[fsf-anz] Ideas for a FSF-ANZ
- From: Steven McDonald <steven.mcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: fsf-anz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 20:28:29 +1000
Hello all,
I feel that, as someone relatively new to the free software community,
I should probably introduce myself briefly before proceeding. Feel free
to skip the next paragraph if you don't care about introductions. :)
My name is Steven McDonald, I am a physics student in Sydney, and I
have been using GNU+Linux for a little over two years. In that time, I
have become very interested in and learned much about the free software
movement, its history and its philosophy. I hope to be able to hack
with the best someday, but at the moment I am still learning how to
program in C. I created this mailing list not because I feel I am
particularly suited to organising something like this (indeed, in many
ways I still feel like a newbie), but because I was saddened to learn
that no such free software group existed when I looked for one.
Now that's out of the way, I'd like to raise a few points and hopefully
gather opinions.
// Why do we need a FSF-ANZ?
I feel that a FSF-ANZ is important for several reasons:
* To provide support for newcomers to the free software community in
Australia and New Zealand.
* To spread awareness of the free software philosophy to the general
public.
* To promote the use of free software in business and government.
* To discourage the spread of anti-freedom prejudice and propaganda in
schools and universities.
The last point is something that I feel quite strongly about
personally; some course materials at the University of Sydney are
provided through the online Blackboard Learning System interface, which
will not permit you to log in unless you allow a non-free Javascript
program to run in your web browser (specifically, the Javascript has no
explicit copyright notice or licence attached). Also, the phrase
"intellectual property" has appeared in some high school syllabi in NSW
since at least 2005.
I feel that individuals working separately toward these goals are less
likely to succeed than a coordinated organisation, and for that reason
I believe we need a FSF-ANZ.
// Is it feasible?
A very important consideration is whether we have enough interested
people to make this objective feasible, and whether those people live
anywhere near each other in this sparsely populated corner of the
world. It may well transpire that the only way such an organisation can
exist is through mailing lists and IRC if we don't have sufficient
people in the same city. I have slightly less than zero experience in
the area of how organisations like this work, and I think this is the
first question we need to try to answer on this list by sharing ideas
on feasibility.
Anyway, I've suddenly become extremely tired in the middle of typing
this message, so I'll leave it there for now. Please let me know your
thoughts on what I've said, and in particular if and how you think a
FSF-ANZ might be able to become a reality.
Looking forward to the future of freedom in Australia and GNU Zealand,
Steven McDonald.
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