On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Russell McOrmond wrote: > On 28 Jul 2002, Ian Anderson wrote:
> > Advocacy is another issue. I think Canopener.ca is better equipped to > > handle that, they have a broader mandate (all open source software) and > > that is their primary objective. Broader mandate != better equipped Is Canopener incorporated? Does it have funding? Does it have contacts capable of providing sponsorships and affiliations? Or is it indeed any more than a website looking much like a clone of newsforge? Canopener has people and some energy but no infrastructure. CLUE has infrastructure and some potential revenue streams but not enough people. I suggest there is a synergy here. Advocacy is not putting up a website and hoping people find it. Advocacy is getting into the faces of those who would belittle or ignore you. That requires more than websites or technical solutions. It requires money, it requires infrastructure, and it requires the right kind of people to advance the message and get in the faces (politely) of others. > > Also if CLUE stays out of advocacy it > > has a better chance at getting charitable status which will really help > > with fund raising. Sorry, but this is bunk. Please get rid of this romantic idea that charitable status is the path to all sorts of money. It isn't. Charitable status is extremely difficult to get, extremely difficult and expensive to maintain, involves constant scrutiny by government bureaucrats, and does not necessary ensure more successful fundraising than a non-profit business deduction. (Personally, I would see resorting to charity status as a failure of our primary goals of advancing the use of Linux and open source.) Dan York and I were able to collect $500,000 US for LPI before it even had its own bank account, let alone charitable status. If your *purpose* is considered both worthy and viable by would-be funders, it's easier to get money from them. If your purpose is considered frivolous, or otherwise unworthy of funds, nobody will give regardless of status. And being charitable requires us to employ auditors and accounting practices that impact our budget before we spend a cent on the things we consider worthwhile. > This is important to decide. There are a number of projects underway > to deal with different parts of Advocacy, and I suspect having CLUE > not duplicate these efforts would be useful. >From here I see a scattered bunch of efforts with no business plans, no effective courses of action, and thus no real effectiveness. I see collections of people sitting around talking about lots of things but doing little. Someone needs to provide: - Position papers to present to the CRTC and parliamentary committees on issues that affect open source users, such as the punitive tax on blank media that assumes that all CD burning exists to illegally reproduce copyrighted material; - Public speakers capable of traveling to hearings and eloquently advancing the case for open source to tech-ignorant (and possibly tech-hostile) politicians and mandarins; - A speakers' bureau capable of providing names of folks who will speak to any group curious to know about Linux and open source; - Effective public relations that put Linux into the mainstream of the Canadian news media -- not just the IT press but the stuff aimed at the general public. That means an affective means to explain open source to people who may know little about computers, let alone Linux; - Publicity and advertising resources and info that LUGs can use when working with their local media outlets; - A constant and effective counterpoint to Microsoft's heavily-funded FUD campaigns (and to a lesser extent Sun's scattered anti-Linux efforts); - Lobbyists who will meet and keep contact with MPs (and MPPs and MLAs etc.) charged with technical issues, be it Ministers or Deputy Ministers or Shadow Ministers or committee chairs or relevant committees of political parties or whatever; I'm sorry, but I don't see any of the mentioned groups providing anything at all like what I've described above. So no, if CLUE decides to take on these challenging tasks I don't see any overlap with canopener or any of the other groups. While I see all sorts of DMCA talk on flora there's no record of the group having made formal representation to the government forums on digital copyright. Without an official position made to the gov't such forums amount to little more than virtual navel-gazing. The tasks above require salesmanship more than debating skill, and real people's time and hard work. They require PR forms and lawyers who understand what's at stake if laws are changed and can help teach us the rules of the games we will be forced to play. These are all resources which are IMO in fairly short supply in this community. As just the simplest of examples of the community's lack of salesmanship: the very fact that people still insist on using the term GNU/Linux in public instead of just "Linux" demonstrates a total misunderstanding of how to sell Linux to the general public. There are certain political agendas that need to be shelved in favour of the greater benefit that comes from a message that doesn't confuse. The difference between conventional Linux advocacy and what *really* needs to be done is to consider the target audience. We must provide messages that are simple, non-technical and unambiguous, presented in the times and places where they make the most impact. It is my belief that these tasks can be done by CLUE, and should indeed be CLUE's primary reason for being. Conventional Linux advocacy alone just won't cut it. Providing a clearing house of information is, by comparison, a relatively trivial and technical task that won't attract a cent of corporate sponsorship. And charitable status won't affect that by one shred. - Evan --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
