FFII General Assembly
Travelling to Brussels, I was going through the documents that would be put to vote on the FFII General Assembly. Outside, the first signs of the snow were showing up as the train neared Roosendaal, remembering me of the surprise these snowstorms had been to those in the east and south of Holland. It would prove to be a general assembly with a couple of surprises too, for me personally but also for the FFII itself. But, first let me explain what the FFII is, shortly, in case you did not know.
The FFII is the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. Having this organisation is of major importance in these days, when majority of the population is oblivious to what goes on behind the scenes of new technologies (internet, for example), which gives anyone who does an advantage. This is especially so when technology is becoming of increasing importance to regulate economic traffic, logistic traffic and nowadays even social traffic. Big multinationals and politically motivated entities are now preying on these infrastructures, the FFII being one of the few counter agents. I could go into why this free information infrastructure is so important, I will postpone that discussion for now however.
Back to the general assembly, which was held in an environment that felt very grassroots. We were guests of the company iMatix, the assembly being hosted in their parking lot annex partyroom. There were about 30 people present, of which about 25 had the right to vote.
The FFII is growing bigger, and that is a good thing of course. The other side of this growth is that it has gone beyond the 10.000 euro annual budget, and now turns over multiples of that sum. The money is coming from funding all over Europe, both individuals and companies (about 45% of the income is from this last category) have donated generously. This money is spent on lobbying efforts targetting the European Parliament: contacting the Members of the European Parliament (MEP’s) directly, organising conferences attended by MEP’s as well as representatives in the field (the Small and Medium Enterprises, SME’s for short).
Now, with this growth comes more responsibility. More income and expenses means that the tax-office will be looking into more detail at the goings-on, it means more administration, it means more and better media work, it means more organisation to keep everything together and inform contributors, active members, supporters and what more. The fight against software patents (which had a more than favourable outcome for the FFII and its supporters) has drained the organisation however, both financially and morally. Good people have had to give up, being overwhelmed by the amount of work that needed to be done. And of course, there is the case of a certain company from Germany that has tried to destroy the FFII financially by starting several sorry litigations.
It is therefore up to the new (or re-elected) president, who is usually elected for a 2-year period, to go for that professionalism that is really needed will the FFII be able to continue its good work for a free information infrastructure. And this is where the first surprise presented itself. Before the GA, both Jonas Maebe (a long time active member and currently member of the board) and Hartmut Pilch (current president) put forward their candidacy.
As it turned out however, they both recalled their candidacy in favour of Pieter Hiltjens! This came as a surprise to most of us probably, although maybe the ‘in crowd’ already knew this. However, Pieter convinced the GA that he was the right man and with an obvious majority he was elected to be the new president of the FFII. One thing remained unclear: is he going to be president for half a year (as he seemed to favour himself) or is he committed to the full 2 year period? I personally hope it is going to be the latter.
Luckilly, Hartmut (who has put in a tremendous amount of effort in the past years) will stay with the FFII as general secretary. Jonas Maebe also will stay on as a member of the board.
So that was the first surprise. The second surprise came when it was time to elect the two financial controllers. These are the people that do the dirty work of checking all the financial records against invoices. If there is any wrong-doing or embazling going on, they will have to alert the board and future GA’s of this fact. So basically, it is very boring work that can potentially turn ugly unexpectedly. Since no-one volunteered, I stepped forward and was elected by the GA to be one of those two people.
Just before the dinner-break, there was a third surprise. From the UK the CNET Networks UK technology award for ‘outstanding contribution to software development’ was awarded to the FFII for, well, its outstanding contribution to software development.
And this is what the FFII has been doing so well the last years, representing the smaller companies, where the real innovation and creativity resides, in the European Parliament. While it has been doing this, it has never become part of the establishment and has always remained in contact with the grassroots of the movement. They represent a vast majority of smaller and starting companies (the economic majority). They have people with a high level of expertise on legal matters, how decisions are made in the EU, and how to reach and convince politicians.
I am thankful for that, because I for sure don’t know all these things. I don’t know the terminology in which the politicians talk among eachother, I don’t know how to convince them of why I think software patents are bad and open standards are good when an overpaid microsoft employee tries to convince them of the contrary. I am a programmer, not a lobbyist. So I am glad, yes even proud, that I can be part of this organisation.
And I am urging you to become part of the FFII too, since the FFII needs our support! Be it by contributing money, skills or just being present at demo’s and conferences (or put up banners on your website). Visit the site to find out more, join the mailing lists to discuss about issues of open standards and a free information infrastructure.
Finally, the FFII has several local chapters. The Czech Republic, the UK, France. There is no local chapter in my own country, The Netherlands, however. Which is strange, since I still like to believe in the liberal nature of Holland. So I am brooding on this a little bit (have been doing so for a while really), so who knows. Perhaps in the not too distant feature we will be able to set this up. Who are ‘we’?. I don’t know, maybe you?
Now that I am on my way back, signs of snow vanishing with every kilometer travelled, I am being reminded at why open information infrastructures are so important: I am waiting to pass the Belgium/Holland border, so I can go on-line again via my Telfort EDGE/GPRS connection and upload this piece to wordpress. Something I wouldn’t dare doing in Belgium because of the extremely high roaming (did someone say extortion?) costs of using my Dutch Telfort subscription! The perfect illustration of how closed networks affect not only software companies, but the consumer in general too.
