[Linux-aus] Running for Linux Australia Council

[John Ferlito]

Howdy,

I'm John Ferlito and I'll be standing for the position of Treasurer on
the Linux Australia Council.

I also support the platform outlined by James Turnbull. My
particular focus will be on transparency, governance and community.
Especially with respect to simplifying the interaction with LCA teams
when it comes to budgeting, finances and tax.

For those who haven't heard of me before, I live and grew up in
Sydney and I've been a FOSS user since 1996. I consider myself a
serial entrepreneur (really I can't help myself), and have started a
handful of businesses including Bulletproof Networks and Vquence.

Day to day I dabble in systems administration, networks, rails
development and random trouble shooting and hacking.

In 2007 I was on the organising committee of linux.conf.au in the
position of Technical Guru, I was on the SLUG committee in 2007 and am
currently the Treasurer of the Annodex Association.

I'm also currently a Debian Developer and am on teams responsible for
packaging Xiph and Bazaar related packages.

Cheers,
John

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 09:44:21AM +1100, James Turnbull wrote:
> President           James Turnbull
> Vice President    Lindsay Holmwood
> Secretary            Peter Lieverdink
> Treasurer           John Ferlito
> 
> Ordinary Committee Members
>     Alice Boxhall
>     Elspeth Thorne
> 
> We're not a political party - we're a bunch of Linux and open source
> people who think they can contribute to Linux Australia.  Between us
> we've written code, managed infrastructure, run small (and medium)
> businesses in the open source world, organised LCAs, run user groups
> and generally been passionate about Linux and open source.  We
> believe that Linux Australia has a big role to play in advocating
> Linux and open source, running linux.conf.au (the best Linux
> conference in the world...) and representing the interests of the
> Linux community in the region.  We also agree on a broad platform:
> 
>    1. Transparency - ensure the Council and its activities are
> transparent to the community
>           * Good communication via the wiki and mailing list
>           * Seek feedback from the community on issues and decisions
>           * Strong and regular reporting - Financial, events,
> progress towards milestones
>    2. Governance - ensure good financial governance
>           * Investigate engaging an accountant/book-keeper to manage
> Linux Australia's finances
>           * Develop clear and simple policy and process around
> insurance, payments and grants
>           * Develop good governance and structures between Linux
> Australia and the LCA committee
>           * Investigate on-going 'LCA Sponsorship' sub-committee,
> separate from LCA team
>    3. Mandate
>           * Review the mandate of Linux Australia and determine if
> it is meeting the needs of the FOSS community in the region
>           * Determine whether the membership is actually
> representative of the "Linux community"
>    4. Leadership & Advocacy
>           * Make Linux Australia a well-known voice in debate on IT
> issues in Australia
>           * Extend advocacy activities on legal and policy issues
> that concern and impact the FOSS community in the region
>    5. Community
>           * Reach out to and collaborate with other similarly minded
> organisations e.g. LinuxChix, OSIA, IIA, SAGE, etc
>           * Endeavour to engage with and expand the community
> through events and out-reach programs
>           * Become more involved with spreading the Open Source
> message at a School and University level
>    6. Cross-regional
>           * Make Linux Australia a truly regional organisation and
> increase our involvement with New Zealand and Oceania.

-- 
John
Blog                             http://www.inodes.org
LCA2010                          http://www.lca2010.org.nz