[FM Discuss] Reg. publishing visa application procedure as manual

[Sindhu S]

Hello all,

Thank you for your responses, it's so good to feel welcomed into the
community :)

I could not over-stress the importance and value of having such a
guide for contributors in drafting a visa application that expedites
the applicant's status with the FLOSS organisation  because many
embassies do not know about FLOSS culture and communities and the fact
that these are hobbyist events also makes them tourist events for the
sake of application, thus validating a requirement for a tourist visa.

However, as contributors often receive sponsorship from
hosting/participating organisations to come visit (GNOME Foundation
mentions this in their current invitation letter), any money
exchanging hands for most embassies seems to qualify for a business
visa application. Thus the rejection on such applications.

Embassies are unable to understand why some people would be paid to
travel when they apparently they "volunteer" and most importantly,
they are unable to grok why or how a software needs volunteering and
contribution. Rather hard all of this to explain to an officer in a 2
minute visa interview don't you think?

And talking about the book and book sprint: How would you all suggest
I go about this? I have never written a book or attended a sprint (the
irony of it anybody?). How can I help in starting off? How can we
arrange for more people to volunteer information and content for the
visa guide?

Anna spoke about FSF having trouble getting their interns to UK, I
wonder if we could reach RMS or Karen Sandler on the topic and ask if
they are willing to sponsor a books sprint to do compile information
for this guide we are all interested in writing?

P.S: I have written a landing page or sorts for this visa application
procedure so that more people will be interested to see my "Visa Help"
pages. Here it is
https://live.gnome.org/sindhus/SchengenVisaGuidelines .