My FSFE Blog
What's happening with the FSFE in London…
What do we do?
Firstly I’ll begin with some form of "life update".
I’ve been "disconnected" for most of August – it began with a week in the English county of Cornwall on holiday. I am lucky that my parents bought a small house in Launceston (on the Cornwall/Devon border) a few years ago and they are kind enough to let my young family and I use it a few times a year.
Life in Cornwall is very much different than in London – for a start my poor old car struggled a lot with the steep inclines of the county and I had to wonder each night if my handbrake would be strong enough to stop it rolling off into the night as I slept.
It is a beautiful part of the world, and I really would recommend you visit it. Especially for British people at the moment with the airport security restrictions making escaping the country a miserable experience.
Returning from Cornwall I had the pleasure of entertaining Shane Coughlan for a night after he presented a talk at the Greater London Linux User Group. As before when he visited the LUG he is an excellent speaker and I know the audience appreciated his words.
And to round up my excuse for not blogging here for a month… I moved house! There isn’t a lot to say except that I am never moving again. When the day comes (hopefully in quite a few years) when I leave this mortal existance please just bury me in the garden somewhere. Moving house is a miserable experience but I am very happy with the new place.
So – onto matters of Free Software and the FSFE. I write this as a new member of the foundation, and as someone that hasn’t so far done a great deal to promote the Foundation to my peers in London.
My question is "What exactly do we do?". I’m not asking as a form of saying "we don’t do enough" but I feel the Foundations purpose is either unclear in some respects, or not communicated well enough to prospective new members.
I joined the FSFE so I could use it as a method to advocate more effectively – I could go to an organisation or individual and promote the principles of Free Software and GNU/Linux and then back it up with the statement "If you would like to know more please see this organisation of which I am a part" and then point to the FSF/FSFE/FSFEurope websites.
However, if a member of my local LUG would approach me and ask what the FSFE does as an organisation I would struggle to explain effectively.
The work done against Software Patents in Europe has been well documented and of course it isn’t over yet (or is it?) but what else do we do?
I could also point to advocacy, education, peaceful demonstrations and campaigning but can you provide more specific tangible examples of the FSFE at work.
Thank you fellow Fellows!