Re: Minutes of the GNOME Board meeting 30 October 2001

[Olivier Berger <oberger april org>]

Andy Tai <lichengtai yahoo com> writes:

> This is most excellent and helps GNOME's future by
> retaining/growing the mind share and support in the
> free software community (KDE is an competitor for
> that).
> 
> >From what I can see, the GNU Project is consisted, at
> this moment, of four organizations (more to come
> later?): the FSF (USA), the FSF Europe, the FSF India,
> and the GNOME Foundation (in the USA).  (Plus strongly
> associated companies like FreeDeveloper.net, Ada-core
> Technologies, etc.) Also close relationships with Red
> Hat/Cygnus and other companies.  Maybe the open
> membershop model of the GNOME Foundation should be
> adapted by the FSF itself... (FSF Europe is also
> membership based) 
> 

I'm afraid you make a mistake : afaik, the GNU project is mostly an informal group of developpers (even if it has some well-defined membership process and strong internal rules) rather than a formal association of companies, organization or individuals.

Now, the FSF Europe is not a member of the GNU Project. And, it is not an organisation whose people can join as members since it only accepts the minimum number of people needed for its needs. It relyes on its associate organisations (like APRIL in France for instance or ASOL in Portugal) for a place for people to join, if one wants to support its action.

I think that the Gnome Foundation is more "democratic" (elections, candidates, open to evry developper) than FSF Europe (Note I'm not judging, just telling facts).

I suggest you check for more details on www.fsfeurope.org in case of need.

Best regards,

P.S.: I'm not a member of FSF Europe nor GF, so I hope I didn't make too many mistakes here ;)
-- 
Olivier BERGER - Secrétaire de l'association APRIL 
APRIL (http://www.april.org) - Vive python (http://www.python.org)
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