Hi LA, Software development, and FOSS development in particular, is very much a matter of achieving greatness by standing on the shoulders of giants. Almost everything we do is a synthesis of the work of many other people whether we're aware of it or not. Among the giants of computing history was John Lions[1][2]. For almost 25 years he was a driving force in the Department of Computing at UNSW which became recognised as one of the leading centers of expertise in operating system design. Many of his students have gone on to greatness by standing on the knowledge and skills he imparted to them, including many Linux developers. One of the approaches he took was using the source code of a real operating system as a teaching aid rather than teaching purely from theory. In the early seventies he took a copy of the complete source code for UNIX and wrote a line by line commentary which he compiled as a book for his students, but by 1979 the book ("Source Code and Commentary on UNIX LEVEL 6" or more commonly called just "the Lions book"[2]) had become tied up in a legal battle over the intellectual property rights to the source code it contained and it could no longer be distributed. When distribution was halted a few existing copies were unofficially photocopied for friends, who photocopied it for other friends, and so on until it became the most copied text in the history of computer science. Unfortunately John was forced to retire in 1995 due to ill health, and after his retirement a number of computing greats including Dennis Ritchie lobbied for the UNIX v6 copyright owners to allow the book to be published. After years of lobbying their permission was finally granted, and shortly before his death in 1998 John was handed a full, legally published copy of his book for the first time, legitimising after 20 years what has arguably been the most influential work ever written about operating system design. John's influence extended far beyond just the Lions book: he was also the founding President of AUUG[4]; helped set up the Australian Computer Science Conference; was editor of Australian Computer Journal; and was made a fellow of the Australian Computer Society[5]. To honour John's far-reaching legacy UNSW is establishing a permanent chair known as The John Lions Chair in Operating Systems[6]. The purpose of the chair is to "enable an eminent academic to continue the John Lions tradition of insightful and inspirational teaching in operating systems." Establishment of the chair involves raising AU$1 million to fund the position in perpetuity, and this is where LA comes in. Prior to linux.conf.au in Dunedin this year honorary Aussie* Jon 'maddog' Hall suggested that we use the conference dinner auction to raise funds to help support the establishment of the chair. Through the USENIX association[7] he arranged that any funds raised would be matched with USENIX funds, and he personally provided a number of items to be auctioned off at the dinner including a copy of the Lions book signed by a swag of computer science legends. While the auction was in progress the LA Committee members present had a quick huddle-in-the-corner meeting and agreed that it would be a very worthwhile use of LA funds to put our support behind the John Lions Chair, and so we pledged that LA would match funds with the auction winner up to a maximum of AU$10k. The total funds raised would then be pooled to be matched with the USENIX funds, giving the final auction value up to a 4X multiplier effect! To add to the fun a number of FOSS luminaries pledged that they would shave their heads (or in Rusty's case his moustache) if bidding passed certain values. In the end the auction was (very appropriately) won by a consortium from UNSW with a winning bid of $10k. Several thousand dollars more was also donated by various kind-hearted souls attending the conference, and when the other auctioned items plus LA's pledged $10k matching funds was added up we ended up with AU$24,318 to be submitted to USENIX - who will then double it again for a whopping total of more than AU$48,000 to be donated to assist the establishment of the chair! I was personally stunned by the generosity of the FOSS community: even days after the auction had finished many people still donated additional funds to be added to the auction total because they could see that the money was going to such a worthy cause. Overall it was an incredible result which will have a significant effect in funding the chair. The latest figure I heard indicated that with the extremely generous support of many individuals and organisations more than $700k has now been raised towards establishment of the chair, so things are very much on track to make sure John's tradition of hands-on teaching is continued and more Australians are given the chance to learn about operating system design. The signed book won in the auction is now destined to be placed on display back at UNSW, the place where it all started, and which just happens to be the venue for the next linux.conf.au[8] in January. So a big thankyou to everyone who contributed funds towards the auction and to maddog for arranging it in the first place. It's not too late to contribute though: the chair is still in need of donations to guarantee ongoing funding, so if you'd like to contribute please contact committee@linux.org.au so that LA can submit the funds on your behalf and gain the benefit of the USENIX matching fund to double your donation. Cheers :-) Jonathan Oxer [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lions [2] http://do.cse.unsw.edu.au/industry/JohnLions/index.phtml [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th_Edition %2C_with_Source_Code [4] http://www.auug.org.au/ [5] http://www.acs.org.au/ [6] http://do.cse.unsw.edu.au/industry/JohnLions/chair.phtml [7] http://www.usenix.org/ [8] http://www.linux.conf.au/ * We claim all the best people :-)
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