[Linux-aus] Linux Australia - Committee News 20041019

[Pia Smith]

Hi all,

Linux Australia has been a pretty quiet month this month. The committee
has done some interesting stuff, however our main focus currently is on
running our first online AGM and election. 

AGM
===
Linux Australia in the past has held its AGMs at LCA, however this
hasn't necessarily been optimal. We are working on trying to open
nominations for committee positions around the end of November, opening
for voting January 8th, and closing the Voting January 15. We could post
all the reports online prior to the 8th, and have an IRC channel open
for around 48 hours for questions and ctte response.

Linux Australia will still have some sort of presentation at LCA every
year, to keep people informed, introduce the committee, and allow for
face to face feedback.

Open Source Forum
=================
We are also going to trial an Open Source Forum, to be run every 2
months. The first one is November 3rd is Sydney, and will focus on
software patents, a topical and wildly misunderstood issue of the day.
All the details will be posted within a few days, however to whet your
appetite we have a legal perspective, a functional perspective on
patents, two industry perspectives, and a developer perspective. The
idea of these forums is to stimulate the discussions so that people can
make up their own minds, so a large chunk of the forum will be
discussion and questions to the speaker panel. A platform for the
debates that no one is really having if you will. It should be great, so
keep an eye out. Ideally the concept can be replicated anywhere for any
topic.

NSW government tender
====================
The most exciting news at the moment is the NSW Government tender for
Open Source Services. It is a great opportunity for Linux and Open
Source in Australia and we wish everyone good luck with their bids!

Grant Application
=================
Sara Kaan put forward a grant application for running a Linux stall at a
huge education expo to promote Linux solutions for schools, Linux
Australia and SLUG. There has been no issues raised online, and the
committee are fairly content. If no issues are raised by Monday, the
committee should be able to sign this one off.

Cheers,
Pia
-- 
Pia Smith
President of Linux Australia
http://linux.org.au