Re: How FSFE is organised
On Monday 21. October 2019 07.20.49 Florian Snow wrote: > > Paul Boddie writes: > > I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the > > FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted > > on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member: > > > > https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/ > > I am also very unhappy with how that went. I backed the campaign as > well and got nothing out of it. I need to go back and find the original > announcement e-mail on this list, but I sincerely hope there was no > advertising *as* as GA member. I would expect this to be clearly marked > as a private opinion. If it was not, we need to communicate that better > for the future. Well, I didn't back it because I felt I had already spent enough time and energy on various related projects - with rather little to show for it, ultimately - and I therefore felt that people could decide for themselves whether it was worth the risk. As the thread at the time can attest, I was somewhat irritated by the appeal to community being made, so people probably got a bit more information to digest before making a decision. From what I understand, the campaign's chief protagonists are doing other things now: one is apparently doing something with blockchain, the other was last seen working at the Wikimedia Foundation. I can understand that it can be awkward to revisit things that did not work out, but as far as I know the funds were never spent, so it is not necessarily a failure situation. However, it is not really my role to investigate such matters. > > Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone > > else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For > > instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to > > genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as > > "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point > > meaningful engagement ends. [...] > If someone supports us by dedicating time, they get the same benefits as a > supporter and I feel that is a meaningful way to engage. I agree with this approach, in fact. That said, organisations have to be very careful not to have people doing an actual job without getting paid for it. > I know this is all anecdotal, but I very much felt that when I started > engaging with the FSFE. I very quickly became part of many teams and my > opinion is always valued, especially because I tend to disagree. So > what I understand from you is that we should do the same for people who > don't engage with us in our work, but who give us money. What would you > feel is a good way to achieve that? Well, just as with the average crowdfunding campaign, communication is the principal remedy for any perceived lack of transparency. It really shouldn't be the case of people either giving money or volunteering their time, however. The attraction of FSFE, at least for me, was the level of engagement that appeared to be possible, where one would be happy donating *and* getting involved in activities within a community around the organisation. But I rather perceive that things seem to happen in a more top-down fashion now. Important and strategic things seem to be the preserve of a few, admittedly very dedicated, individuals. Eventually, everyone else gets to hear about what has been going on, giving feedback about things very late in the day (like whether it really is a smart thing to endorse legislative concessions that mostly benefit only GitHub). Paul ___ 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
Re: How FSFE is organised
Hi Bernhard, "Bernhard E. Reiter" writes: > The "VIP track" is called "volunteer". :) Really nicely said. It took me half a paragraph to express the same idea. 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
Re: How FSFE is organised
Hi Paul, Paul Boddie writes: > The problem with this from the perspective of an outsider, who is or > has been supporting a community-oriented organisation like FSFE, is > that it doesn't give me anything more than "indicators". I agree that we should be more transparent about the Legal Network. I am sure it does great work, but even as a GA member, I still have a very limited perspective. I noticed that on several occasions. I think there have been some improvements in that regard, but not enough yet. I think something that would be good is news items about the work there. Without knowing exactly what happens in the LN, it is hard for me to say if that would be feasible, but I would imagine there are success stories that all parties involved would be happy to talk about. 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
Re: How FSFE is organised
Hi Paul, Paul Boddie writes: > I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the > FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted > on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member: > > https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/ I am also very unhappy with how that went. I backed the campaign as well and got nothing out of it. I need to go back and find the original announcement e-mail on this list, but I sincerely hope there was no advertising *as* as GA member. I would expect this to be clearly marked as a private opinion. If it was not, we need to communicate that better for the future. > Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone > else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For > instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to > genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as > "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point > meaningful engagement ends. That is indeed something we need to watch out for. I personally feel that people who engage with us, either here on the list or in our teams, have access to a lot of information. We usually share it within teams because those teams work on those topics. And if it sounds interesting to everyone, we make it a news item or so. We also work hard to make those ways to engage more visible: That is why we have a redesigned contribute page on our website and why we don't have guest accounts anymore. If someone supports us by dedicating time, they get the same benefits as a supporter and I feel that is a meaningful way to engage. I know this is all anecdotal, but I very much felt that when I started engaging with the FSFE. I very quickly became part of many teams and my opinion is always valued, especially because I tend to disagree. So what I understand from you is that we should do the same for people who don't engage with us in our work, but who give us money. What would you feel is a good way to achieve that? 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
