[Linux-aus] Voting is open!

[Tim Ansell]

Hello everyone,

It was suggested by Donna Benjamin that people who are running for a
position on the Linux Australia committee should post a spiel about
themselves and what they want to do. 

So I thought I would get the ball rolling, this is what I put into the
original acceptance form:

        For those who don't know me, I have been actively involved in
        the Australia FOSS community mainly in the open source gaming
        area. I have organiser of threes miniconfs (starting the first
        Embedded Miniconf and the last two Gaming miniconfs). I have
        also spoken both in an advocacy and informative roles at a
        number of FOSS conferences around the world. I am also the
        founder of the Thousand Parsec project and have lead the project
        since 2001. 

        My main focus (if elected to the committee) would be to actively
        help to increase the transparency of the organisation. I believe
        that the direction that Anthony Towns (through public reporting
        of the financial status) and the current committee (through
        sending out public meeting minutes) has been taking should be
        further extended. 
        
        I would also like to breath more life into the current grants
        program through better publishing of expectations and results of
        successful grants.

However, talking with people at Linux.conf.au I think we have hit on a
bigger issues:

             Why should people care about Linux Australia?

There are plenty of arguments from the side of providing a united front
to groups like government and industry, however most people don't
honestly care about this. I also don't think we are doing a great job of
publicising successes (and failures) in this area, but I don't believe
I'm the person to take this particular area. Why should the average
pragmatic hacker care about Linux Australia?

I think this is a fundamental problem and I don't have any easy way to
solve it. As I originally suggested, I think more transparency helps but
it's only part of the solution. I will work hard in trying to find
solutions and am open to other people's suggestions.

Thank you for taking the time reading.

Tim 'mithro' Ansell

On Tue, 2009-01-13 at 12:11 +1100, Stewart Smith wrote:
> Voting for the Linux Australia Council for 2009 is open!
> 
> Voting is open until 19:00 on 23/1/2009.
> 
> Results will be announced at the Linux Australia AGM at linux.conf.au
> 2009 (make sure you're going, it's going to be awesome!)
> 
> Head to https://www.linux.org.au/membership/ to cast your vote.