Comments inline. On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 17:33, Evan Leibovitch wrote: > Broader mandate != better equipped > > Is Canopener incorporated? Does it have funding? Does it have contacts > capable of providing sponsorships and affiliations? Or is it indeed any > more than a website looking much like a clone of newsforge? > > Canopener has people and some energy but no infrastructure. CLUE has > infrastructure and some potential revenue streams but not enough people. I > suggest there is a synergy here. > > Advocacy is not putting up a website and hoping people find it. Advocacy > is getting into the faces of those who would belittle or ignore you. That > requires more than websites or technical solutions. It requires money, it > requires infrastructure, and it requires the right kind of people to > advance the message and get in the faces (politely) of others. > Evan raises a couple of good points, but it also has a few limitations. The fact that Canopener is not incorporated has no real effect on it's ability to lobby as, last time I checked, one did not have to be incorporated to lobby the government. There are lobby groups but CLUE is not one of these either. As for funding, one of the posts last week said that CLUE had a couple hundred dollars in the bank, which is a start, but hardly a war chest. Contacts for sponsorship and affiliation is actually a knock against CLUE as far as advocacy and lobbying goes, there should not be the appearance of corporate influence. > > > Also if CLUE stays out of advocacy it > > > has a better chance at getting charitable status which will really help > > > with fund raising. > > Sorry, but this is bunk. Please get rid of this romantic idea that > charitable status is the path to all sorts of money. It isn't. > > Charitable status is extremely difficult to get, extremely difficult and > expensive to maintain, involves constant scrutiny by government > bureaucrats, and does not necessary ensure more successful fundraising > than a non-profit business deduction. > > (Personally, I would see resorting to charity status as a failure of our > primary goals of advancing the use of Linux and open source.) CLUE has a choice, it can either be governed by the rules of a charity, or it risks being influenced by corporations or individuals with deep pockets. Either one has potential for abuse and/or extra work. > > Dan York and I were able to collect $500,000 US for LPI before it even had > its own bank account, let alone charitable status. If your *purpose* is > considered both worthy and viable by would-be funders, it's easier to get > money from them. If your purpose is considered frivolous, or otherwise > unworthy of funds, nobody will give regardless of status. And being > charitable requires us to employ auditors and accounting practices that > impact our budget before we spend a cent on the things we consider > worthwhile. LPI is a special case, there are many organizations that would have a direct immediate interest in it (training and publishing) and to a lesser extent other organizations that need to advertise Linux-related services. The general population had next to no interest in it. > > > This is important to decide. There are a number of projects underway > > to deal with different parts of Advocacy, and I suspect having CLUE > > not duplicate these efforts would be useful. > > >From here I see a scattered bunch of efforts with no business plans, no > effective courses of action, and thus no real effectiveness. I see > collections of people sitting around talking about lots of things but > doing little. > > Someone needs to provide: > > - Position papers to present to the CRTC and parliamentary committees on > issues that affect open source users, such as the punitive tax on > blank media that assumes that all CD burning exists to illegally > reproduce copyrighted material; > Not directly Linux-related, this also encompasses all the independant artists, private software developers etc. > - Public speakers capable of traveling to hearings and eloquently > advancing the case for open source to tech-ignorant (and possibly > tech-hostile) politicians and mandarins; > > - A speakers' bureau capable of providing names of folks who will speak to > any group curious to know about Linux and open source; > > - Effective public relations that put Linux into the mainstream of the > Canadian news media -- not just the IT press but the stuff aimed at the > general public. That means an affective means to explain open source to > people who may know little about computers, let alone Linux; > > - Publicity and advertising resources and info that LUGs can use when > working with their local media outlets; > Shipping a person cross-country is expensive. Until Linus and RMS are household names no one is going to gather the crowds to make that endeavor worth while. A more useful idea is to prepare presentation notes that someone in the area familiar with the topic can use for making a presentation. This has the added bonus of creating better speakers who can public-relations and PR locally. > - A constant and effective counterpoint to Microsoft's heavily-funded > FUD campaigns (and to a lesser extent Sun's scattered anti-Linux efforts); Trying to compete with Microsoft head on is a great way to burn through money. > > - Lobbyists who will meet and keep contact with MPs (and MPPs and MLAs etc.) > charged with technical issues, be it Ministers or Deputy Ministers or > Shadow Ministers or committee chairs or relevant committees of political > parties or whatever; > This should be done at the local level. All MPs should be lobbied by their constituents. > I'm sorry, but I don't see any of the mentioned groups providing anything > at all like what I've described above. So no, if CLUE decides to take on > these challenging tasks I don't see any overlap with canopener or any of > the other groups. While I see all sorts of DMCA talk on flora there's no > record of the group having made formal representation to the government > forums on digital copyright. Without an official position made to the > gov't such forums amount to little more than virtual navel-gazing. Russell McOrmond I believe has made an appearance. > > The tasks above require salesmanship more than debating skill, and real > people's time and hard work. They require PR forms and lawyers who > understand what's at stake if laws are changed and can help teach us the > rules of the games we will be forced to play. These are all resources > which are IMO in fairly short supply in this community. Don't bring lawyers into this. > > As just the simplest of examples of the community's lack of salesmanship: > the very fact that people still insist on using the term GNU/Linux in > public instead of just "Linux" demonstrates a total misunderstanding of > how to sell Linux to the general public. There are certain political > agendas that need to be shelved in favour of the greater benefit that > comes from a message that doesn't confuse. > > The difference between conventional Linux advocacy and what *really* needs > to be done is to consider the target audience. We must provide messages > that are simple, non-technical and unambiguous, presented in the times and > places where they make the most impact. In that case you don't advertise Linux, you advertise Open Source. Once you leave the technical world the difference between Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD becomes trivial. They are all open source software. That is why CLUE should not be in this sort of advocacy. > > It is my belief that these tasks can be done by CLUE, and should indeed be > CLUE's primary reason for being. Conventional Linux advocacy alone just > won't cut it. Providing a clearing house of information is, by comparison, > a relatively trivial and technical task that won't attract a cent of > corporate sponsorship. And charitable status won't affect that by one > shred. > Why are you so interested in corporate sponsorship? Open source is about sharing ideas and information, not about making money. You may think that providing information to people is trivial, but it is why people use computers and the Internet. You don't impress someone by telling them something they know, you impress them by telling them something new. And the only way to find out new information is to communicate with other people, and making that as easy as possible.
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