@manukrishnantv we just need someone to handle legal side, so geography is not an issue, I think.

It was just my opinion. Lets see what others think.

@balasankarchelamat providing logistical support to Free Software communities is one of the core objectives of SMC (society).

@akhilkrishnans I have a small correction. That statement was a mistake from me. I was not an active participant in fosscommunity.in. When saw the discussion, I thought it is about pirate movement. Personally I don't like to connect pirate movement with SMC. So I blocked it. When I realized the mistake I corrected it. I apologise for the mistake I made.

To make things transparent, shouldn't the SMC members (who are not member of FCI) have a word on the issue?? Why don't we make it like this - FCI is requesting SMC to be its legal supporter, SMC places the discussion in front of its members, SMC members decide what to do. If they are fine, lets do it.

I don't think, the stuff involving another organization should be discussed in a platform like this. SMC must be informed formally about this request (via mail so that everyone knows) and let them respond.

@balasankarchelamat Yes. You are right. That need to be second step. After this discussion closes, we can discuss in SMC mailing list and can give a letter to SMC from us describing the situation.

This voting is solely for consent from FCI members regarding this.

Once they accept it, then only this become possible. If not, we propose alternatives. That's my thought on this.

I believe SMC's General Assembly agreed to this request.

We need to revisit this thread now and finish this task of defining a structure.

1. Each sub team like poddery.com maintainers or git.fosscommunity.in should be able to take technical decisions independently. We can have them like special teams in debian (FTP masters, release team etc).
2. We can create email accounts for official members
3. Any time contribution to Free Software should be enough to get a membership (be it coding, design, support, publicity etc)
4. Their contribution should be vouched by existing members (we can have initial members from this loomio group/riot group/mailing list).
5. This structure can help us make official statements with everyone given a fair opportunity to comment.
6. Ownership of assets like domains could be given to legal entities like SMC. Just like debian, we can have multiple organizations as trusted organizations to keep assets. We can ask other groups like DFF, SFLC, DAKF etc

Basically we need ensure we can sustain these services even if the current maintainers become inactive (I want to make myself redundant).

Sharing the discussion points in #fci:matrix.org

Vikram Vincent

Pirate Praveen: read the thread on FCI assets. I don't have an opinion on it since I was involved with FCI years ago.

Pirate Praveen

Vikram Vincent: ok, we are trying to reactivate the wiki/website and make it more sustainable by defining/documenting teams, processes etc

Vikram Vincent

Fsmk being a legal entity handles issues of assets thru its committee.

This was something we designed from the early stages itself

Not sure why you selected smc over other orgs but I assume it is because a lot of you are from smc, right?
B

Another way would be to create FCI into a legal entity but I don't know if it is too late for that

Pirate Praveen

Vikram Vincent: yes, most of us knew smc well enough to ask at that time

Vikram Vincent: I prefer the way debian does it


there is one community without legal entity and multiple trusted organizations for legal requirement, owning assets etc

Vikram Vincent

Pirate Praveen: how would u implement such a distributed plan? Is there some legal text I can read to understand?

Pirate Praveen

debian has many legal trusted organizations like SPI in US, debian.ch in switzerland, debian Japan etc

Vikram Vincent

Right. In a region there is one trusted org. But FCI is distributed across India and smc is located in one place

So I don't see how your idea is implemented..

Pirate Praveen

Vikram Vincent: see https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/TrustedOrganizationCriteria

Teams/DPL/TrustedOrganizationCriteria - Debian Wiki
Wiki Login FrontPage RecentChanges FindPage HelpContents TrustedOrga...ionCriteria Search: Wiki / Login Comments Info Attachments More Actions: Raw Text

Vikram Vincent: smc was just the first, we can always add more

Vikram Vincent

I read that. For example, in US, Debian as one trusted org and not several, right?


How would u handle conflicts among among multiple trusted orgs?

Pirate Praveen

Vikram Vincent: what kind of conflicts? its FCI -> trusted org interactions, we only have to worry about interaction with that organization and FCI
12:16
for example if we want to add FSMK as a trusted organization, somene in FCI can propose it and if its accepted, we can ask FSMK about their position


if there is a conflict between FSMK and SMC for example, that does not affect us

Vikram Vincent

So each trusted org handles a different aspect, I assume

Cannot be the same asset

Pirate Praveen

Vikram Vincent: yes
S
Vikram Vincent
12:18
Ah ok

discussion with @jayaura on matrix/riot.

Aurabindo

Pirate Praveen: if FSMK and SMC are trusted orgs and they have a conflict, shouldnt FCI intervene and help resolve that ? How can it not affect FCI?
B

(assuming that FCI is legal and SMC FSMK are added as TOs)

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: the need for trusted organizations arise because we/FCI is not a legal entity

Aurabindo

well I didnt put it correctly. I know FCI is not legal at the moment. I was just asking the question in the hypothetical situation where FCI has become legal

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: having friends in both organizations, we can try an mediate in a conflict, but that should not affect us. Each of them will be holding a different asset.

