September 2010 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Archives now public
by Ben Sturmfels 22 Oct '10

22 Oct '10

Hi Folks, I finally got around to fixing the list archives for the Melbourne Free Software Interest Group mailing list. Archives are now public: http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/pipermail/free-software-melb/ Regards, Ben

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[Fwd: Thank you on behalf of the Software Freedom Day Melbourne team]
by Ben Sturmfels 29 Sep '10

29 Sep '10

-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Software Freedom Day Melbourne <info(a)sfd.org.au> Reply-to: info(a)sfd.org.au To: Ben Sturmfels Subject: Thank you on behalf of the Software Freedom Day Melbourne team Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:45:00 +1000 Dear Ben, Thank you for your recent support of Software Freedom Day Melbourne, held at the State Library of Victoria on Saturday 18th September. The event attracted hundreds of visitors to a number of free talks, workshops and demonstrations held during the day - some from as far away as Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra. As you might imagine, the event took an enormous amount of organisation, resources and planning, and would not have been possible without your support. We sincerely appreciate the contribution made by the Melbourne Free Software Group, particularly in promoting the abolishment of software patents, and for your very informative talks. If you would pass on our thanks to the group it would be much appreciated :-) As a symbolic token of our thanks, please find attached a Certificate of Appreciation in PDF format. This of course was created using free and open source software (Inkscape)! We're currently compiling our post-event report which will be made available on request to key stakeholders by mid-October. Please don't hesitate to contact us should you wish to receive a copy. We look forward to collaborating with you on future similar projects. With kind regards, The Software Freedom Day organising team Dale Dickens, Brianna Laugher, Donna Benjamin, Wen Lin, Ben Sturmfels, George Patterson, Kathy Reid and many others ========================= Software Freedom Day Melbourne http://www.sfd.org.au/Melbourne info(a)sfd.org.au 2011 date to be confirmed

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Thanks for helping on Software Freedom Day
by Ben Sturmfels 29 Sep '10

29 Sep '10

Hi Folks, Just wanted to say a big thanks on behalf of all of us to those who helped out with Software Freedom Day on the 18th. I'd particularly like to thank Michael, Dave, Geoff, Alex and Daniel for attending to the Melb Free Software Interest Group table. They spoke to many people during the day, collect lots of registrations for this list and a heap of signatures against software patents. Big thanks to Dave for organising CDs of the brand new Trisquel 4.0. It was fantastic to be able to hand out copies of a fully-free distribution. It was exciting to see a sharpened focus on free software and freedom this year. I suspect this was helped by the excellent timing of Stallman's speeches earlier that week. On the other side of the library, the talks went very well. Attendance to my "Why is Free Software Important?" talk was bulked up by a strong attendance of my family members, who managed not to fall asleep. ;) Unfortunately we weren't able to hear from Pia Waugh due to a delay in Senator Lundy's flight, but we did manage to fill some time showing the large crowd videos on free software, DRM and having a discussion about software patents. Senator Lundy walked in the door to applause and gave an excellent speech about how the government is planning to work better with it's citizens, making several references to "free software". The other talks by Rami Olwan (Creative Commons), Andrew Cunningham (Multilingual Web) and Paul Took (Red Hat) were very interesting too. I haven't heard how the short talks went, but I have no doubt that they were great. There are some great photos by Chris: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrissamuel/sets/72157624855903041/ And by Jiri http://luv.asn.au/sfd2010/hires.html Regards, Ben

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Welcome to those who've just joined the list
by Ben Sturmfels 24 Sep '10

24 Sep '10

Hi Folks, Welcome to the many people who signed up to this list at Richard Stallman's recent speeches or on Software Freedom Day. It's been great to meet so many people interested in free software over the last week or so. This list now has around 100 participants. The Melbourne Free Software Interest Group meets once a month to talk about free software related issues. Our website: http://www.softwarefreedom.com.au/free-software-melb/ The next gathering is Thur 21 Oct, 6:30-7:30pm at the State Library of Victoria. We'll arrange some discussion topics before then and let you know via this list. Feel free to suggest a topic too. We usually go with non-technical topics. You may also be interested in (and perhaps have already signed) our petition against software patents. We see patents as being ill-suited to computation and information processing. Rather than promoting innovation, the severely inhibit innovation. We've collected over 400 signatures on a petition to the House of Representatives. Please take a copy of the petition to work if you're in the software industry, as this is our best chance to change the system. End Software Patents Australia (campaign run by our group): http://endsoftpatents.org/australia Copies of the petition are available from this website. Also, please consider being, or asking your CEO/Director etc. to be an ambassador to our campaign. You'd be among good company: http://endsoftpatents.org/australia#toc2 Regards, Ben

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Skip meeting and go see Stallman
by Ben Sturmfels 15 Sep '10

15 Sep '10

Hi Folks, The next Melbourne Free Software Interest Group meeting is scheduled for next Thu 16 September. I suggest we skip the meeting and instead just attend Richard Stallman's speech the night before. Stallman: Free Software in Ethics and in Practise Wed 15 September, 5:30pm, Melbourne University Copeland Theatre RSVP required: http://nicta.com.au/nicta_events/events/event_repository/upcoming_events/bi… If you can't make it, there's also a second Stallman speech: Stallman: Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks Thu 16 September, 12:30pm, RMIT Storey Hall. Details: http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~gingrich/flyer-1.pdf And then of course, there's Software Freedom Day on Sat 18, 11am-4pm, State Library of Victoria. I'm excited to be presenting a speech on "Why is free software important?" in the session starting at 11am. Lots of fun to be had. :) Ben

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Need examples of innovative Australian software
by Ben Sturmfels 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

Hi Folks, Thank for your overwhelming support of our patents letter! We're now taking the next step of preparing a petition that can be presented to the Federal House of Reps. This has requirements of being on paper and with original signatures. I'll look forward to collecting your signature some time soon. I'm looking for examples of innovative Australian software (developed without patents), preferably earlier than 1992. The earlier the better. So far I have: - Trumpet Winsock (internet connection tool, 1993) - HotDog Pro (web page editor, 1995) - rsync (data syncronisation tool, 1996) - netfilter/iptables (firewall tools, 1998) What others can you think of? Cheers, Ben

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[Fwd: Richard Stallman Speaking at RMIT 16 Sept 2010]
by Ben Sturmfels 03 Sep '10

03 Sep '10

A second speech by Stallman, on Thu 16 September at 12:30pm, RMIT Storey Hall - Copyright vs. community in the age of computer networks. Ben -------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Don Gingrich <gingrich(a)rmit.edu.au> Reply-to: gingrich(a)rmit.edu.au To: map7777(a)gmail.com, pres(a)imug.com.au, auug-talk(a)auug.org.au, ben(a)softwarefreedom.com.au Subject: Richard Stallman Speaking at RMIT 16 Sept 2010 Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 16:10:02 +1000 Flyer is at: http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~gingrich/flyer-1.pdf It's 600K, so I did not attach it. The talk is at 12:30PM in Storey Hall and it's free (as in beer) Pizza and non-alcoholic drinks to follow Sponsors are: RMIT School of CS&IT IEEE-CS RMIT Student Chapter(RUSU Affiliated Club) SAGE-AU (System Administrator's Guild of Australia) Hope to see some(a lot) of you there. -Don -- Don Gingrich gingrich(a)rmit.edu.au School of CSIT, RMIT Melbourne, Au gingrich(a)acm.org don.gingrich(a)member.sage-au.org.au

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