[Linux-aus] clarifying membership criteria

[Arjen Lentz]

You may recall that not too long ago the LA  articles of incorporation needed to be updated, to bring them in line with NSW, ATO and other requirements. We use the opportunity to clean up and update various things.

I do remember the membership criteria being one of the topics as well. I don't have the articles repo URL handy, but it'll be on the history of this list if you do a quick search. Russell Stuart was leading the update process.

If you refer to the articles, you'll have the official definition. Then, if the website doesn't match or has a typo in those paragraphs, the website should be updated as the articles are the authoritative source of truth for this.

Thanks

On February 7, 2026 9:42:13 PM GMT+10:00, Russell Coker via linux-aus <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au> wrote:
>https://linux.org.au/
>
>The above page has "Linux Australia is the peak body of Open Source 
>communities in Australasia. Linux Australia represents Australasian users and 
>developers of ..."
>
>So that's either "Australia" or "Australiasia".
>
>https://linux.org.au/membership/
>
>The above page has a list of countries for address which appears to list every 
>country in the world.
>
>My recollection of Linux.conf.au practice was that all delegates had a 
>membership of Linux Australia by default.
>
>What exactly is the membership criteria?  The membership page seems to imply 
>that people who are interested from any country can just join if they feel 
>like it, is that correct?
>
>Rick Moen (prominent American Linux user from California) was a member of LUV 
>for decades.
>
>Flounder has a number of members from outsize the main Australia and New 
>Zealand target area just because we don't turn away anyone who has interesting 
>things to say about FOSS and happens to join the Matrix room.  The only time 
>we ask where someone is based is in the context of whether they are likely to 
>be awake when we have a video meeting.
>
>Do members of groups running under the LA umbrella become de facto LA members?
>
>
>I think that anyone who can give us reason to believe that they are a real 
>person not a bot or sock puppet should be allowed to join regardless of 
>country.
>
>I also think that members of groups running under LA should be considered non 
>voting members if that's a thing we can do.  In the case of Flounder not 
>everyone who has joined has felt inclined to mention their real name so 
>obviously they can't be considered full members of LA because of that.
>
>In any case I think that this needs to be made clear on the web site.  If it 
>turns out that my interpretation of the web site is not correct then we can 
>debate whether it can or should be changed once we are clear on what the 
>situation is.
>
>-- 
>My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
>My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>linux-aus mailing list
>linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
>https://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/linux-aus
>
>To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to
>linux-aus-unsubscribe at lists.linux.org.au
>-- 
>Message  protected by MailGuard: e-mail anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering.https://www.mailguard.com.au/mg
>Click here to report this message as spam:
>https://console.mailguard.com.au/ras/2c2CbdjcCw/6vvgxpbo9cLq7lf1ZJRgcR/0.1
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/attachments/20260207/a9fe52a7/attachment-0001.htm>