Aurabindo: then we don't need any TO, we can handle our own assets

Aurabindo

Right, if the conflicts are over different assets, it should legally 'affect' FCI

But is there absolutely no chance of having such a conflict on assets that may be common? For instance, lets say an individual donates some infrastructure to FCI which both TO 'A' and 'B' would love to have. If the donor has not specifically mentioned whom the resource should be donated, then there could be an issue that FCI need to deal with, isnt it ?

or such cases are out of scope ?

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: there are bigger conflicts, even between countries? How do people solve it? People try to talk, have a mediator etc. This is a pure hypothetical situation, we are all people, we can think about a response when there is a conflict

Aurabindo: A or B don't have a say in decision making, FCI decides or the donor decides

FCI can tell the donor to give it to either A or B

Aurabindo

Right. So that the rule put forward by FCI. I think such cases needs to be well documented

if we are moving ahead with this idea

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: yes, we can use the debian't criteria as a starting point

Aurabindo

And for TO's to be interested in joining FCI, there needs to some perks they have with the membership

First one I can think of, is managing the legal aspects

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: no, the TO don't join FCI

Aurabindo

taxes etc ( if they apply)

I see

Pirate Praveen

both FCI and TO will see if the goals are aligned

Aurabindo

Okay

Pirate Praveen

in this case SMC or FSMK will see if supporting FCI helps Free Software, which is a goal of both those orgs

FCI will check the trackrecord of SMC and FSMK before approaching them and they will in turn check the track record of FCI

it helps when there are common members
B

many members are common between SMC and FCI so they can vouch for each other organizations

12:48
now if some members of FSMK or DFF or DAKF becomes a part of FCI, they can propose/vouch

@balasankarc

I know I am talking in future tenst, but still: My personal opinion for FCI is to not go legal. I love FCI to be always a community and not an "organization".
B
Pirate Praveen

@balasankarc: that is my preference too

there will be many compulsions when going legal, when there are already many legal entities that share the same goal of promoting Free Software, we don't need yet another one wanting to do the same

that why I like the way debian did it
B

its not just just debian many other projects gets affiliated with SPI or SFLC

Aurabindo

Pirate Praveen: I was not clear regarding the proposed relationship b/w FCI and SMC. Reading the debian constitution now

Pirate Praveen

https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/

Current Projects - Software Freedom Conservancy
The Software Freedom Conservancy provides a non-profit home and services to Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.

Prasanth Sugathan: do SFLC.in offer a simialr service for communities in India?

Aurabindo

Pirate Praveen: @balasankarc Has there been any discussions on the pros and cons of going official ?

Pirate Praveen

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/
projects
SPI / projects Home Contact Corporate Donations Meetings Membership Projects SPI Associated Projects We are proud to be able to list the following 46 free and open source projects as being associated with SPI.

12:57
Aurabindo: https://codema.in/d/1Z3oWqR7/proposal/9vBfM8VT
Loomio - Loomio

Discussion with Arun M (fci@conference.diasp.in)

[11:44:42  IST] ‎arunm‎: Hi Praveen real problem is not organisation but we lack people doing real work
‎[11:44:49  IST] ‎arunm‎: Discuss politics
‎[11:45:06  IST] ‎arunm‎: Create next generation actisits
‎[11:54:05  IST] ‎praveen‎: arunm, I agree we need people who are motivated by politics, above thread is just an attempt to document the existing community, to sustain services like poddery.com and git.fosscommunity.in
‎[11:55:57  IST] ‎praveen‎: documenting processes helps new people to understand how how community works
‎[11:56:08  IST] ‎praveen‎: it is required to sustain a community
‎[11:57:27  IST] ‎praveen‎: we want a new member to know they can question the "seniors" and don't have to just follow
‎[11:58:24  IST] ‎praveen‎: this is mostly relevant for community ownership of infrastructure like the diaspora pod we run
‎[11:58:58  IST] ‎praveen‎: arunm, it is not a substitute for building activists
――――――――――――――――――――
‎[12:04:54  IST] ‎arunm‎: Praveen, I don't know. We need community it infrastructure like diaspora but the challenge is not one of Debian but that of autistici
‎[12:05:12  IST] ‎arunm‎: Debian model is not the best to me
‎[12:05:56  IST] ‎arunm‎: For debian community infrastructure is something to support its core community function of developing a free distro
‎[12:06:47  IST] ‎arunm‎: Here objective is to build shared it infrastructure for members use like email, data storage, messaging etc
‎[12:07:24  IST] ‎praveen‎: I'm looking at debian as "how a community work together"
‎[12:08:15  IST] ‎praveen‎: while autistici structure is good if we look at the output, but how do one join autistici?
‎[12:08:59  IST] ‎arunm‎: It may not work if they adopt debian model
‎[12:09:13  IST] ‎praveen‎: I'm more interrsted in growing the number of people who steps up to do the work
‎[12:09:39  IST] ‎praveen‎: hense looking at the debian structure
‎[12:09:48  IST] ‎arunm‎: Only way is work with them talk to them
‎[12:10:05  IST] ‎arunm‎: Discuss politics
‎[12:10:24  IST] ‎praveen‎: autistici/riseup is a closed group, though really committed and passionate people
‎[12:11:08  IST] ‎arunm‎: The spirit of rebellion and comradeship  
‎[12:13:16  IST] ‎praveen‎: but that usually ends up as small number of people in the front and large number following
‎[12:14:14  IST] ‎praveen‎: which I don't see as suatainable, as many times the people at the front get burned out or have to move out, the community dies with it