Re: How FSFE is organised
I'm both a participant of the FSFE legal network since its very first incarnation as well as a member of the FSFE legal team. I've also been sitting on the programme committee of the annual legal network conference. I am not a formal member of FSFE GA, I don't represent FSFE formally, but I do care deeply about FOSS and copyleft. On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 02:04:29PM +0200, Paul Boddie wrote: > > The people participating in the legal network are not necessarily members > > of FSFE (association and social group). FSFE provides a space for them to > > exchange, while at the same time FSFE can participate, which is a bit of > > influence. So we get a bit of influence without costs about what legal > > experts that have an interested in Free Software are talking about and what > > their organisations (if they represent them) are taking a focus in. > > To me this sounds like a good thing. > > It could be, yes. But what are the motivations for the other participants? > For > example, there is some controversy about licence enforcement and there are > various commercial interests who probably do fairly well offering services to > companies around releasing software that complies with the obligations in > various Free Software licences. As somebody with a strong interest in license compliance and license enforcement and somebody who has been participating the FSFE Legal Network, let me share my view: The FSFE LN is amazing. I am certain there is no other community on this planet that brings together legal experts around FOSS from all different backgrounds. It is very clear that some of those people attending (or their employers) have completely different interests and motivations as those with a strong "pro community" or "pro copyleft" point of view like myself, or like the FSFE position would be. But it's great that people can exchange their different points of view in a professional and respectful manner, and engage in relatively open discoures [facilitated by the Chatham House rule]. Not only is there a mixture of different positions and agendas, but it's also a mixture of people with [formal] legal background with people from the developer communities, including some very high-profile developers from the Linux kernel community. The FSFE hosting the legal network, and organizing the related annual events puts it in a very good position to not only observe and watch, but to actually influence (whether formally or informally) the discourse in the world-wide FOSS legal community at the highest level. In fact, those members with "adverse" or "controversial" agendas perceive the fact that the FSFE runs the LN as a problem. I've seen rumours about some behind-the-scenes scheming to remove the FSFE from the equation. Alternative groups and events hosted by less community-based and more industry-friendly organizers have meanwhile been established, although AFAICT of still lesser significance/profile. Having the FSFE hosting the netowrk and the related event is a strength from the point of the community. > It appears that some of those commercial interests might not entirely welcome > initiatives to make licence compliance more obvious and transparent, I think that's a myth. I think the only group that *might* have an interest in that direction are vendors of [proprietary] tools for license compliance checking. > mostly because their businesses are predicated on the idea that such > stuff is difficult to get right, that professional help is necessary > to get it right, and that companies can be offered services to make > some kind of "threat" disappear. The participants of the legal network are mostly lawyers on staff of various for-profit and non-for-profit entities. They are not service providers earning money off consulting. I'd argue you wouldn't find anyone among the LN who would intentionally want to keep license compliance less obvious or less transparent. To the contrary (see initiatives such as SPDX or openchain, etc. Your accusations sound like "You cannot trust software developers attending a technical conference, because their main motivation is to sell their own software development services, so they will perpetually make software more complex to sell even more software development services". While for some sales/business people that might be true, the actual experts in this area for decades (whether engineers or legal experts) are the ones that want to simply stuff, whether it's license compliance or code architecture. > What are the rest of us to make of an event where the proceedings are not > readily available and where the participants discuss topics directly > connected > to their business models that depend on limited transparency? The fact that legal counsels of major corporations come together to meet with both their peers at the competition as well as formal and informal community representatives is worth a lot. It will be quite obvious that they
Re: How FSFE is organised
On 10/10/19 2:04 PM, Paul Boddie wrote: > Are we left to assume that whatever consensus was reached at this event is > the > reason for the FSFE being indifferent about possibly the most significant > licence compliance case in Europe in recent years? (One that was only > "settled" by the defendant coincidentally deciding to rewrite the offending > code.) Excuse me, but I don't understand the reference. Could you clarify? > And what are we to make of an event that is presumably sponsored by an > organisation who was - maybe still is - in a frivolous legal conflict with > another Free Software organisation operating in the same realm (who > presumably > does not participate in this event)? Ditto, i.e., re: the lawsuit. Best, Carsten pEpkey.asc Description: application/pgp-keys ___ 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
Re: How FSFE is organised
Am Mittwoch 09 Oktober 2019 15:16:23 schrieb Paul Boddie:
> I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE
> with my remark
Thanks for clarifying. I think it is clear that FSFE volunteers have other
professional lives and need to earn their living. Many of them are still
related to Free Software and thus FSFE may report on their activities
and these lists can be used to chat and talk about all Free Software
activities. If someone mails here, it can be completely unrelated to FSFE
itself.
> Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else
> feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack
> of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns.
