[
English
]
Activity in fsfe-portugal list
[ Report prepared by members of fsfe-portugal@gnu.org
list. Author : Frederico S. Muņoz, modified by Jaime
E. Villate ]
The members of the list fsfe-portugal have taken the first
steps towards the goal of forming a support association for a
future Chapter of the FSF in Portugal.
From the early moments when the FSF created its public
mailing lists, some Portuguese list members have been present
in the discussion (Klaus Schilling, Frederico Muņoz); to give
an example, Portuguese was the first language in which the
FSF Press
Releases were translated (F. Muņoz) - and are still
being translated and sent to the local media - apart from the
3 'official' languages; after an initial time were inertia
won, it became apparent that a specialized list to deal with
the number of Portuguese-speaking members was necessary, since
there was much interest, among many subscribers, to form a
Portuguese national Chapter of the FSF; around April the
fsfe-portugal@gnu.org
mailing list was set up by Loic Dachary
who has encouraged us to follow the good example of the
French Chapter of the FSF
and APRIL.
The list began with around 12 people, and its first objective
was to allow its members to get to know each other better;
soon enough the discussion about the legal things needed to
fulfill the goal begun, with several members already
experienced in forming associations (Ruben Mendes, F. Muņoz,
Hugo Nogueira) stepping up and advising on some initial
decisions that would have to be made. Jaime Villate has served
as a liaison with the FSFand the FSFE; with several years of
participation in free software in general and his recent
contributions to the GNU Project and personal acquaintance
with some people in the FSF - not to mention the deep
involvement in several national GNU/Linux websites and free
software related activities - Jaime coordinates the efforts of
the Portuguese group and has been influential in bringing more
people to the project and in helping the FSF in several ways.
One of the first tasks was to help with the creation of a new
site for the FSF (J. Villate, Loic Dachary), in time for the
public announcement of the creation of the FSF; soon after,
the members of the fsfe-portugal list undertook the
translation of the FSF website into Portuguese, and that was
in a sense a proving ground for our ability to work together
(João Miguel Neves coordinated the effort, with R. Mendes, H.
Nogueira, F. Muņoz). It can gladly be said that such ability
is present in a high degree, since most of the site was
quickly translated into Portuguese, with the members sharing
opinions and information about the translation of several
terms, use of the XHTML
scheme and Savannah,
etc. Not only
that but some members are also taking up tasks in the FSF
website.
New members are joining in a steady rate, partly due to the
effort made to get the FSF noticed by a larger audiency by
releasing several messages and news to national websites; if
the FSF was largely unknown in Portugal some months ago, that
situation has changed - and is changing more as time
passes. There are roughly 30 people subscribed to the list
now, and an IRC channel (#fsfe-pt) on the OpenProjects Network
was created (Matti Särkisitta) to allow more real-time contact
between the members.
One important step will be made in the 9th of June, when the
first
meeting will take place in Oporto; this meeting is being
prepared and anticipated from some time now and will provide a
privileged occasion to discuss things in more detail and to
meet personally. On the agenda is the discussion of the legal
status and name of the organization, distribution of tasks, a
general reflection about the FSF and our collaboration with
it and a small key-signing party.
In conclusion, the initial steps to facilitate the
participation of FSF in Portugal have been taken, and the
creation of a support association is underway; after this
first meeting more work is to be distributed and we expect to
see more members joining as we spread the word. After someone
from our group is accredited by the FSF core team, it is safe
to assume that there will exists a real possibility of having
a FSF Chapter Portugal in the short/medium term; among GNU
members, Debian developers, people involved in setting up some
of the foremost national free software websites, people
involved in several ways with the free software ideals for
years and newcomers with a great will to get the work done, we
have a good human potential to build this reality.
The future looks bright :)
|
|
|