i'd like to question the necessity of having a constitution. doesn't it make things look more complicated than simply allowing people to associate freely? also one of the main reasons for not registering FCI as a legal entity is to avoid the complications that come with it, right? so my suggestion is to keep things simple by providing general guidelines instead of forming a constitution.

on the other hand it's fine if there are any solid reasons for creating a constitution. what all are the advantages of having a constitution (assuming that a constitution is no more valid than a set of guidelines when the organization isn't a registered one)?

doesn't it make things look more complicated than simply allowing people to associate freely? also one of the main reasons for not registering FCI as a legal entity is to avoid the complications that come with it, right? so my suggestion is to keep things simple by providing general guidelines instead of forming a constitution.

If there is no defined structure, the community will end up being controlled by a small group. Even with defined constitutions, countries become dictatorships. Power has a corrupting influence and we have systematically restrict it. Constitution alone will not be sufficient, but it is necessary to define and restrict small group of people dominating others. It is not about complications, but limitations imposed by a hierarchical structure as required by law. When we are not registered, we are flexible about our structure and decision making. For a registered organization, we will have to follow the structure mandated by law. Without a constitution, do you think debian would have sustained this long?

Constitution is just a name that people understand, naming it guidelines would be okay too. It is something we show to new people. How do someone new to fosscommunity.in know who we are, what we do, why we are doing it, how can they become a part, do they get the same rights etc. Without a defined structure and process for accepting new members, growth will not be sustainable as a small group will only feel the ownership and when they become inactive, the groups dies too.

I think it is a fact fci needs better organization. Constitution alone may not be enough for that. We will need to receive financial support, advices and backing in situations that needs backing.

As far as I understand we have members who've been part of smc and people who still work with smc. So the benefits overweights anything else. Besides organizations like smc are designed to support movements.

But only if more people from smc will step up and comment about this.

The measures outlined to organize fci will help to make it more official. Things will be streamlined, and new people will understand its worthiness and the need to contribute. Continue to have people from everywhere plus under one group with some structure.

I think it is a fact fci needs better organization. Constitution alone may not be enough for that. We will need to receive financial support, advices and backing in situations that needs backing.

Like I said above, constitution alone is not sufficient, but it is necessary to sustain the community. It is more of a documentation, a declaration of intent and purpose. We can associate with many existing registered organizations that share our values and goals to take care of financial and legal needs. It is a common practice for many Free Software communities to isolate legal structure from community decision making. Software in the Public Interest, Software Freedom Conservancy, our own SMC, all have a goal of supporting the Free Software communities in their goals and many projects use these services. If we are unable to get that support from existing organizations, we can think about creating our own.

But only if more people from smc will step up and comment about this.

SMC has already agreed to support us. https://codema.in/d/1Z3oWqR7/comment/56345 I reopened this thread to complete writing a constitution that details our goals and a membership process so we become sustainable.

I have added a preamble section in this thread's description. Please comment.

Regarding the second point of the preamble We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone, like a diaspora pod with xmpp chat support at poddery.com and a gitlab instance at git.fosscommunity.in, I suggest that specific services not be mentioned in there. Preamble should be the introduction. Further sections should mention in detail what services are hosted, what domains are registered, and who are the present admins, etc.

Suggestion on point 2: How about changing from We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone to We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone that respects their freedom and privacy and depend on donations and community manpower to run the infrastructure

Updated, see now.

Discussion with @jayaura about the name and stand about hardware.

Pirate Praveen: I think we need to clarify what is the official name of the organization: Is it FCI? If so, is that Free software Community of India or `Foss Community of India?

Or should we make it FLOSS ?

thats another usage I've come across in multiple places

And, why should we limit ourselves to just Software? Hardware deserves mention too!

@abhijith:matrix.org

Aurabindo: FLOSS seems too much

Aurabindo

@abhijith:matrix.org: I agree.

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: it was started as Foss community of India, but in descriptions I prefer to use Free Software

I don't like floss either


Aurabindo: propose a wording for hardware

we could change the name to Free Software Community of India

Aurabindo

Pirate Praveen: the question is whether hardware should be something thats important to this group. I am not aware of anyone who is into open hardware in here!

