Re: Progressive activism/Hacker coalition and copyleft

[harel barzilai]

Thanks for responding, Alfred. Let me try to clarify below.

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> hb) 1. First, I'm looking to build a coalition of ethical
> hb) programmers and activists for progressive/"radical democratic"
> hb) social change. Is there a usenet newsgroup, mailing list, web
> hb) forum, or other places you could refer me to? [...]

> Is there anything wrong with any of the following groups:
>  * The GNU Project
>  * FSF

There is nothing wrong (and a heck of a lot "right") about
GNU/FSF which is the reason I chose this "GNU" related
newsgroups for my first main inquiry. However, this brings
up some questions:

First, who at GNU/FSF to contact? If you are willing to be
the contact to work with me by email, assuming you are
interested in exploring a progressive/radical-democratic
software (PRADS?) coalition, I would be delighted. Or
equally so, if you could refer me. Secondly, what I'm
proposing could be a project of GNU or FSF, but the mission
of these organizations is broader, so I can't expect all of
GNU/FSF to move in this direction; some sub-group, project,
or partnership under some name, would make sense -- and this
is exactly what I am trying to inquire about.

In fact, regarding these two points, about 24? months ago I
exchanged some emails with someone fairly prominent at
GNU/FSF (it was, in fact, Richard Stallman) who was
supportive of my general directions, and even helped with
some ideas about the structure of the software. But in
addition to not being able to personally devote time to
single-handedly coordinating that particular idea or PRADS
in general all by himself, he also indicated that he did not
know of an any organization which exactly met the PRADS
mission (the intervening time period was taken up, for me,
by other aspects of related activism, as well as
personall/work commitments)..hence my post here...

I can try to clarify my other, secondary inquiry (on
patents on "concepts" and on look-n-feel), separately, but
will hold off for now.

With the above clarification, do you (or any other newsgroup
readers) have followup suggestions or interest in
collaboration, or both?

Harel

"The reasonable man [sic] adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man -George Bernard Shaw

"We want structures serving people, not people serving structures"
-1968 Paris Commune graffiti

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has a
genius, power, and magic in it" -Goethe