats etc) is a mistake in my opinion.
I agree. That is why the FSFE does not associate itself with a political movement. We want to be able to talk to any politician.
I also agree.
Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
I like the idea, but I also worry about its effect. Other groups have similar lists, for instance the NRA about gun control in the US, and there's a guy who makes US politicians sign a pledge to never raise taxes and he tracks that. It creates a problem when people take this lists about singular issues as the sole basis for their vote. Politics is more complicated than that and I personally feel that while Free Software is important, there are clearly more existential issues out there that should take precedence. Some politicians will be more knowledgable about those than about Free Software and when it comes to technology, they will vote with their trusted colleagues. I would not want to fault them for that.
I also agree. It is also way more efficient to look for MEPs who tabled Amendments in our direction than to simply look for voting results. First, you can just monitor RCVs, so you won't be able to figure out who did what and why and also you will miss the real heros, namely the ones who table and support a specific Amendment.
In general: We will get in contact with all MEPs after the summer break once they have organized them self. This will be done with our brochure and PMPC. Also we are doing a Policy Event at the end of September in Brussels to get in contact with new MEPs.
Best
Alex
On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 07:43:09AM +0200, Florian Snow wrote:
Vitaly Repin vitaly_repin@fsfe.org writes:
Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
I like the idea, but I also worry about its effect. (...) It creates a problem when people take this lists about singular issues as the sole basis for their vote. Politics is more complicated than that and I personally feel that while Free Software is important, there are clearly more existential issues out there that should take precedence.
As one says in French, "Yes, but no". Either "most" (for some value of most) people are able to make an informed decision based on data and information, or they are not.
If they are not, why do we decide things by vote?
If they are, withholding information because some may use it in the wrong way to orient their vote leads, globally, to a worse vote outcome, because people are forced to make a less informed vote. The information can also be used in a more balanced way, as a datapoint. It can be used to tip the balance between several candidates that have otherwise broadly similar stances on the "more existential issues out there that should take precedence". E.g. if you were a French elector ten years ago, and you want to vote Socialist Party anyway, well, you may want to vote specifically for Michel Rocard, who has shown in the Software Patents issue that he was willing to work "above the standard call of duty" on that kind of issue. For this example, I'm not sure the French electoral system takes into account voter preferences to select who, among the party list, is elected. But other countries' systems do: the number of seats that each party gets depends on the cumulated amount of votes all party candidates got, but which candidate is elected is decided by which candidates among the party list got the most individual / personal votes.
On an emotional basis, I very much reject this idea of "dumbing down" electoral information (or other things in general) just because you think my neighbours are unable to deal with the information that would be useful to me.
Kind Regards,
Lionel
Existential issue(s) aside, I think Free Software voters are uniquely well positioned to contribute to the political process. If you look at our most recent election, most voters abstained which does not tell you a lot about their preferences but it does speak volumes about their commitment to informed decision making. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to think in terms of a spectrum and being somewhere on a spectrum. It’s a flawed mental operating system engineered to help you make decisions quickly and get back to your most pressing daily matters (and hopefully have a nice day you). But, its not the most accurate representation of the phenomenon known as reality.
Democratic decision making does not have to be a popularity contest as some have implied. We have shown that Free Software voters are responsible enough to know when to vote and when not to. In the case of not providing information to them for any reason, the effect is, it only makes them less likely to vote. I suspect most voters abstained because they did not judge themselves as well-informed enough to contribute in a meaningful way. They simply let other people, presumably more familiar with the topic decide. It could be said that it is a very trusting act to abstain from voting with the assumption that only well informed people will do so. Doing so could be a mistake if other voters are not as responsible. Currently, there is no way to give increased weight to “expert” voters other than barring non-expert voters, but i could imagine a system of categorized voting that allows one to vote on matters they are familiar with and by deferring on topics they don’t understand receive more influence on topics that matter to them.
The only thing more important than the past is the present. And, the only thing that matters is the future. Politicians are right, and they are wrong at the same time. They don't fit anywhere on a so called spectrum. It’s called irony, hypocrisy, or the simultaneous contemplation of two opposites for fun and profit. In conclusion, it does not help you make the most informed decision possible. With that in mind, I reiterate the importance of a democratic consensus based system of governance for Free Software.
On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 10:35 AM Florian Snow floriansnow@fsfe.org wrote:
Hi Vitaly,
Vitaly Repin vitaly_repin@fsfe.org writes:
Strong assiociation with any political movement (eurosceptics, liberals, social democrats etc) is a mistake in my opinion.
I agree. That is why the FSFE does not associate itself with a political movement. We want to be able to talk to any politician.
Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
I like the idea, but I also worry about its effect. Other groups have similar lists, for instance the NRA about gun control in the US, and there's a guy who makes US politicians sign a pledge to never raise taxes and he tracks that. It creates a problem when people take this lists about singular issues as the sole basis for their vote. Politics is more complicated than that and I personally feel that while Free Software is important, there are clearly more existential issues out there that should take precedence. Some politicians will be more knowledgable about those than about Free Software and when it comes to technology, they will vote with their trusted colleagues. I would not want to fault them for that.
That being said, if you think, if you think this is an important matter, would you be able to compile and maintaint the data?
Happy hacking! Florian _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
Hello,
That being said, if you think, if you think this is an important matter,
would you be able to compile and maintaint the data?
I am definitely able to provide solution based on free software to store and visualize this data.
But I believe this kind of project can not be 1-man project. And it shall be an FSFE initiatiive.
If FSFE is interested, I will be happy to contribute with my skillset to this project.
Hi all,
~ Vitaly Repin [2019-05-28 09:44 +0200]:
I believe constructive work with any MEPs is possible in order to influence them on the FSFE agenda. Regardless of the political movement they belong to. Strong assiociation with any political movement (eurosceptics, liberals, social democrats etc) is a mistake in my opinion.
As Florian already wrote, that is why the FSFE does not align with any political party or movement but stays independent. Our mission is to foster Free Software and user freedom, not judging the European Union as a whole.
I would like to put this idea even further. Why can't FSFE monitor how each and every MEP voted for the matters regarding free software dyring the current and previous election term and present this statistics at FSFE web site (searchable web pages + json/xml)?
Actually, we thought about that before this year's elections but decided against it. The simple reason was that there hasn't been any vote on a pure Free Software topic [^1]. Free Software politics on EU level often took place within the EU Commission (which we cannot vote for) and other bodies apart from the parliament, or in guidelines and declarations that don't require a vote but set important cornerstones for future legislation.
However, with the "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign we strive to push the new parliament to create positive legislation, and we will reach out to interesting MEPs soon to inform them about Free Software and to find out how they think and act. Let's see how we can engage the Free Software community and the general public in this activity. If you have any ideas, please let us know!
Best, Max
[^1]: If the Copyright Directive comes up in your mind: FS has been a small detail in it and with an exception pro FS. How to judge that in a way that it becomes clear how the MEPs think about FS?