[Linux-aus] President's Report, May 2006

[Jonathan Oxer]

Hi LA,

Time for the monthly round-up from around LAustralia.

If you're on a sub-committee and you don't like seeing "Nothing to
report" under your section then me something to report!

========================================
= Project Sub-Committees
========================================
* linux.conf.au 2007
Nothing major to report at this stage, but things are progressing
behind the scenes with setup of banking facilities and other essential
infrastructure. Everything on track and looking (extremely) good.

* Education
Nothing to report.

* Advocacy
Nothing to report.

* Media
Nothing to report.

========================================
= Administrative Sub-Committees
========================================

* Mirror
Nothing to report, but if you have any ideas for content to be placed
on the mirror please drop the mirror admins a line at
requests at mirror.linux.org.au. The mirror itself can be accessed at
http://mirror.linux.org.au/

* Admin Team
LA's shiny new server, an HP ProLiant DL385 (huge thanks HP! friendly
plug: www.hp.com.au) arrived at my office a couple of days ago and
I've got as far as plugging it in and doing a basic Ubuntu install to
check hardware support. Ubuntu runs beautifully on it and it's
generally extremely drool-worthy but it sounds like a jet engine so to
my great regret I'm not putting one of these under my desk any time
soon. Once the Admin Team have weaved their magic we'll be able to
offer a variety of additional services such as hosting for LA projects
and LUGs.

* Press
Nothing to report, but general information is available at:
http://wiki.linux.org.au/Press

========================================
= Grants
========================================
* Computerbank Victoria
LA agreed to a multi-stage grant for Computerbank late last year: the
first payment has now been made and they have another invoice to
present. Kylie Davies did a very interesting presentation last night
at LUV and it's great to see how much the organisation has grown and
the impact they are making. Supporting their efforts is a very
worthwhile undertaking for Linux Australia. Thanks Kylie!

* SLUG Video
Chris Deigan has been working to get video of SLUG events into a
format that's accessible, and late last year LA agreed to fund the
purchase of equipment such as a large hard disk to help make the
process easier.

* Black Stump Linux
A new grant request has been submitted and forwarded to linux-aus in
the last 24 hours. Please check it out and comment since we're in the
public discussion phase of this request.

========================================
= Recent Events
========================================

* Connecting Up 06
Connecting Up 06 finished up yesterday in Adelaide, and once he's got
everything sorted out and had a chance to breathe I'll ask Paul Schulz
to provide a brief update for next month's President's Report.

========================================
= Upcoming Events
========================================

* CeBIT
CeBIT (www.cebit.com.au) will be another fantastic opportunity to show
off FOSS to the community at large, and it's only a few days away now
so if you're interested in helping out please contact Pia
(pia at linux.org.au) ASAP. Not only will we have a regular-sized stand
for Linux Australia, but we will also be managing an enormous Linux
Demonstration Area with machines for people to try Linux for
themselves.

========================================
= Miscellaneous
========================================

* Leon Brook's ongoing recovery
Leon continues his amazing journey of recovery and has even returned
to the blogosphere! For those who don't know, a little while ago
Perth-based penguinista and LA Committee Member Leon Brooks connected
at high speed with a car door that was opened in his path and as a
result suffered terrible head injuries. However, since then his
recovery has been nothing short of astonishing and he's now back on
the air at http://leonbrooks.blogspot.com/. Go Leon! You're an
inspiration to us all.

* LUV chook raffle for Leon
It's times like this that we need to come together as a community to
help out in any way we can, and Donna Benjamin had the great idea of
running a chook (err, Tux) raffle to raise money to help support Leon
and his family as they go through this crisis. The raffle was run last
night at the Linux Users Victoria (www.luv.asn.au) meeting and raised
over $300, so now the bar has been set: let's see if other LUGs can
raise even more! With everything Leon's family is going through right
now the last thing they should be worrying about is how to pay the
bills so let's help out as much as we can.

* LCA2008
If you are interested in bidding for LCA2008 it's time to get your
skates on. There have been unofficial expressions of interest from
several places and we're getting close to the submission date. The
schedule looks like this:

2006/05/31 - Draft bids to be submitted for comment (optional)
2006/06/30 - Bids to be submitted for evaluation
2006/07/31 - Final decision to be made on bids after discussion
                          with community members

If you're interested in pitching for 2008 it's time to get moving on
it *now*. Put a core team together, think about a venue and timing,
talk to previous LCA organisers, talk to the Committee
(committee at linux.org.au) and state your intentions, read the LCA-howto
(http://wiki.linux.org.au/Ctte/LCA_HOWTO), put together a draft budget
(examples available from the LA ctte) and come up with a compelling
reason why LCA should come to YOUR city.

That's it for this month: if you have been working on anything under
the Linux Australia name and would like to be included in the next
report please let me know.

Cheers   :-)

Jonathan Oxer
President
Linux Australia