Group:FSF Community Team

See also: Team Planning

About

The FSF Community Team aims to spread the free software philosophy in blogs, online press, and through social networking sites.

This group has two functions:

1. Responding to media and press concerning free software
2. Spreading links that effectively and accurately promote free software

Join Us!

If this is something that interests you, please join the discussion list:

• http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-community-team

Thanks, and we appreciate your support!

If you spend some time each day reading popular blogs or mainstream press and you have a good handle on the debate around software freedom, this could be a great opportunity. As part of the FSF Community team, you'll be doing things like:

• Responding to questions and points about free software in online media.
• Working with the FSF campaigns team to respond to big news stories that impact software freedom, or stories that are chances for people to understand why free software matters.
• Making sure that stories that important stories (for example: news on fully free distributions, bad DRM, vendor lock-in, or the dangers of "cloud computing", etc) get as much attention as possible in the media and the widest possible reach through social networking sites.

Just to be clear, the goal here is not to get into long, drawn out flame-wars that have been repeated elsewhere :) Rather, this will be an organized and careful approach to shifting the debate about the public's control of technology.

If this is something that interests you, the first step is to join the Community Team mailing list.

Since you'll often be writing on behalf of the FSF, the second step is for you to do some simple reading and writing to show staff and other volunteers on this list that you're well-prepared for the role.

So, what we need you to do is pretty simple.

1) Send us a quick introduction. What blogs, news sites, or communities do you follow? What--if any--areas would you like to focus on?

2) Reply to the list, letting us know when you've read these three articles about FSF's basic philosophy and political approach, along with any questions you have (questions are good!).

• Words to avoid

• Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

• The Free Software Definition

3) Write some short responses to these excerpts below, as if you were responding with a short comment to somebody's blog post on FSF's behalf. These are representative of the sort of things we often find ourselves responding to. Be polite, concise, and--most of all--make sure you hit the most important points.

This will give us an idea of your writing style, and it gives FSF staff and other volunteers on the list a chance to offer feedback and show you the ropes.

• "Linux is awesome for checking email and browsing the web."

• "But make no mistake, if the real version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework is anything like the one discussed above, with its pathetically devalued definition of openness, and its espousal of the risible “openness continuum”, it will represent a huge setback for the use of free software in Europe, and a major boost for closed-source software producers and the patents they all-too often claim there - even though software cannot be patented “as such” in Europe." Link

• "When combined with the other chapters that include statutory damages, search and seizure powers for border guards, anti-camcording rules, and mandatory disclosure of personal information requirements, it is clear that there is no bigger intellectual property issue today than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated behind closed doors this week in Korea." Link

Thanks, and we appreciate your support!