If there is enough interest, we can probably call it "Free Computing Community of India", to reflect that we also care about hardware

or something like that

or may be Free and Open Computing Community of India, FOCCI

In case we decide to include hardware, we need to come with a bang, like launching some hardware  project

we ofcourse, not commercially


I will be able to make a start with it. I have a DC Motor Driver in the work. Once tested, I'd like to release it open

Pirate Praveen

Aurabindo: well, even those hardware projects, we are only dealing with software, right?

Aurabindo: creating something like raspberry pi or fairphone or librem can be called a free hardware project

14:38
well, not rspberry pi, but olimex range of products have free hardware designs

and if we indeed start something later, we can always add it later too

Aurabindo

Pirate Praveen: open/free hardware need not necessarily be about making a generic full fledged computing system.  The DC motor driver i mentioned is something just like that. Presently I am not aware of any indian community thats interested in making hardware


and of course, associated free software for those hardware

I've come across one off projects like SnapVcc from electrnut.in etc

14:41
electronut.in

@jacksonisaac would you agree if we change it to "Swatantra Software Community of India"? Swatantra translates to Freedom in many Indian languages and hence it won't confuse people.

Yes, something like this would be better :)

I agree with @jayaura

@jayaura we will try to get consensus, if that fails, we remain as FOSS Community of India. Lets just wait for everyone to respond. There is no multiple choice option in loomio currently.

:thumbsup: Yes agreed with fsci looks best sound ,'Open source' is not 'free software',Interesting To Read :https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-free-software ,neither Open Source, nor Free Software have won. we still have a long way to go.

Greetings, GTR

Yes. Open source is aligned more to the business concept of the idea. But, why alienate ourselves from that? And I totally agree with Stallman that open source misses the point of freedom. That's what "F" in FOSS is intended to solve. I am inclined towards FCI, but can live with FSCI.

But I think, while 'Free' in 'Free Software' means freedom, 'Free' in 'FOSS' primarily means zero-cost in the marketing world. That might be the reason some people support the term 'FLOSS' rather than 'FOSS'.

Well, there is a general issue with the word Free being associated to cost. But I dont think that's specific to FOSS and not present in FS. Open Source being inclined to the monetary side shouldn't be the reason to keep it away.

The optimal, unambiguous word will be libre but that word is quiet alien to Indians and I won't dare to name the community a LOSS. :D

We are not saying we won't work with people who prefer the term Open Source, we are just declaring what is important to us.

As @jacksonisaac pointed out, newbies might consider 'Free' software as just 'available for free'. In most places where 'Free Software' is mentioned, it is occasionally followed by the tag 'Free as in Freedom'. Since the actual idea is Freedom with Software, why not just include the full word Freedom itself rather than just 'Free'. This is along the likes of SFLC. Eg., Software Freedom Community of India

Swatantra Software Community of India will solve the ambiguity. I prefer it over Software Freedom Community.

Constitution is just a name that people understand, naming it guidelines would be okay too. It is something we show to new people. How do someone new to fosscommunity.in know who we are, what we do, why we are doing it, how can they become a part, do they get the same rights etc. Without a defined structure and process for accepting new members, growth will not be sustainable as a small group will only feel the ownership and when they become inactive, the groups dies too.

i agree with you. first i thought FCI is just a gateway to get connected with various Free Software Communities all over india. but since FCI is also providing many services on its own, i understand it's important to have a well-defined structure.

Any time contribution to Free Software should be enough to get a membership (be it coding, design, support, publicity etc)
Their contribution should be vouched by existing members (we can have initial members from this loomio group/riot group/mailing list).

should we take it that far? i mean why complicating the membership process, is there anything wrong with simply granting membership for anyone who requests it? (assuming that those who request membership will be naturally FOSS enthusiasts).

There are two types of organizations, first type will give membership to anyone who requests, but the decision making is by a few people, most organizations follow this approach. You can become an associate member of FSF by paying about 8000 rupees, but you can't influence FSF with your associate membership. Basically, your role is a supporter.

Second type of organizations are careful about giving membership, but once you are a member, you get equal rights as all other members, debian is a prominent example of such an organization. I prefer the second type of organization, be careful about giving membership, but give equal rights to all members. In this, you are not just a supporter, but you get a say in every decision. This is what we call a do-o-cracy, democracy of the people who do the actual work.

Swatathra sounds better than Free, but just wondering if it applies to the whole of India in terms of the language - literally. Swathanthra works well for Malayalam. But what about the rest of the languages? Since english is pretty universal, we did not have any issues with it. Hindi equivalent would be a slight variation of it, but Google says for Telugu, its "Svēccha". Those community might not like it. I think @pavithrans has his native language as Telugu?

Yes swatantra doesnt reflect as free software in telugu. For us its swecha.

