Nordic Free Software Association

[Jonas Oberg]

Some people in the Nordic Free Software community has begun
working on a Free Software organisation which would work to further
Free Software in all Nordic countries. The name of the organisation
will be NAFS, Nordic Association for Free Software.

For several years it has been obvious that such an organisation is lacking
and it is now time to do something about it. While there exists several
oranisations dedicated to GNU/Linux, and even more local user groups,
this does not satisfy our goals. We want to work with all Free Software
that exists today and we want to do so in a way that is distinctively
different from a user group and can be applied on a wider perspective.
User groups has a tendancy to work better on a local level where people
can actually get together and talk, and we want to keep it that way
because they serve an important function in our community.

The new organisation will have a simple structure where most of the work is
organised into various working groups which people can become active in, in
order to further free software in various areas. Membership will be open 
to all and we hope that this structure will encourage people to participate.

Each working group will consist of one or two coordinators together with
the members that participate in the working group. All coordinators work
together to provide support and help between the working groups and to
communicate with other Free Software organisations in Scandinavia.
Working groups are created when there is enough interest among the members
and at least one person volunteers to become the coordinator.

Meetings and discussions will take place primarily through mailing lists,
but the association will try to arange annual meetings where members
can meet in person. Such meetings will alternate between the countries
in Scandinavia where the organisation has members.

It is the intent of the people working on the association to apply for
membership as an associate organization of the Free Software Foundation
Europe. Collaboration between countries in Europe is important because it
allows us to share knowledge and make better use of the resources available
to us.

Companies can also support the association by becoming corporate members.
A small fee will be associated with that membership status and money raised
from this and through donations will be used for various actions and meetings,
upon request and decision by the working group coordinators.

Currently, the people who has been involved in the process of forming the
basis for this organisation are;

 * Jonas Öberg <address@hidden>
 * Tim Terlegård <address@hidden>
 * Martin Östlund <address@hidden>
 * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden>
 * Fredrik Steen <address@hidden>
 * Tollef Fog Heen <address@hidden>

The structure of the association has now been decided upon and work is
underway to create the legal papers necessary to register it with the
local authorities. Some work has also gone into creating various
working groups, but more is required.

If you want to help us, please subscribe to our mailing list,
address@hidden, by visiting http://mail.nafs.org/mailman/listinfo/nafs.