August 2014 - Free-software-bris - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Thursday 4 September meeting agenda
by Fraser Tweedale 25 Aug '14

25 Aug '14

Hi everyone, Details for next week's meetup: Time: Thursday 4 September, 6:00 pm Venue: The Edge, Window Bay 7 (pretty much straight ahead as you enter) Sean Chalmers will give a talk about how free software has helped him gain - and share - valuable skills and knowledge: From a Bash shell, to Drupal, then France, back to Drupal, and finally on to Haskell and the programming language research rabbit hole. This talk will be a look into the importance of access to the knowledge and research of others, and their willingness to share, and how this has helped me reach where I am today. I will also touch on the effect this has had on how I treat the knowledge that I have, and the knowledge that I gain. Other agenda items: - News. We will have a brief news segment - send me your news items to be discussed or just tell us about it on the night! - Choosing a name. We have received a few good suggestions so we will discuss and hopefully decide a name for our group. + Libris + LibrePlanet Brisbane + Software Libre Brisbane + ... others? Suggestions are still welcome! - Code of Conduct. We ought to have one and I will suggest we adopt the LibrePlanet Code of Conduct[1]. We will discuss this and hopefully come to an agreement. [1] http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Code_of_Conduct After the meeting: Food. Hopefully this month we can make it to Beastie Burgers before they close, but otherwise it will be eats somewhere else in the South Bank precinct.

1 0

Richard Stallman's TEDx video
by Fraser Tweedale 20 Aug '14

20 Aug '14

rms gave a TEDx talk in Geneva entitled "Introduction to Free Software and the Liberation of Cyberspace." It's quite a good introduction; accessible to non-technical folk. The slides are particularly nice! https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-… Share it with your friends and family! Fraser

1 0

Have your say; naming the Brisbane free software group
by Fraser Tweedale 19 Aug '14

19 Aug '14

Hi folks, It's time we decided an official name of the Brisbane free software interest group. Those present at the inaugural meeting decided that the name shall *not* be "Free Software Brisbane" because that abbreviates to FSB[1], which is the thing that used to be the KGB, and we don't care for that ^_^ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service Write in with your proposals and we will take a vote at the next meetup on Thursday 4 September. Suggestions from people not in Brisbane are welcome, too. My suggestion is "Software Libre Brisbane" but I'm sure you all can do a lot better than that! Cheers, Fraser

2 1

nhs switch to free software
by Clinton Roy 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

This article is a little old, and before the event, but it brings up a few points of interest: http://theconversation.com/a-juggernaut-like-the-nhs-wont-find-it-easy-to-d… Probably the big one I think we missed was end-of-lifing a product, that's technically not possible with a free software product. In practice though, if the community around a project dies off, it's hard to maintain something. cheers, -- Clinton Roy Software Developer Netboxblue.com Total Internet Management Control Internet usage within and outside your organisation.

2 1

recap of meeting 2014-08-07
by Fraser Tweedale 09 Aug '14

09 Aug '14

Thursday 7 August saw the inaugural meetup of the Brisbane free software group. I herein recap the events of the evening: - The meeting was held at The Edge, at 6pm; I'm was happy with the location and facilities so I think we'll keep holding it there. The timing of future meetings is up for discussion, if first-Thursday is problematic for people. I will check what other meetups are on at the same time, in case there are obvious clashes. - Attendance was quite low, but I'm encouraged that those who attended are likely to keep attending, and I'm also aware that some were unable to make it due to the short notice (that's my bad), and some who were coming took ill, so we should see better numbers at the next meeting. - I kicked the meeting off with a spiel about the purpose of the group, that is: free software advocacy and discussion, aiming to be accessible to the general tech-savvy crowd (i.e. not just developers and the like!), to equip attendees to embrace free software and empower them to advocate free software in their communities. We then all briefly introduced ourselves to the group. - George Wilson gave an "Introduction to Free Software" talk, which explained what free software is, why it is important, and tackled some of the common questions and misunderstandings, e.g. copyleft vs permissive licenses, gratis vs libre, etc. I'm not sure if the slides are online but if they are, I'm sure George will let us know where to find them :) - I also gave a talk: an overview of the current campaigns of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF is involved in a diverse array of campaigns for free softwarwe and freedom in computing and the digital world in general. You can see my slides at [1]. Have a look at the campaigns and see what you might be able to get involved in! [1] https://github.com/frasertweedale/talks/blob/master/20140807-fsb-fsf-campai… - We spent a few minutes discussing ideas for future meetings. At the conclusion of the meeting we wandered down to South Bank. Beastie Burgers had unfortunately just closed, but we satisfied our burger cravings at a certain other burger joint nearby. I hope those who were unable to make it on Thursday will be able to come to the next meeting. At this point, let's stick with the first-Thursday - so September 4th - but if anyone has opinions on this please let me know! Cheers, Fraser

1 0

free software group
by Fraser Tweedale 08 Aug '14

08 Aug '14

Hi folks, I have been threatening it for a long time, and it is finally happening! The inaugural meeting of Free Software Brisbane (name tentative) is occurring this Thursday at The Edge, from 6pm. The group will aim to meet once a month and will focus on free software philosophy, advocacy and education, with an aim to be accessible to non-technical folks. Therefore, any technical content will serve these ends, e.g., tutorials on free privacy or tours of free office productivity software are the sort of presentations we'd be after... deep dive on the latest virtualization software or Emacs mode, not so much :) We have two talks lined up for the first night - Introduction to Free Software by George Wilson, and Campaigns of the Free Software Foundation by yours truly. We'll probably get some grub at South Bank afterwards. I realise it is late notice, but if you are able to come along, great! If you could please pass this message along to anyone who might be interested, it would be appreciated. (To those I blind copied, you can also subscribe to this mailing list if you are interested ^_^). Many thanks, and I hope some of you will be able to come along on Thursday. Fraser

2 1