[Gllug] Register article: "Open source UK" gets trade body

[Jason Clifford]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Richard Jones wrote:

> I'm unhappy with the name and focus too, but nevertheless my point
> stands that the free software community *needs such a body* to defend
> its interests.  Ideally it would be an elected body that everyone
> would have to pay into, although there are some obvious problems with
> making that happen.
> 
> Does this body exist already?  Is it the EFF or the FSF?  Possibly,
> but those are US organisations, and are always going to be US
> focussed.  Furthermore they aren't huge, well-funded orgs like the UK
> trade unions or the BMA from my example, and so they cannot really
> defend our interests fully.  This is only going to happen if everyone
> pays an annual sub, and that need not be a large amount of money
> individually because there are many of us.

Are you not aware of the Association for Free Software (AFFS)?

They exist specifically to represent the UK Free Software communities and 
to defend our interests in this area.

AFFS is a member organisation - costs a tenner a year to join - and is run 
by the members.

The activities are limited only by the resources that members are willing 
to dedicate - in terms of time, etc.

Already they are working on the education sector and other public sector 
issues re Free Software and there have been discussions on how to get 
accountants to work with Free Software accounting packages as so release 
businesses from proprietary lock in.

They are also active on the Patents front and other serious political 
issues.

http://www.affs.org.uk/

Jason Clifford
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