[Linux-aus] Open Source underpins Aussie Innovation

[Pia Waugh <pia@linux.org.au>]

Dear all,

please find our recent press release about Open Source underpinning
Australian innovations. The Australian Innovation Festival formally started
last week.

Open Source underpins Aussie innovations

The Australia Innovation Festival (http://ausinnovation.org) was launched
last Friday at the ABC with Senator Coonan giving great praise to Australian
companies who are being particularly innovative. Linux Australia was very
excited to hear about these successes, particularly because many are based
on Open Source technologies. Open Source development has created a variety
of low risk, highly scalable and low cost platforms on which Australian
organisations can be extremely innovative. They can also leverage a huge
community of developers, users and testers to become world leaders in their
industry.

Rising Sun Pictures is such an example. Bruno Mattarollo, the CTO says
"innovative solutions built using Open Source enable Rising Sun Pictures to
constantly deliver a high quality of visual effects for Hollywood
blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire, and the soon to be released Superman Returns."
Rising Sun Pictures will be presenting at the Innovation Festival about
their success in such a fiercely competitive market.

Dr Silvia Pfeiffer, a leading researcher and software developer at CSIRO
believes that "without Open Source, the groundbreaking research and
development we do would be impossible!". Gernot Heiser, also a leading
researcher and software developer at NICTA and a Professor at the University
of NSW says "Open source and open standards are essential to our work --
global collaboration requires openness and standardisation, and for
mission-critical tools it is paramount that we can fix problems ourselves
rather than having to wait for suppliers to do so."

Linux Australia President, Jon Oxer remarks "Open Source developers show
that great innovation can happen through global collaboration and sharing of
information. Also small businesses greatly benefit from leveraging Open
Source, and as a small business owner, I have been able to build a
successful business on the flexibility and scalability that Open Source
offers."

Many great innovations are coming out of Australian research using Open
Source Software. Pia Waugh, the research coordinator for ASK-OSS (The
Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software) says, "Through our
work with leading Australian research projects, we have have discovered that
large amounts of OSS are being used, and large amounts of software are being
developed and released as OSS. Open source technologies and methodologies
are really integral to the research sector in Australia". Several examples
of research innovation can be seen on the ASK-OSS website
(http://ask-oss.mq.edu.au) and ASK-OSS is an Australian Government sponsored
research project, part of the Backing Australia's Ability - Building our
Future through Science and Innovation package
(http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au/).

To find out more about Open Source and how it can help your organisation be
more innovative, come to the Linux Australia stand at CeBIT from May 9-11.
We will be running a seminar about how Open Source underpins Australian
innovation at CeBIT.

Press Contact: Pia Waugh
Mobile: 0400 966 453

Cheers and warmest regards,
Pia Waugh

-- 
Linux Australia                                         http://linux.org.au/

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