Re: [Fsfe-uk] AFFS strategy (Was: Beyond bitching...)

[Graham Seaman]

Jason Clifford wrote:

>Membership of AFFS is fairly meaningless of itself right now. It doesn't 
>give AFFS a great deal of leverage as the membership is small and seems to 
>exclude corporate membership - whether anyone likes it or not the 
>government is not going to take AFFS seriously if it is seen as not being 
>representative of commercial interests.
>
I don't see that. The government is required to take academic experts
seriously (at least nominally) in some areas. It is forced to take some
note of organisations like Amnesty International. It is required to take
note of the European Court of Human Rights. None of these is
representative of commercial interests. Of course, none is the same as
the AFFS, but the list at least suggests that representing commercial
interests is not the only way to go.  On the other hand, many members
(AFAIK) are  part of  or own companies, so it is not as if the AFFS is
stuck in an ivory tower...

Organisations like the Open Source Consortium do have corporate
membership, but their goals are different (not wrong, different). Which
is a valid division of labour.

Graham