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-campaig... - 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