[diskussion] Microsofts nya hot.

[Jeremiah Foster]

Tue, May 15, 2007 at 03:00:24PM +0200:  Jonas Oberg mangled some bits into this alignment:
> Jeremiah Foster wrote:
> 
> > - It needs more openness. Currently FLOSS is dominated by groups like FSFE and 
> >   the Swedish Linux Foreningen. These groups are closed - especially the FSFE. 
> 
> I doubt this is really the case. This seems akin to saying that politics
> is closed since not anyone can be in the government!

I think that is specious. Yes both domains are self-selecting, i.e. you can
decide to be active and find a position in the domain. However the FSFE does not
have direct elections by its members, just a select few. This points to a lack of
openness. Contrast this position with debian where all that is required is 
previous involvement with debian and then once you are inside debian _anyone_
can be elected leader.
 
> >   While the FSFE has two board members from Sweden representing a significant 
> >   portion of the board no one knows how they got there. Are they elected? What 
> >   is the process?
> 
> What you're talking about is only one small portion of what constitutes
> the FSFE. The FSFE is made up of all our Fellows, all of our teams (web
> team, translators, booth volunteers, etc), as well as the core team and
> the general assembly.

I would merely argue that the GA, and indeed the president of the FSFE, 
significantly impact the policies of the FSFE. Georg travels a great deal
as the public face of the FSFE, lobbies various governments and agencies,
co-ordinates with other organizations regarding strategy, etc. 

The resources, direction, and focus of the FSFE is largely in the hands of
the GA - becoming a booth volunteer or translator will not impact those 
policies much, though it is worthwhile and important work.

> The general assembly represents the legal skeleton for the FSFE and is
> there to give the organisation stability and legal standing. Some high
> level strategic discussions are held here that require explicit
> confidentiality. For instance, we would never have gotten as far as we
> have in the anti-trust case against Microsoft by the European
> Commission, if Microsoft would have had access to our strategic discussions.

I find it hard to believe that confidentiality could not have been maintained
even with greater openness. Could one not have a legal committee which dealt
with legal strategies that was confidential? Furthermore, this leads one to
the question that there is more than meets the eye with regard to the Microsoft
case - why does there have to be so much secrecy when we are discussing 
public policy?

> To be in the GA, you basically have to show that you're in this for the
> long term (10+ years) and have gained trust from all of the other GA
> members.

Presumably there is a criteria. Is that criteria published? Is it subject
to Fellowship approval? Are the decisions of the GA regarding membership 
published? Does the decision making process occur in public? 

This is what I mean by openness.

> All of this is purely academic though: there are so many ways to be
> involved with the FSFE that I don't dare try to list them all. Some
> teams are more inclusive than others, it all depends on what kind of
> work they do.
> 
> We also have our associate organisations, which are usually very
> inclusive indeed, and we often seek the consensus of our associate
> organisations for some decisions. Unfortunately, there's no associate
> organisation in Sweden yet, and I'm not sure if there's sufficient
> interest to found one. At least noone have ever told me that they wanted
> to found one :-)

I hope there will be an associate organization here in Sweden one day,
I look forward to that. Not being Swedish myself it is inappropriate for
me to start it.

	Jeremiah