I don't see an issue with the name change but I think we are missing the wood for the trees. Apart from the name change, we also need to have a logo, a branding which asserts the identity. IIRC, there was some talk in the past but it fizzled out without anything concrete. The logo should assert out differences, our uniqueness and yet unity of purpose- forwarding, hacking on free software.

@shirish we can go with the current name for GMRT as we have 11 more days for the proposal to close. We'll think about logo, banner etc after the proposal is passed.

@pavithrans changing to "Free Software Community" was "blocked" by @jacksonisaac . You can try to convince him or we will go with "Swatantra Software Community" as you prefer it over "FOSS Community". If you can convince him to reduce his opposition to "disagree" from "block", we can go for a majority vote to decide between "Free Software" and "Swatantra Software".

Do you have a link where I can his arguments?

If you click on 'load earlier activity' you can see previous comments or go directly to https://codema.in/d/1Z3oWqR7/comment/1267935

You can also see https://codema.in/d/1Z3oWqR7/proposal/KaeDuxWs

We had a discussion on #ssci:matrix.org room

Today

mujeebcpy joined the room.

mujeebcpy
Itheth room
B
Bady
Itheth room
unencrypted room of FCI

Aurabindo
Its not FCI anymore ;)
B
Bady
Its not FCI anymore ;)
the loomio proposal should be passed to make the name change official, right? i see 3 more days to go!
1+MB
Aurabindo
Its not FCI anymore ;)
the loomio proposal should be passed to make the name change official, right? i see 3 more days to go!

You're right ! ;)

pavi
Its not FCI anymore ;) the loomio proposal should be passed to make the name change official, right? i see 3 more days to go!
Thanks for reminding me of this. I logged in just to vote.

Pirate Praveen
pavi: convince Jackson Isaac about Free Software in name

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  Who is jackson Isaac? I am yet to read all opinions.
* pavi needs to find the Jackson Isaacs post.

Pirate Praveen
pavi: he is from Amruta

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  ok. Swatantra is too kerala centric.

Pirate Praveen
pavi: it works with Kannada and Hindi too

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  Hindi how?
I think its Swaatantra but I am not sure. I might be mixing up languages.

Pirate Praveen
Its Sanskrit root

pavi
Yes it is

Pirate Praveen
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatantra_Party there was a political party

Swatantra Party - Wikipedia
Open main menu Edit this page Read in another language Swatantra Party Political party of India Swatantra Party Founder C. Rajagopalachari Founded

pavi
My issue here is Swatantra can also mean doing things on your own. It has that ambiguity in the name.
Other than that I am not so bothered.

Pirate Praveen
www.swatantrabharat.com there is a news paper
Freedom and independance is used interchangeably

pavi sent an image
Screenshot_2017-02-25_07-37-47.png
Download Screenshot_2017-02-25_07-37-47.png (20.74 KB)
^^Got it from a dictionary.

Pirate Praveen
It works in telugu too?

pavi
Its the check on the meaning of the word swatanthra.
It means "self sustatining" or "self owned"
It doesnt mean "freedom"

Pirate Praveen
Oh :(

pavi
Swecha is the exact telugu word for freedom 😊
* pavi wonders if other people understand the word swecha?

Fayad
pavi: no. only if you are familiar with the place

Pirate Praveen
So we can use both :) for telugu use Swecha, others Swatantra but SSCI

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  thats the issue, for say SMC its good. It can be swatantra malayalam computing.
When we use a name for Indian community it shouldnt mean something else.

Fayad
It should be one for all. Not all for one.

pavi
Thats why I had to disagree with the vote. Sorry for tht.

Pirate Praveen
Swatantra/Swecha Software Community?
Like Free/Libre?

pavi
Swatantra/Swecha Software Community?
Dont mix up with swecha

Pirate Praveen
pavi: try to convinse Jackson Isaac then

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  you can use the word Mukth software
It makes perfect sense in telugu and hindi as well

Pirate Praveen
12:15
I'm okay with Free or Swatantra

pavi sent an image
Screenshot_2017-02-25_07-47-35.png
Download Screenshot_2017-02-25_07-47-35.png (16.22 KB)
Enlightenment should be moksh in hindi I guess

Pirate Praveen
MS ci is fun :)
Microsoft will object :)

shirish
mukti will be cool, gives lot of room to manouver.

Pirate Praveen
Nagarjuna uses Mukt Software
Mukt not Muft

pavi
Nagarjuna is telugu I guess
Mukt not Muft
Perfect dialogue, we can even have a tag line

shirish
'I said mukti' as it just does't mean freedom, in some senses it also means sacrifice as well and  enlightment, so multiple meanings, all of them positive.

Pirate Praveen
It will fit for Open too :) Indira Gandhi Mukt Vishwavidyalay :)

shirish
and the word is feminine-oriented as well, so women would feel welcomed.

