On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 18:48 +0100, nveitch wrote: > ...to be brutally honest, many LUGs have probably done more for Free > Software than the AFFS has since it started, mainly by being there when > required by individuals or organizations in need of help and advice.
Actually, I acknowledge that in many ways. I don't agree AFFS hasn't done much, but I do agree that it's pretty difficult to put your finger on what it has done. As a LUG person myself (and most involved with AFFS are active LUG people too, I think) there's a stark difference between that scenario and AFFS. LUGs are different: they can engage switchers - businesses/individuals - and get them using free software, and show them how. That's not the aim of AFFS, nor does it suit a national org. It's basically virtually impossible for AFFS to achieve anything without anyone else, and it's not possible to attribute success to AFFS work. For example - we give talks and make information available in many ways. How can we measure whether or not we're achieving anything? I guess we could measure how many times we're asked to speak, but that's more a metric of profile. Even more obviously, how do we measure the effect we have on Government? We've attended parliamentary IT committees. We've spoken to MPs. But AFFS is never going to achieve anything on it's own, and they move so slowly that it's difficult to tell what we do right and what we do wrong. So, it's a bit like we can't ever succeed - but I would say that it's work that needs to be done. Unless, of course, you disagree with the aims and having some kind of national voice :) Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