In my observation the FSFE tries to address all genuine concerns and
does get a grade B ("good" over the average) on transparency compared
to a large group of organisation and charities. We can and should improve.
In addition our balances are checked by the tax office, we must use the money
for our constitution.
What we do *not have to do* is:
* Bring in specific decision processes (e.g. ones that are too heavy)
* Let everbody join
* Record and publish everything that is said or written
for our decision processes.
Coming to opinions need protected spaces (even in governments), not everybody
likes this, but the majority in FSFE and democracies in Europe do.
Most of our supported - as I take it - do not want the FSFE to become
an organisation that has elaborate public decision processes, they want us to
to campaigns like "public money public code", support that Free Software can
be written, used and people, organisations and government are educated about
it. We also are a counter weight to commercial interest lobbying that serves
interest of single individuals.
> > The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see
> > https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html
> > and we report on it each year.
> The problem when reconciling this activity with an organisation seeking to
> cultivate some kind of membership, community or broad support is in
> convincing this latter group that such an activity, from which they are
> largely excluded, is working in their interests and deserves to be part of
> the same organisation.
The people participating in the legal network are not necessarily members
of FSFE (association and social group). FSFE provides a space for them to
exchange, while at the same time FSFE can participate, which is a bit of
influence. So we get a bit of influence without costs about what legal
experts that have an interested in Free Software are talking about and what
their organisations (if they represent them) are taking a focus in.
To me this sounds like a good thing.
> In other words, when told that the organisation has "got this" (meaning
> that it is providing some kind of solution), the supporters can only assume
> and trust that the outcomes will be beneficial to them.
Or read the reports and look at other actions of FSFE close the the legal
field, like:
Router Freedom https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/ Rooting keeps your
warranty https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.en.html
> Meanwhile, other organisations with arguably less "democracy"
> pursue such activities transparently and let their supporters know
> what they have been saying and doing.
Please make an example here.
FSFE publishes more and more stuff over the years as far as I observe.
(Because this is also a matter of bandwidth.)
> The impression this leaves is that there is the VIP track, with all the
> benefits and a degree of opacity within which conflicts of interest could
> easily develop, and then there is the ordinary supporter track.
The "VIP track" is called "volunteer". :)
Go to one of the local meetings, help with a booth,
join the social group FSFE and you see that you'll learn much more details
about the many things that we do.
https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
Best Regards,
Bernhard
--
FSFE -- Founding Member Support our work for Free Software:
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Re: How FSFE is organised (was: Organisation democracy)
On Tuesday 8. October 2019 17.44.02 Bernhard E. Reiter wrote: > > Am Freitag 27 September 2019 18:00:28 schrieb Paul Boddie: > > > > Admittedly, the rest of us don't tend to do things like park $10 > > destined for improving Free Software in a bank account for four years > > This is book-keeping, the association is the formal employer of people > and because some incomes and costs for FSFE's mission come unplanned, > we want to make sure there is a reserve so we can be a proper employer. > Because FSFE is a public charity we must give a reason for the reserve. I am sorry for the confusion here. In fact, I wasn't referring to the FSFE with my remark, but the following crowdfunding campaign promoted on this mailing list four years ago by a FSFE General Assembly member: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/ Some people might remember that although I broadly supported this campaign, I was rather annoyed by the suggestion that other people get on board to be part of a "community". My own experiences with related projects indicated that community-building and working with other projects was not exactly a priority amongst the people involved: https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2015-June/010578.html Four years on, and I guess I was right to express what I did back then. I feel sorry for anyone who put up money and expected to see anything come out of it. [...] > > and not communicate with the people whose money that was, > > but apart from small things like that. Although I wasn't referring to the FSFE, I do wonder whether anyone else feels that there are certain common themes involved. For instance, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to genuine concerns. People can easily perceive these situations as "thanks for the money so that we can do our thing", at which point meaningful engagement ends. But I presume that many people involved with Free Software advocacy are not satisfied with a bunch of other people telling them that "we got this" (that is, they will deliver a solution on behalf of everyone else), not least because Free Software is a collaborative endeavour. There is a risk of sending the crude message that "we just want your money" (not any expertise you might have) which can also be demotivating and disempowering if it anoints a chosen entity to deliver "the solution" and relegates everyone else to being the unhelpful "competition". It is even worse when the money could have been doing some/more good elsewhere. [...] > > (Which brings me to the matter of FSFE's opaque legal conference that may > > or may not be funded by the supporters, out of which they get a list of > > vague topic headings and reassurances that it was a worthwhile exercise.) > > The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see > https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html > and we report on it each year. > > The main advantage of the meeting that people can exchange themselves, > so there is no direct aim for a result. (FSFE was criticised before for not > forcing the agenda, but most people in FSFE believe that we cannot force > people's opinion, while it is good at the same time to bring people together > that are genuinely interested in Free Software licensing together.) > > https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201907.en.html only has a short report > and it could be longer. The one from 2018 almost seems too long for most > readers https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180530-02.de.html > Some donors of FSFE specifically sponsor the Legal conference, > so I'd personally expect this actually to be something that financially > supports other activies of FSFE. However this probably varies from year to > year. The problem when reconciling this activity with an organisation seeking to cultivate some kind of membership, community or broad support is in convincing this latter group that such an activity, from which they are largely excluded, is working in their interests and deserves to be part of the same organisation. In other words, when told that the organisation has "got this" (meaning that it is providing some kind of solution), the supporters can only assume and trust that the outcomes will be beneficial to them. Meanwhile, other organisations with arguably less "democracy" pursue such activities transparently and let their supporters know what they have been saying and doing. The impression this leaves is that there is the VIP track, with all the benefits and a degree of opacity within which conflicts of interest could easily develop, and then there is the ordinary supporter track. The inevitable tensions that such distinctions introduce tend to be rather damaging to any kind of collaborative endeavour in the long run. Paul ___ 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
How FSFE is organised (was: Organisation democracy)
Hi Paul, Am Freitag 27 September 2019 18:00:28 schrieb Paul Boddie: > It seemed to me when I last looked at any minutes from FSFE meetings that a > lot of people eligible to vote were either delegating their votes to the > leadership or just not voting at all. those formal meetings of the association are best done briefly. This keeps the minutes small and makes it easy for the tax and courts to verify that it is formally fine. This is good as it is a formal framework. The actually work is not in different times and places. > Admittedly, > the rest of us don't tend to do things like park $10 destined for > improving Free Software in a bank account for four years This is book-keeping, the association is the formal employer of people and because some incomes and costs for FSFE's mission come unplanned, we want to make sure there is a reserve so we can be a proper employer. Because FSFE is a public charity we must give a reason for the reserve. > and not communicate with the people whose money that was, > but apart from small things like that. People trust us to treat other people fine, this includes being a good employers, paying all releveant social security taxes and a lot more. I don't believe we should communicate all those details which are "normal" for an organisation that has a few employees. On the scale of what FSFE does, we write, microblog and even video a lot, this increases over time. For this year I've quick-counted 26 entries on https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.html so far. > I think that after a while it becomes tiresome to play the games of > convincing people supposedly working towards the same goals to step outside > their comfort zone and to pay attention to matters of genuine concern > amongst those who support and fund the organisation. The main concern of FSFE is furthering Free Software, empower people and society in the area of software technology. As there are many volunteers within FSFE and we are all humans, there are different ideas how to pursue this goal. And from them there are directions formed (and asked and communicated about). This also means that no all ideas can be followup on equally. Still what we as social group FSFE know is evolving, this process is never to end for the good, because the world keeps turning. > Democratic mechanisms are meant to provide ways of informing > the leadership and direction of organisations; removing them puts an > obligation on the organisation to discover whether it is still doing the > right thing by its supporters. FSFE has this obligation anyway, which is good. Also if our supporters were in the majority going to support non-free software, FSFE cannot follow suit because this is outside the limits of our constitution. There are many way how supporters, (previously) external people and folks can influence what we (as FSFE) do and where we go. One is to bring up a good idea here on the public discussion list or voice it in one of the meetings. > Now, there was that FSFE-in-2020 survey done a while back. I asked about it > again in February, but no response was forthcoming. Answered now, sorry for the late response, thanks for the reminder. > (Which brings me to the matter of FSFE's opaque legal conference that may > or may not be funded by the supporters, out of which they get a list of > vague topic headings and reassurances that it was a worthwhile exercise.) The conference is mainly a meeting of the legal network, see https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html and we report on it each year. The main advantage of the meeting that people can exchange themselves, so there is no direct aim for a result. (FSFE was criticised before for not forcing the agenda, but most people in FSFE believe that we cannot force people's opinion, while it is good at the same time to bring people together that are genuinely interested in Free Software licensing together.) https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201907.en.html only has a short report and it could be longer. The one from 2018 almost seems too long for most readers https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180530-02.de.html Some donors of FSFE specifically sponsor the Legal conference, so I'd personally expect this actually to be something that financially supports other activies of FSFE. However this probably varies from year to year. Best Regards, Bernhard -- FSFE -- Founding Member Support our work for Free Software: blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard https://fsfe.org/donate | contribute signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ 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
