On 14/09/2018 18:33, virgilva@keemail.me wrote:
14. Sep 2018 14:08 by JFoster@luxoft.com <mailto:JFoster@luxoft.com>:
Hi Virgil,
There are some facts that are incorrect in your email.
1. FSFE is not a 'business', its a charity. This is a legal designation. From the FSFE; "Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology." 2. The staff are not de-facto 'shareholders', there are no shares to hold. Some are volunteers. 3. FSFE calls their members 'fellows', there are many more fellows than 20.
It says fellows never were members, there are no more fellows, sorry
https://danielpocock.com/an-fsfe-fellowship-representatives-dilemma
we were fooled
9 staff can make meeting in Berlin and delete fellows from the constitution? That is charity?
All my friends stop with FSFE now
A number of people asked me to comment on this in my official capacity as the former FSFE Fellowship Representative. I avoided doing so for various reasons: - I have great confidence in the FOSDEM team making good decisions, they already know most of what goes on and I doubt that anything I add could help them do much better, - I have a conflict of interest as I'm involved in multiple groups that have a FOSDEM presence, so I didn't want to say anything before booth selections. However, there is one thing that makes me feel compelled to speak up: even after completely resigning from FSFE in disgust, I continued to receive threats from Matthias Kirschner, the organization's president, as he tried to control me. "Safety of the community" is a hot topic these days in many free software communities. Many people encounter FSFE for the first time at FOSDEM so it is important for them to be aware that community representation has been abolished, threats were used to push out the last remaining representative and it is now every man for himself, with some getting a lot further[1] than others. Kirschner has continued to act vindictively, amongst other things, undermining my own work as a developer in other projects. Given that FOSDEM is about development, it will be sad to see professional campaigners there who put their own personal agenda ahead of the developers. Many people point out that FSFE makes great merchandise, but when I explain that in 2016 they had revenues[2] of EUR 649,000 and only spent 5% on producing merchandise, less than their "basic infrastructure cost", people start asking where the rest goes. The transparency page and annual reports are surprisingly opaque. I'd encourage people who want to contribute their time and money to free software organizations to use FOSDEM as an opportunity to speak to different groups, get to know people and work out which groups are best to contribute to. Contributing to a local group where you can get involved as a member, be invited to meetings and have an equal vote increases the chances that your money will have the impact you hope for. Regards, Daniel Former FSFE Fellowship representative 1. https://fsfellowship.eu/2019/01/26/fsfe-behavior-standards.html 2. https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2016.en.html -- Debian Developer https://danielpocock.com