Pirate Praveen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi_National_Open_University

Indira Gandhi National Open University - Wikipedia
Indira Gandhi National Open University From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search This article is about open university in New Delhi, India. For other uses see
shirish: Mukti is freedom, but Mukti Software doesn't fit together
Mukt Software is better

* pavi is happy with both mukt or mukti
D
Deys
Pirate Praveen: I agree on mukt software, since swatantra sounds more like self-governing

pavi
Deys:  which language are you from?
* pavi thanks Deys  👍
D
Deys
i am from mumbai, I have learned marathi, hindi, english and bengali is my mother-toungue

Pirate Praveen
Deys: wow!
pavi: then I'll close the current proposal and propose Mukt Software Community of India

pavi
Pirate Praveen:  by now you might have understood the ambiguity of the name.

Pirate Praveen
and MS community of India is a nice pun :)

pavi
pavi: then I'll close the current proposal and propose Mukt Software Community of India
Cool
shirish:  Mukti software?
Pirate Praveen:  Fayad  Just wondering about the roots of mukthi.. isnt it the freedom you get after enlightenment in malayalam?

shirish
mukti actually has very strong foundations in the Indian freedom movement.

Pirate Praveen
mukthi means liberation from limitations

shirish
I'm off for now, some housework, will return later.

pavi
Good news Mukt dot in is still with friends

shirish
use search engine 'mukti indian freedom  movement'

* pavi was scared the domain name was gone.

Pirate Praveen
mukthi and moksha are synonyms

pavi
mukthi means liberation from limitations
In malayalam? I am concerned about malayalam naming

Pirate Praveen
Fayad: are you okay with Mukt Software Community of India?
D
Deys
MS Community of india, that was a nice pun Pirate Praveen

Pirate Praveen
pavi: Free or FOSS is not Malayalam, Mukt is Hindi/Sanskrit and is close enough

* pavi waits for the dravidian word 😜

Pirate Praveen
mukt means liberated

pavi
mukt means liberated
In dravidian languages?

Pirate Praveen
pavi: in Malayalam

pavi
pavi: in Malayalam
Then I am fine.

Telugus should also be fine with mukt word. What say Sarath ? SaiKarthik ?
DB
Pirate Praveen
12:48
uday: ^

@balasankarchelamat Free or FOSS is also not Malayalam. Mukt fits well in Hindi and we can take it as another foreign word.

Unfortunately, in the current situation English feels more familiar to Malayalees than Hindi. Mukt is too alien, in the context of freedom. We use mukt to show something's absence, in conjunction with some other word.

The question finally comes down to this: Which is familiar for more regions: Mukt or Swathanthra. I agree Swathanthra can also mean something else in other languages. But if one of the meanings is freedom, we can go with that itself.

I believe what we really need is a alternative term for "Free Software" to prevent people from thinking "Free as in no-money-charged".
The principles of Free software are more important. A community of people like us works and has to interact together with people from multiple ethnics at the same time (for example, a university were students will be from all around India) so "Mukt Software" would be the correct term in such a case.
And when we are at a place (could be a school, college, local techies) where speaking in the local language is more favourable we have to use the term in their local language for the same reason we are shifting towards mukt software.

FYI: India doesn't have a national language and Hindi definitely isn't one. There 22 languages that are officially accepted. Both Hindi and English were accepted as official languages, so Hindi doesn't have any advantage over English.

You are right about that. I just ended up associating popularity with national. If I consider the present state then Hindi isn't popular anymore .

SWATHAMTHRA VS MUKTH

My mother tongue is TELUGU. In Telugu, 'swathamthra' (స్వతంత్ర) means freedom/ independent/ autonomous etc.
'swathamthra poraatam' (స్వతంత్ర పోరాటం) is most commonly used in Telugu to refer to 'freedom struggle'.
'swathamthra' and 'svechcha' (స్వేచ్ఛ) carry similar meaning.
Use this link to search for the meaning of Telugu words in English: http://www.andhrabharati.com/dictionary/

'mukth' has multiple meanings in Hindi. See http://www.shabdkosh.com/translate/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4-meaning-in-English-Hindi
Better to avoid Hindi words, in a country where is Hindi is imposed on other languages.

Meaning of SWATANTRA in Hindi and Kannada seems to be very similar to that of Telugu. See:
http://www.shabdkosh.com/kn/translate?e=%E0%B2%B8%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%A4%E0%B2%82%E0%B2%A4%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%B0&l=kn

http://www.shabdkosh.com/translate/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0-meaning-in-English-Hindi

SWATANTHRATHAA in Sanskrit:
http://www.spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=svatantratA&link=m

@rajeshodayanchal Apparently you should 'disagree' if you think Free Software Community of India is better.

@fayadfami the idea is to find a consensus position.

Free Software Community of India - blocked by @jacksonisaac
Swatantra Software Community of India - disagreed by you and @pavithrans
Mukt Software Community of India - disagreed by you and @balasankarchelamat

We should strive for consensus here. It is possible only if we accommodate other people's concerns.

