Re: [Fsfe-uk] Hello

[Ramanan Selvaratnam]

Brian,

On Tuesday 08 October 2002 20:06, Brian Gough wrote:

> There is an Oekonux ("Linux Economy") mailing list in Germany, not
> hands-on but theoretical.  You might want to look on there.

Thanks for the link , but not exactly what I am looking for 
-- I should have been more clear I suppose.

>
>   "   In Project Oekonux different people with different opinions and
>    different methods study the economic and political forms of Free
>    Software. An important question is, whether the principles of the
>    development of Free Software may be the foundation of a new economy
>    which may be the base for a new society."

In fact, I find myself distracted by those who abstract 'art forms' and  
'economic theories' around the struggling free software communities.
-- the 'struggle' in my view is inadequate recongition of 'libre' *values* 
and effective action to spread the message (like a hundred replies from those 
desperate to 'take action' :-).

The most promising  London based interest so far is from an organisation 
that wants to empower an hitherto sidelined sector to trade more effectively.
Yes, the focus here is more on a Trade expo (arts, craft, music, fashion 
etc.) -- not software.

My involvement was in the form of an invite received to explore implementing 
the most suitable way to introduce technology into this proposed annual event.
-- I can clearly see that the 'free/cheap beer' solutions have an open ground 
here as this event is going to be a gateway to many poor parts of our planet 
as precise and affordable networked systems are going to dominate the 
technologies needed to trade Freely. 
Also my guess is that those who pioneer new 'Free trade' initatives against 
the archaic and now tumbling :-) oppressive business methods would embrace 
the values of freedom in software whole heartedly.

So to summarise what I am after 
-- advice from those experienced in advocacy
-- correspondence with accessible (uk/London) tech gurus
ideally in a one stop shop.
 Maybe AFFS might cater to these needs in the future once they find time from 
the more pressing issues within their agenda.

Anything you need to be specific/clarified please ask.

>  "From Free Software to Free Society?"

No. 

Free societies should adopt Free software because of its underlying values 
and maintain the Free status of whatever they were upto.
In the case of FSF this becomes recursive,  I suppose.

Regards
Ram