Re: Fwd: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Richard Stallman 1st seminar

[Alex Hudson]

On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 03:14:38PM +0000, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:
> The mailman setting for reply to the sender instead of the list caught me out 
> :-) If it is to keep list traffic minimal, nice move..

That does catch out people occasionally :( It's done for a fairly good
reason - it means you do retain the ability to send mail to an
individual privately should you wish.

> > I'm not sure it would have been quite appropriate in the
> > circumstances.
> 
> I disagree.
> It was good to see the  striking blue AFFS and FSF Europe documents being
> distributed methodically before the second seminar.

(Nit: green AFFS and blue FSFE :o)

The only reason we weren't really present at the first lecture was due
to the fact it was during working hours, and I couldn't get away from
work (I'm one of the clostest to London, although I live in Surrey).

Arguably, since neither of the lectures were about Free Software, there
wasn't an 'obvious' reason for being there, but I think it was
important, especially for the software patents talk. AFFS is interested
in connecting people who are [actively] anti-software-patent, since we
believe this is a goal which would further free software. 

> Further few of the LUG people I talked to did not seem to be fully aware of
> the AFFS.

Unfortunately, lots of people are unaware of the AFFS. But, the UK free
software community extends much further than the "Linux User Groups".
For example, I talked briefly to a London Perl Monger, who also hadn't
heard of AFFS. I think our (AFFS') new year's resolution probably ought
to be some committed, planned, marketing activity. This is definitely a
problem we are aware of, though.

> Except for the repetiton of the four 'kinds of freedom'  all three docs.
> (FSF, FSFe, AFFS) seemed full of appropriate information (atleast to me).

That's good :) If anyone does have criticism about the information we
distribute, though, we're all ears: the current documents we have are 
not, as a rule, the work of one person - they tend to be edited by a
number of people, and I think we see them as resources that we can 
continue to improve and grow.

> The question time was very invovled went into overtime and was very
> productive.

Well, he was also a little late. I think this was a tactical masterpiece
on his part, forcing everyone to read the AFFS leaflet :o)

> Third, grassroot level action to educate those SMEs etc. that are going to
> loose out in the future. I could do with some UK specific  pointers/resources
> where this complex issue is explained clearly. This way the next Fax Your MP
> campaign is more effective.
> I have a feeling AFFS can become one such resource.

Funnily enough, this is along the lines of what we're doing :) At Linux
Expo in London, one thing we were asked quite often (esp. by
journalists, it seemed) was whether or not there was specific 
information they could use in future articles - although there is a
fair amount of information around, much of it isn't obviously applicable
to the UK (although it usually is), and isn't hugely accessible. 

This kind of comes back to marketing again though..

Cheers,

Alex.