Re: Fwd: [Fsuk-manchester] Meeting reminder - Free Software Manchester - tomorrow 7pm

[Richard Smedley]

On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 20:01 +0000, Noah Slater wrote:
> > Personally, I don't think any of the parties have much of a position on
> > Free Software. It's a shame.
> 
> Perhaps the FSF should open up communications with them?

All the main political parties (with the obvious exception
of the one running the country) have responded favourably
to discussions with the Free Software movement.

The Green Party have a stated policy strongly in favour.

The Liberal Democrats have asked many questions in the 
House about Government procurement, and the lack of 
FOSS in government choices - as well as government websites
that lock out citizens with non-Microsoft browsers.

The Conservative Party have taken a great interest, with the
shadow chancellor recently speaking of extending the FOSS
methodology to ``open source government''!

As to NGOs, the FSFE is quite active in talking to the
sector, but feedback suggests that the most successful way 
is changing one group at a time:
<http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/how_to_host_a_free_software_advocacy_event>

So, anyone working on something local? :-)

Enjoy the meeting - but why are four out of Manchester's six 
tech groups meeting on a Tuesday, the one night I can't make? [1]

 - Richard

[1] No, I'm not paranoid enough to make the obvious connection ;-)

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Richard Smedley,                                          address@hidden
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