FSFE meeting in Gothenburg

I attended a local FSFE meetup here in Gothenburg yesterday. There was some discussion about what the Swedish chapter (FSF-SE) should focus on and what activities to arrange.

This was my first IRL contact with FSF people but I have previously considered becoming a fellow because I whole-heartedly support the ideas behind Gnu and FSF. The reason I haven't bothered yet is because it's still quite unclear to me what the FSFE and FSF-SE are supposed to do. I know about all of the high profile things they're doing, such as the fight against software patents in Europe, the fight against DRM and the fight against Microsoft's attempt to get their OO-XML document format approved as an ISO standard... and that's the problem right there. I find it easier and more natural to define FSFE in terms of what they oppose than anything else, and I'd rather spend my time contributing than protesting.

Jonas and Henrik (both are employed by the FSFE) mentioned the SELF project as an example of such an activity and I hope that I sometime soon will find it easier to talk about what the FSFE are supporting and contributing to when explaining the organisation and the philosophy to people who've never heard of them.

At the meeting I suggested local (in and around Gothenburg) projects to support and help schools, libraries and other public institutions with both hard- and software. I believe that the content currently being developed for the OLPC could be real useful in Swedish schools as well and that would really be worth spending time on. I really hope that we can make something useful happen after summer. If you at least promise to try, I'll pay the fee for fellowship. That's a promise :-)