John Seago john.seago@dakings.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
Those of you who subscribe to the FSFE list will have already seen this, but as the the message itself suggests I am re-posting it here, together with the suggestion that this LUG should nominate M.J. Ray for all his efforts, hard work and financial support for the foundation of the AFFS, see: http://www.affs.org.uk/, as, as one of those involved in the early stages I know that there would be *NO* AFFS without Mark.
Now you're just making me feel guilty for not having got the charity registration process underway sooner and being particularly slow to process new membership forms (about 2 weeks is normal atm). Also, there's not enough money or organisation to do or manage any of the projects that I think we should do (a fully localised accounting package is particularly high on my list... would anyone else here put money into a targetted fund for developing such a thing?). I also think that there aren't enough members yet and I've not been travelling to LUGs as much as I ought to.
No, I think there are better people who could get this this year. A few of the FSFE founders are definitely more deserving. I particularly suggest that you look at the work done by Georg Greve in travelling, advocacy and writing; and Werner Koch, vice-chancellor of FSFE Germany and GnuPG lead author, who has helped to prod the German government towards accepting it for some sort of official use.
There are others who may also be appropriate, but those are the two who came to my mind. Take a look and see what you think. I think it's too early for the UK scene to get such an award and there are half a dozen or so of us who have done about as much. I just talk more (and probably spend too much time preaching to the choir, which means you get to hear about it).
Speaking of that, AFFS would like to have a stand at LinuxExpo in London next month. In order to do that, I suspect we'll need help, so watch out for an appeal on the fsfe-uk list (linked from http://www.affs.org.uk/ ) very soon. Who from ALUG is going to be there? Care for an ALUG meet?
MJR