Around 700 people have already signed up to be associate members of the Free Software Foundation, and in March they’re all invited to Boston to chat with Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, and the gang.The FSF is sponsoring the first Associate Membership meeting on Saturday, March 15th in Boston, Massachusetts, from 10:00am to 4:30pm. It’s a chance for all associate members of the FSF to sit down with board members and hear what they have to say – and vice versa. An associate member is anyone who’s paid either the $120 annual fee or the $10 monthly fee.
Members are invited to lead workshops or give presentations at the meeting, which is expected to be attended by executive v.p. Bradley Kuhn, board members Henri Poole and Gerald Sussman, and others.
The FSF Associate Member program launched in November of last year, and there are already 700 members. “It’s a way to associate with the foundation,” says Kuhn. “We’ve never had a membership program in the past, but a lot of people had asked for it.”
Kuhn says that there are still memberships available, but if you want to attend the meeting you’ll have to RSVP before Wednesday, February 19th. Benefits of associate membership include a 20% discount on all GNU Press products, including books, CDs, and clothing.
Members also get to have five @member.fsf.org email aliases, and, of course, a tax deduction, since the FSF is a 501(c)(3) charity.
Perhaps the most interesting goodie that members receive is a bootable membership card that contains the LNX-BBC distribution. The cards have not been released yet; that is scheduled to happen February 19th.
