Bonum Certa Men Certa

Stop Calling the FSFE “Free Software Foundation” (There's No Direct Connection)

Link to full video (8:55 until 10:34)



Summary: This new video worryingly enough confuses/mistakes FSF for FSFE; in reality, they're in dispute with one another because the FSFE just exploits the name

THE above video was recommended to us by figosdev, who watched it the other day (and we agree the video has lots of good stuff in it). The above segment worried me somewhat and it also reminded me why the FSF was sort of feuding over trademarks, seeing that the FSFE merely exploits the good work of the FSF (the GNU Project, GPL etc.) to raise over a million euros from Europeans who think their money would be well spent supporting Free software.



"The matter of fact is, FSFE and FSF are totally separate entities and only the FSFE benefits from the perceived association."The FSFE is very good... at taking credit for other people's accomplishments. And at raising money from Microsoft. Werner Koch (PGP) wrote back in March regarding Daniel Pocock: "Back then Daniel was an elected representative for the FSFE Fellows as per its constitution. Thus it can be expected that he has a right to contact those fellows and report to them. The FSFE didn't want any information to go out to their fellows without first being filtered. Thus Daniel was in the conflict that he could not achieve his duties. I supported and defended his right to contact those who he represented. I am not aware what happened later because shortly after that turmoil I unsubscribed from all FSFE MLs and later even terminated my membership despite being one of its founders. Anyway it should be clear that I did not and do not support any kind of rogue behaviour at FSFE or any other places."

Sadly, however, Koch also participated in the anti-RMS coup; but that's another story. The matter of fact is, FSFE and FSF are totally separate entities and only the FSFE benefits from the perceived association. More worryingly, it seems like the FSF has much to lose from any association, as FSFE nowadays takes a lot of money not only from Google but also Microsoft. And it also demotes actual people, not corporations, who contribute money to its budget. Daniel Pocock knows this very well as an FSFE insider.

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