[Linux-aus] New Zealand says hello

[James Purser]

On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 00:29 +1300, Craig Box wrote:
> By way of introduction, I'm the secretary of the Waikato LUG in NZ 
> (www.wlug.org.nz - I suspect anyone who regularly googles Linux related 
> topics are familiar with our work!), and along with Matt Brown and John 
> McPherson, one of the three proponents of the discussion regarding 
> forming a "Linux NZ" group earlier this year.

Welcome

> > It is the later that we should focus upon. LCA Dunedin should be portrayed as 
> > an olive branch to the NZ free software community. It would serve as a 
> > fantastic way to begin discussion of a wider Linux Australasia (or whatever 
> > you may wish to call it).
> > 
> > At no point should New Zealanders feel that they are being "acquired" by Linux 
> > Australia. They need to be involved in the process from the beginning. By the 
> > same token, the larger population of the community in Australia could 
> > naturally mean that they have a larger influence over decision making. 
> > Factors such as these need to be considered and understood by all parties 
> > concerned before any "merger" takes place.
> 
> It sounds like you're trying to be very diplomatic here, but this is the 
> first I've suggestion I've heard that anyone from .au might be is trying 
> to, or even offering to, support/subsume/hostile takeover/whatever .nz. 
>   Until now there have only been people from .nz (mostly our opinion 
> voiced through Matt) thinking that it might be a good idea if you could 
> help us, rather than having us form our own group.

Yes I brought this up because I thought it was a topic that was going to
come up sooner rather than later and I thought it was important to get
the lay of the land as it applied to Linux Australia members.

> By the way, we only consent to even considering it if you apologise 
> unreservedly for Brett Lee.

No comment until I can find a NZer you guys have to apologise for as
well :) (We keep pinching the good ones)

> [Pia]
> 
> > I am extremely jealous of NZ where I've been told
> > everyone learns Maori in school, as it is the original language of the land.
> 
> If we do, it's not much.  Educational TV taught me some colours and to 
> count to ten, and thats about all I remember.

That in itself is pretty good.

> [Janet]
> 
> > I agree with this. AU law is different from NZ law.
> > The kinds of lobbying we need to do here could well be irrelevant for
> > the NZ environment. Teh kinds of lobbying they would like to do may be
> > hard to do from here with little understanding of local context.
> > Peers and partners, but no need to 'own' each other I feel.
> 
> The reason that it might work is that NZ already has a national 
> 'lobby'/politics organization, NZOSS, which doesn't do the help-the-LUGs 
> function that LA does.   It is possible that our group would be best as 
> part of NZOSS (that was a strong outcome of our discussion list), but 
> nothing has come of it so far as NZOSS is also lacking in enthusiasm. 
> In such a small country it's hard to suggest that the same won't also 
> happen with another group, which means that the two people who would 
> have been really great help to a group don't end up doing anything.

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, even if there wasn't a
merging of Linux Australia and the embryonic Linux NZ, there are always
going to be opportunities to share across the Tasman, whether it's
knowledge, people or resources.

I'd like to know a bit more about the FOSS community in NZ if you could
let me know off list that would be great. Might even do an expose for
one of the podcasts.

> Regards,
> Craig
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-aus mailing list
> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/linux-aus
-- 
James Purser
Chief Talking Guy - Linux Australia Update
http://k-sit.com - My Blog
http://la-pod.k-sit.com - Linux Australia Update Blog and Forums
Skype: purserj1977