Some possible solutions,

1. @jacksonisaac , would you change your position as Free Software Community of India is preferred by everyone else. While confusion with freeware could be there, once we explain it as Free as in Freedom, people understand it.

2. @pavithrans @fayadfami , would you guys agree to Swatantra Software Community of India as second best option? Independence is mostly used as synomym to freedom. A user of Free Software in not dependant on a company or developers because they have the 4 freedoms.

3. @balasankarchelamat @fayadfami would you folks agree to it as second best option? We always take foreign words when required. No one is pushing Hindi on us here, we are choosing it ourselves as a community.

A community is not about always pushing your personal preferences at any cost. Being a community requires listening other people's concerns, understanding and accommodating it. We should not be like kids quarrelling for toys.

1. I can agree to Swathantra as second best option. Because it conveys to all corners of India. It is not so unfamiliar to the outside world too.
2. I still cannot agree to Mukt but if majority is with it, I will join hands. That is what community is about.

@praveenarimbrathod

Community for Software Freedom in India

Is a better choice

@praveenarimbrathod As much as I would love consensus and unity. I just cant agree to swatantra because of the ambiguity it has with "independence". I checked it and that in sanskrit the first 3 meanings of the word means independent.

Are we promoting independent software ?

If we want to promote independent software then swatantra would be apt. Regarding the other interpretations of mukti which is liberation. Using freesoftware is a liberation from propreitary.

@praveenarimbrathod Answer to your "second best option" query.

(FOSS Community of India | Free Software Community of India) > Swathanthra Software Community of India > Community for Software Freedom in India > Mukt software community of India

Since 3 polls have ended without consensus, I propose we put this discussion on hold for at least one month, by which we hope we will have more members to provide their input.

Or, we will be seeing a time sink without no actual movement forward.

@balasankarchelamat @fayadfami @pavithrans thanks for your comments. Lets wait for a reply from @jacksonisaac .

Jackson, if you were to accept Free Software Community of India, that would solve the current deadlock situation as everyone else is okay with that name. Would you consider it?

@praveenarimbrathod If majority has agreed to the name then I have no problem. Although we have around 132 members, I see that less than 10% have voted. I am not sure if a few 10 people can be called majority.

Many members here have never participated in any discussions or activities. We can only ask people to participate, not force them to vote.

Thanks for helping make consensus. I'll make another proposal. You can choose abstain option, which means you agree to go with the majority.

My quick Comments

1. Why India ? Why dont plan something more Big along with renaming ? I suggest to expand to Free Software community South Asia. Expand Get participation from India, Srilanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal & Bhutan

2. Register as a society / Find a fiscal Sponsor like SMC

3. Be the legal home for many Quality Free Software projects . From SMC's experience with Indian language project , I can say that there is nobody to provide Organization support for many interesting small projects .

4. All the Victories of Free Software Communities in India are now under attack with a proprietary Digital push . Closed source Closed data OpenAPI projects like indiastack.org by iSPIRT promoted a wrong notion of such software/APIs as Public good and thats what india is needed . This trend will spread across south Asia if fails in defending it . #DigitalIndia is being colonized by these internal colonizers . It is already happened on Payments & Identity and spreading to health , travel and other areas disregarding Free Software Values including privacy & attack on digital freedoms with surveillance . So we need a more active Free Software Community body to fight this . If this group can scale it up , I am happy with the name change

Agreed

Folks, we can now call ourselves "Free Software Community of India" as the rename proposal passed. Thanks to everyone who participated. Even though we had differences, we listened to other people's concerns and reached a consensus.

@bady sure, we can modify it.

I have created Initial Members subgroup https://codema.in/g/SIY08yoV Please join the group to take this process forward.

@mujeebcpy this is only the bootstrapping step, you will be able to apply as a permanent member after this vote. We can include everyone interested as permanent members. This is just to break the deadlock now.

okey :-)

agree

While we are at it, I think we should make a page for people who want to donate and also people who want to volunteer and link to it (that can happen independent of this proposal).

@Karthik donations are also contributions, I think we need to highlight people's time is spent here, ie two kinds of contributions, money or time.

@Tanzeem Mohammad Basheer create new proposal for whatever you feel should be added.

@Pirate Bady I think we can remove the preamble from fsug.in as we now added it to fsci.in

This is really nice to see! Thanks folks!

