[Linux-aus] President's Report: August / September 2006

Fri Oct 6 12:12:01 UTC 2006

Hi LA,

It's time to take a whirlwind tour around the country and see what cool
things you've all been up to over the last couple of months.

========================================
= Recent Events
========================================
* Software Freedom Day
...rocked! Australia definitely set the standard with by far the highest
number of events of any country. There were 3 events in Melbourne alone:
I spent the day at Melbourne Town Hall where Computerbank ran an info
and demo day along with members of LUV, MLUG, Melbourne Wireless,
phpMelb, Perl Mongers, and various other local groups, and did a talk
titled "Software Freedom: Pragmatic Idealism?" which was followed by
talks on FOSS in business; freedom of information and the media; an
introduction to Computerbank; and a screening of the documentary "Code
Breakers". Channel 31 filmed parts of the event for a documentary
currently in production, thousands of FOSS CDs were handed out, and lots
of people wandered by to see what all the fuss was about.

Elsewhere in Melbourne LUV ran a very successful installfest, and the
Dutch class at the Victorian School of Languages ran a session on using
FOSS for language learning.

And that's just one city: there were similar events all over Australia!

http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/oceania/au

Our very own Pia Waugh was recently elected President of Software
Freedom International, the non-profit association behind SFD, and with
her incredible energy and enthusiasm behind it you just know that it's
going to keep growing. Congratulations Pia!

The only thing I found a bit disappointing was that the media didn't
pick up on it as much as I hoped. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the
right places but the positive story of SFD really deserved to be given a
better run in the mainstream press.

* AU-US FTA / DMCA
As has been reported elsewhere the Attorney General has released an
exposure draft of the legislation. The result is both good and bad:
Rusty reports that the proposed laws look better than the US laws, but
that's probably not saying much! Rusty has written a response to the
exposure draft but given the extremely tight timeframe (Australia is
required to implement the legislation by January 1st 2007 in accordance
with the AU-US FTA) it's not likely that anything significant is going
to change, so the exposure draft we see today is probably going to end
up being the law we have to live with. The following comment by Rusty
sums it up well:

  "The draft is an unclear, confusing and complicated addition
  to Australian Copyright law. Despite our pleas that
  legitimate, non-infringing activities be allowed, the text
  offers no such reassurance. On the other hand, it is
  uncertain that all such activities will be banned. It
  guarantees that we will see legal battles fought in this
  area in the coming years."

Not a very satisfactory outcome.

Thanks to everyone who provided submissions to the Attorney General,
collected signatures for the petition, and generally did what they could
to raise awareness of the issue. It looks like the course is now pretty
much set and we're just going to have to learn to live with it.

And a special thanks to LA's IP Policy Advisor and all-round good guy
Rusty Russell for putting in the hard yards on this issue.

========================================
= Project Sub-Committees
========================================
* linux.conf.au 2007
Can't wait! Can't wait! Can't wait! Bring on January 15th!

The CFP generated a huge response: something like 270 submissions for
talks, tutorials and miniconfs, which I'm pretty sure is a record by a
decent margin. Working through so many submissions is obviously sending
Rusty and the Papers Committee around the twist
(http://ozlabs.org/~rusty/index.cgi/2006/10/04#2006-10-04) but the end
result will undoubtedly be a top-rate lineup of excellent presentations
and we can compensate the Papers Committee with lots of $BEVERAGE in
January. Early-bird rego is just around the corner so keep your eye on
the LCA site for the latest info:

http://lca2007.linux.org.au/

* Education
Nothing to report.

* Advocacy
Nothing to report.

* Media
Nothing to report.

========================================
= Administrative Sub-Committees
========================================
* Mirror
If you have any other ideas for content to be placed on the mirror
please drop the mirror admins a line at requests at mirror.linux.org.au.

http://mirror.linux.org.au/

* Admin Team
I finally (!) collected the second disk for our HP-donated DL385 server
last week and installed it in the box. The new machine now has a basic
OS installed and Andrew Pollock is applying his magic touch to get it
ready to start deploying services.

With the various boxes around the place (mirror, digital, LCA, and the
new DL385 that I've been calling "analog" for lack of a better name) and
increased disk requirements for the mirror box there has been discussion
among the admin team about rethinking hardware allocations. The current
mirror is a 1U box with no room for more internal disk, while analog is
a 2U box with 8 hot-swap caddies and dual RAID controllers so it may be
better suited to providing mirror duties. All that's yet to be decided
though so we'll see what the admin and mirror teams decide to do.

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

========================================
= Grants
========================================
* GPLv3 Forum
There's a live Grant Request right now for $2000 funding for a forum to
be run in Sydney by the Cyberlaw Centre to discuss the proposed GPLv3
and provide feedback to the Software Freedom Legal Centre prior to the
GPL3 finalisation:

http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-October/msg00012.html

* Ubertweak Computer Camp
The original grant request for Ubertweak generated some spirited
discussion on linux-aus regarding the Christian aspects of the event,
but the general concensus seems to be that the event itself sounds like
a fantastic opportunity for young people to learn about FOSS and even a
few non-Christians spoke up and said they wished they'd had an
opportunity to attend something like it. Based on the feedback received
Elspeth redrafted the grant request to focus specifically on a
FOSS-related aspect of the camp.

http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00235.html
http://ubertweak.org.au

