Fran?cois Gagnon wrote: > I suggest questions that would be important to answer, as a group. > - What do you think should the FSF-C's first mission? first priority? > charity status? > - What do you think should we keep away from? > - How do you think should we externally organize the FSF-C? with the > FSF? with already existing groups? > - How do you think should we internally organize the FSF-C? > - Moreover, what can we concretely do for the cause of software freedom?
Just to be absolutely clear, I think the first priority -- considering we are 'borrowing' the name of an existing, well-known organization (the Free Software Foundation) -- is to have an excellent relationship with the FSF. I'm not sure if everyone is aware of this: http://groups.fsf.org/index.php/Main_Page It seems the first thing to do is get up to speed on what it should or should not mean to use the fsf.ca domain name -- which means, bluntly 'a foundation' -- and put some thought into that. We might then want to each write up a 'vision statement' about what we want to and can contribute our individual efforts towards. I would, for the time being, like to get a careful look at the charitable status application. Despite the fact that it is an onerous process, it is sometimes possible and may be very worthwhile over the long term. And because of how being a charitable status organization might prevent certain types of activities -- like heavy lobbying -- we should nail a decision on it asap. Charitable status, btw, should *not* be construed in any way as a preference of mine. What I'd much rather do is start something called the Canadian Free Software Council, and get straight to the user rights lobbying. But foundations, which can fund things, are in such short supply.... All the best, David Henry _______________________________________________ fsfc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfc-discuss
