MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-02-29 |
| FROM | Adam Kosmin
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Overview of this afternoon's Orgcom meeting
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Greetings,
As most of you know, I had the pleasure of representing NYLXS during
this afternoon's Orgcom meeting. First off, I would like to thank NYLXS
for giving me the chance to represent our organization and I would like
to add that I will be happy to repeat this representation in the future
should it be warranted.
Over the course of several hours, I took part in many discussions and
debates, voted on various issues, and even nominated a potential name
for the organization's planned Expo event. As a result, I feel I have
learned a great deal about Orgcom which I probably would have missed if
I were reading the mailing list alone. In light of this understanding, I
am prepared to offer my recommendation as to how NYLXS should handle the
matter of Orgcom and hope to formally address this recommendation at the
next board meeting.
Before I begin, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. You will
not see me name individuals who opposed the views (either via vote or in
debate) that I represented on behalf of NYLXS. Rather, I will address
Orgcom as the very entity it strives to become. Going forward, I hope we
will adopt this approach in an effort to minimize the unneeded drama and
emotion which usually results from such "finger pointing" should we
continue to explore this relationship.
It is my opinion that Orgcom is not quite ready for NYLXS endorsement
for the following reasons:
1. The group is suffering an identity crisis. While a considerable
portion of the group's members are trying to build a platform to be used
for the purpose of advancing the Free Software movement, others appear
to have all together different agendas ranging from more "market
friendly" Open Source advocacy to a freedom-agnostic approach to a
technology expo. This lack of concise agreement became most obvious to
me when I listened to arguments suggesting that the word "Free" is a bad
word that should be avoided when constructing the group's mission
statement name for the planned expo. To summarize, I was left with an
impression of a rock band composed of talented musicians, who's fate
would be to eventually break up due to "musical differences".
2. Orgcom has decided that 2 mailing lists will be maintained in order
to facilitate communication going forward. The first of these will be
used by the public and its archives will be world-readable. The second
will be writable by only Orgcom representatives and its archives will be
closed. For the record, I do not have overwhelmingly strong feelings on
this but did vote that the second list's archives be world readable. I
voted in this direction for two reasons: First, I was acting on behalf
of NYLXS stated opinion on this issue and secondly, because my gut
instinct tells me that openness is simply the more honorable of the two
approaches since it creates accountability.
Assuming for a moment that the board members of NYLXS will agree with my
recommendation, I believe that we should send a simple and polite letter
to Orgcom which explains our stance and communicates our unwillingness
to support the group's activities at this time. Care should be taken in
the wording of this letter so that no bridges are burned since we may
decide at a later time to seek participation should we either see
sufficient progress made in these areas, or change our organization's
views.
Thank you,
Adam Kosmin
--
"Yes, Your Honor. Now, where we are so far, in at least my
line of reasoning, is I want to walk the Court through enough of our
complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a
lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what
it is."
-- Kevin McBride SCO vs. IBM 12/05/03
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
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