@Alice Kile hi and welcome. there's also an ongoing effort to create an Inclusion Policy for FSCI, you can find the discussions here. pls feel free to add your suggestions and feedback.

this is in continuation from my vote on clarification of the preference of the term 'Free Software' ( because loomio only allows 500 characters in a vote post; I'm going to test if the normal post has the same restriction ) ...

while I agree with being explicit about the preference, I don't think we should kind of 💩 on open source either. I don't think they should be mutually exclusive.

there's already one clarification in the main part of the sentence - "[...] collective of Free Software users [...]" ( I think the capitalization of the term is unnecessary, but that also adds to the "being explicit" about preference in my opinion )

Well, some people have only heard about Open Source, so we need to connect with them as well, and try to influence them to use the term Free Software. The use of term Open Source point to a different set of values and which weakens our message of Free Software. We can survive as a community only if we have a strong community that values freedom over just practical benefits.

I don't debate or disagree with that. It's just that putting bracketed text in a definition by itself is misleading. And when that bracketed text only contributes confusion and contradiction, that's more reason to eliminate it, in my opinion.

And like I said earlier, redirecting users to the free-sw philosophy page would provide a lot more details in many paragraphs rather than concealing an ambiguous meaning within a kind of contradictory sentence with lesser words.

Would you be okay if we put a * after Free Software and move the text in bracket to the end?

I have reopened the proposal with your suggestions, see if you can support it now.

you didn't have to do anything to pacify me. I don't have a problem with either because I understand the difference. like I said, I don't debate the explicit clarification at all. I was only proposing an alternative to new contributors who might be confused by the different terms in the same page.

I don't have a strong opinion on my proposal. I was only proposing to remove the source of the confusion rather adding more lines trying to justify it especially when it was content within brackets.

if a majority agrees, then the resolution should be passed. regardless of the minority ( in this case, the only person with a different ) opinion.

to clarify, the reason why I was even bothered to add the extra long clarification was not because I felt strongly about what I was saying, but because this was the preamble and it should be concise ( without bracketed content ); and also like I pointed out, the explicitness was already present.

this shouldn't be any reason to take the motion through another pass. there was already a majority in agreement and no disagreements or blockers; so I don't see why this should go through another review.

however, if you still want to go through another review, rather than an asterisk and a footnote, we should put that as a tooltip that expands on hover. that way it wouldn't get lost in the foot notes or the user wouldn't have to hunt for the asterisk on the page.

also, another reason why the verbiage "Free software is sometimes called open source" would be misleading is because that statement is incorrect. Free software cannot be equated with open source, hence should not be used interchangeably. It is only a coincidence that they happen to mean similar things when used interchangeably, but they are not equal.

if we're going through another review, then I suggest to change the verbiage to the following :

Free Software Community of India is a collective of Free Software* users, advocates and developers.

* tooltip : [free software](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) is often confused with [open source](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html); we choose to believe in free ( as in free speech not free beer ) software more [emphasis on the word more] than open source software.

that also makes it not look like we're 💩 on open source either.

The point is, we should always try for consensus, if something can be improved, why not?

well, if we're going down that path of another review, shall I also edit the proposal to have what I proposed last ( the this that's quoted )?

That is not exactly correct. Almost all Open Source Software is Free Software too (there are some exceptions but they are very small in number). OSI definition is a bit looser than Free Software Foundation's definition, so OSI considers some licenses as Open Source which Free Software Foundation does not consider as Free Software. The difference is in philosophy, what aspect of the software you want to emphasize. So current text is fine, may be we can add tooltip as an extra thing.

@Abhijith PA we changed name from FOSS community to Free Software community to emphasise on Free Software, so your suggestion make it a step backward.

this is the confusion that I was trying to point to. I'm not saying Abhijith is confused, but new users who see both of the terms together might be and might even completely miss the point.

Proposing following to avoid ambiguity of free and fighting over terms

Free Software Community of India is a collective of people practicing and advocating software freedom

Good. I always use "software freedom" to avoid the extra
explanation. But we have to address the FS vs OSS issue somewhere.

@Karthik we don't need to decide it here. The people who actually work on the website can decide it among themselves.

I didn't get it. This isn't about the official FSCI site?

It is a technical choice that the maintainers can decide among themselves. It does not change who we are or what we do. Similar to how Debian works, we want to give the people who do the work freedom to choose what makes their life easier.

Sorry that I'm still confused. Could you please tell which one is
correct:

1. This discussion should not happen under 'Organization
   Structure'

2. This discussion should not happen at all

1. is correct, website theme has nothing to do with organizations structure 2. If at all it needs to happen, it should happen between the people who work on the website. If they cannot decide something among themselves, they can ask opinion of the community. The rest of the community should not have power over people who are doing the work on technical choices. If you care about something, you volunteer to do it.

Okay, thanks. I didn't notice it was under 'Organization
Structure' when I voted. Anyway, I'd personally appreciate if the
site went non-JS. I repeat, it's just a personal taste.

non-javascript version is already live. You can just talk to Website team - @Pirate Bady @Karthik @Abraham Raji I think we need to add a credits page and document the people contributing to the website (also for each services we maintain). and you can always open an issue on the website source repo to communicate with web team.

We could even make a sub group for Web Team so all people interested in website can collaborate there.

Good idea.