========================================
= Upcoming Events
========================================
* AUUG Annual Conference
The annual Australian Unix User Group conference is only a few days
away, so it's time to get your skates on and register if you haven't
done so already. Presenters include Lars Rasmussen from the Google Maps
team, Peter Gutmann of PGP fame, and quite a few Linux Australia
stalwarts including Michael Still, Arjen Lentz, and Stewart Smith. Oh,
and me.

http://new.auug.org.au/events_store/auug2006/welcome

* Thinking Linux 06
Following hard on the heels of the AUUG conference will be an
interesting one-day event called Thinking Linux 06. This is the first
time it's been run and it will have separate business and technical
tracks, with first-class speakers including Tridge, John Ferlito,
Richard Keech, Graeme Wood, and Craig Wiley. They've even been tricked
into giving me the mic for a while, but don't let that put you off. I'll
be really interested to see how this goes because it looks like it could
reach further up the org chart than a typical Linux event, so there
should be a good concentration of decision-makers present:

http://www.thinkinglinux.com.au/ThinkingLinux/

* Open Source Developers Conference
With the third OSDC coming up in Melbourne in December it's turning into
a real institution. OSDC complements linux.conf.au very well, providing
a focus on scripting languages and a forum for discussion of use of FOSS
tools for proprietary development, topics which are not normally well
represented at LCA. Registrations are open now and the list of sessions
has been published. This is the first time tutorials have been
integrated into the program: I'll be doing both a tutorial and a regular
talk so come along and heckle. Damian Conway will be doing his
ROTFLMAO-funny "The Da Vinci Codebase", and Randal L. Schwartz and
Richard Farnsworth will keynote.

http://www.osdc.com.au/

========================================
= Miscellaneous
========================================
A general note: I'd love to hear about various FOSS projects that Linux
Australia members have been working on. If you've had a significant
milestone please let me know and maybe it'll get a mention in the next
report.

* APhPLIX
A recent Grant was for the APhPLIX Development Studio by Jared "Flame"
Herbohn, which was also entered in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance
Challenge. Although it didn't end up taking out any of the major cash
prizes it was awarded an Honorable Mention. Congratulations Flame!

http://www.aphplix.org/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/challenge/winners.html

* Merchant Account
As part of the process of setting up the infrastructure for
linux.conf.au 2007 registrations our merchant account facilities are
being moved over to Westpac. This also has implications for...

* Fundraising
As has been mentioned previously one issue that Linux Australia needs to
be very careful about is our reliance on linux.conf.au for income. We
currently make miniscule amounts of income from other sources such as
T-shirt sales but even that is hard because of a lack of infrastructure
to process payments other than by cheque or cash. Something that AJ has
been looking into recently is how to set up a way to handle small
donations and sales of items for fundraising purposes. This will
probably require a second merchant account separate from the LCA
merchant account because the funds need to be routed to different bank
accounts.

* Wiki
In the last report I talked about our plans to start using the Wiki more
extensively as a way for various LA projects to provide updated public
information. This has started, but I'd still like to see it used a lot
more. We're a community organisation and wikis are based on the concept
of community participation, so feel free to get in and start using it.

http://wiki.linux.org.au/

* John Lions Chair in Operating Systems
As I outlined recently Linux Australia is helping fund the establishment
of the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems at UNSW. There'll be an
official announcement about this soon, but in the meantime there's
background info in an email I sent to linux-aus:

http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00340.html

* USENIX Membership
As part of the process of submitting funding for the establishment of
the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems we're now signed up as a
corporate member of USENIX:

http://www.usenix.org/

* linux.conf.au 2008
You probably know this already but since the last President's Report the
team to host linux.conf.au 2008 has been selected with Mel8ourne getting
the nod. Donna's team has already had their first "post victory" meeting
and are firming up their plans for running a kick-arse LCA2008. The
Tasmanian bid was also top quality but unfortunately only one team could
be chosen, and I strongly encourage the Tassie team come back with a bid
next time around.

http://www.mel8ourne.org/

This is the first time we've gone with the early decision process
whereby the winning team is selected 18 months prior to the event rather
than 12 months prior and we're still feeling our way with it: there are
potential downsides and we'll discuss this again at the next
face-to-face meeting. The obvious potential problems seem to be 1)
confusion over where the next event will be, and 2) people deciding not
to attend LCA2007 in Sydney because they plan to come to LCA2008 in
Melbourne instead. I don't know how real this problem is so I'd love to
hear feedback on it. I'd particularly like to hear from people who have
decided not to go to Sydney because they knew about Melbourne getting
2008: would it have made any difference if you didn't know where the
2008 event was going to be?

Oh, and in case there's any doubt: the next LCA is in Sydney, starting
January 15th 2007. You *need* to be there, even if you live in
Melbourne.

http://lca2007.linux.org.au/

* Upcoming Committee Meeting
The LA Committee will be having our next face to face meeting in
Melbourne on October 21, so if you have items for discussion now is the
time to bring them up. We'll have a list of the usual topics to go over
of course but if there is something specific you would like raised
please speak up now.

Posts to the linux-aus at linux.org.au list are fine, or if you'd prefer to
keep things confidential you can email committee at linux.org.au.

Did I miss anything? If so, please let me know.

Rock on Linux Australia   :-)

Jonathan Oxer
President
Linux Australia
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