[Linux-aus] Linux Australia - halfway through 2003

[Stewart Smith]

  23rd January - 23rd July

We've made a lot of progress this year, and it couldn't have happenned 
without the combined efforts of everyone involved with Linux Australia. 
So a big thanks goes out to you all - Linux community rocks! This mail 
is just a summary of some of the things that have happened. Please feel 
free to post feedback, comments (and compliments) to the list!

More details and the complete report can be seen at 
http://www.linux.org.au/projects/200307report/


General Organisation
-----------------------------
  Committee Meeting in Sydney
- In the first face to face committee meeting since LCA2003, the LA 
committee went through a lot. Andrew Cowie guided us through 
"Organisation Strategic Planning" 
(http://www.linux.org.au/projects/200307report/org.html) to help us 
work out where LA is, what it's role should be and how we should go on 
acheiving it.

  Constitution
- We also reveiwed the LA constitution, and have put up some proposed 
changes (http://linux.org.au/org/new/constitution.phtml). Comments and 
discussion are encouraged!

   LA in media (http://www.linux.org.au/press/)
- We've been mentioned in many publications such as: ZDNet, 
AustralianIT, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, LinuxCare and the fine 
LinMagAU. Check our website for URLs of the articles.

Projects
------------
LCA2004 (http://lca2004.linux.org.au/):
  'Past & Present' Meeting in Adelaide
- The team from LCA2003 met with the LCA2004 organisers and everything 
is on track for a great 2004 conference.

   OLS/LCA Best Speaker award/exchange
- Tridge has arranged with the Ottawa Linux Symposium 
(http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2003/) for an exchange of best speakers. 
That is, the best speaker from OLS will be funded to come and speak at 
LCA, and the best speaker from LCA will be funded to go and talk at 
OLS. This should be great for both conferences!

   Grants Scheme (http://www.linux.org.au/projects/grants/)
- We've been able to financially help the GNOME project and LinMagAU. 
GNOME with the purchase of a HP machine to help the GNOME port on HP-UX 
and PA-RISC Linux and LinMagAU with day-to-day expenses.

   LUG Mailing List
- Many LUGs are now able to collaborate and discuss projects and issues 
and are doing so.


Achievments
------------------

User Group Listing:
- has been updated and now has current contact details - see 
http://www.linux.org.au/usergroups/

Setup TWiki:
- Great for collaboration between committee members and relationship 
building with both Community and corporate organisations.

Successful fortnightly Committee meetings:
- Accelerated resolution of many issues
- Teleconferencing is flexible enough to cope with odd weeks
- Sometimes supplemented with IRC

Fiscal responsibility
--------------------------
- Spent money purposefully (no stagnation, no squandering)
- Documented everything thoroughly
- Carefully limited exposure and risks throughout

Ongoing Advocacy in Edu & Govt
---------------------------------------------
- Individual members of the committee have been personally involved in 
advocacy as well as encouraging others to do so.

Mailing Lists
------------------
- committee (813+ messages)
- linux-aus (880+ messages)
- lug list (new, and already 51+)
- web-team (69+ messages)
- ALLIES Mailing list (est jan, 353+)
- and on top of that there's been over 140 purely private mails 
regarding LA business (in my mail boxes at least).


Upcoming
--------------
- credit card handling for donations to community & free software 
groups (e.g. Samba, Debian)
- Certification (LPI & RedHat)
- LUG resources Site
- Standard AGM Procedure
- Website improvements
- Pia has been Invited to Brazil FOSS Conference to present about Linux 
In Australia
- Coordination of Mass CD Duplication for User Groups
- Benefits for the community from vendors (TBA soon)

A Special Thank you to:
- All ctte members
- All those on lists
- The entire Linux and Open Source community
- IBM for teleconference facility used for fortnightly meetings and the 
time of Hugh & Tridge

Remember, check out http://www.linux.org.au/projects/200307report/ for 
details,
	- the Linux Australia Committee
------------
Stewart Smith
Vice President, Linux Australia
stewart at linux.org.au
http://www.linux.org.au