[Linux-aus] Nominations and their spiels for the LA election

[Janet Hawtin]

Hi folks

I think we have organisations, campaigns and events.
I think we have a good organisation and event.
There are other organisations and events happening in AU and campaigns
which we are participating in.
We can participate in diverse campaigns and events.

My goal would be to look at the events in AU which we are a part of or
which we share an interest in and to see how we fit with those, where
we overlap and can collaborate better with other groups and where we
can join other groups in promoting a common campaign.

Events:
Start with a calendar and look at the kinds of funding profiles
(As per Sylvia's comments) and dates of the events.
Perhaps we could produce a community computing calendar so we can
avoid holding competing events and spot flat spots in the year, or
geographically.

BarCamp (March)is a great international flavour of event which can
bring together people interested in participative technology
generally.

Software Freedom Day(September) is a campaign flavoured event which
can bring together people interested in FOSS from different
backgrounds.

The Access 2 Knowledge movement is starting to respond to the DMCA
based copyright laws and has strong involvement from librarians,
teachers, and could do with participation from foss communities.

LUGs are hands on practical places for building and enjoying
communities using specific technologies. Tuesdays are hot property =).

Specific campaigns and projects with partners:
I think we could do more to bring together the information about what
is happening for the ranges of topic that these all represent, but
feel that we need to make sure we are acting to join and collaborate
rather than to overlap or replace. ie try where possible to make sure
it is distributed growth, that we are facilitating growth in partner
groups and building a wider appreciation of what we are about,
offering specific facets to specific other groups.

We didnt have enough critical mass or momentum to make the
copyright petition effective.

Two possible reasons for this include that we are a finite group and
that other wider groups with parallel concerns were not engaged with
the petition, eg the digital alliance and teacher groups.

Secondly I feel we may be politically resistant / averse to active
lobbying because it is not cool and is contentious. This is
understandable and is not inconsistent with how other Australians feel
about the political process. Sometimes as with responding to the
request for comment on copyright the actions need to be formal. If we
can build a connection between the formal work and  fun events,
perhaps posters or information on groups and their focuses? Fun
advocacy:
eg. The Electronics Industry Association was a sponsor for the
AI2Robot project, along with the Advertiser, universities and TAFE.
This project had people scarpering over Adelaide making sure they had
the right components and even buying dead tree news to do it.
It was fun and would have reached a lot of people who could play with
something tangible. It also would have been a lot of work.
Some of the conference events and SFD feel like this, BarCamp has this
potential too.

Aggregation by topic:
eg. Education miniconference is great, there are two edu lists on the
linuxAU site, Bryant also runs an active list related to participating
at the miniconference, there are state conferences such as VITTA which
linuxAU people have been attending and participating in.
openeducation.org.au has some interesting material on foss and
education but when you are at the list of mailing lists on linuxAU the
edu info is not in one spot.
Perhaps doing an edu aggregation/topic for the planet?
Specifically if it attracts people who are not currently involved in
linux/foss/open standards in education.

There are groups which we have a common interest in open standards.
These groups might not be into SFD or other aspects of
our wider goals but could be interested in specific projects.

There are groups which we have a common interest in copyright.
These groups/people/events might not have a deep interest in
technologies but might have a common interest in the role that
information plays in our communities.

I am sure that the subcommittees fit into this connective work,
perhaps this is where we need to build to make things more connected
and visible?

Janet