January 2012 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
by Patrick Elliott-Brennan 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

Bianca Gibson Ben Finney +1 On Jan 13, 2012 1:23 PM, < free-software-melb-request(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> wrote: > Send Free-software-melb mailing list submissions to > free-software-melb(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > > http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb > > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > free-software-melb-request(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > You can reach the person managing the list at > free-software-melb-owner(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Free-software-melb digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 2. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 3. Re: Encouraging women (Matt Giuca) > 4. encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 5. Re: encouraging women (Andrew Pam) > 6. Re: encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 7. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney) > 8. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:44:25 +1100 > From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson(a)gmail.com> > To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group > <free-software-melb(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> > Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women > Message-ID: > <CAOZrvMPkk1fGzjjRV-4=DOd7wG0Q62KnB1XLOR=0UaKZ0qBH_g(a)mail.gmail.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > " I see complimenting any person on their achievement, without > referencing their sex or discriminating on that basis, to be one > improvement of many." > I agree there. To me, were a lot of groups tend to fall short is including > women or other minorities in the group without making us feel like the odd > one out. Very similar stuff can be said for age, someone I know that is > male and went to his first LUG at 15 felt like the odd one out, the next > youngest person was 21 and he found it daunting. > > If I'm complemented like the example I don't take it in a bad way, to me > it's just a complement. > > It's not rare for someone to comment around the same time that they meet > you about there not being many women in FOSS. If you are a young woman it > takes a pretty tough skin to show up and keep coming, partially due to > pressures completely external from the group. > > I'm not particularly good at judging how daunted people feel because I'm so > used to gaming culture. I've found FOSS groups more inclusive mainly > because I've received very little unwanted attention, whereas in gaming > culture I saw and sometimes was the target of much worse. > That could just be because in this case I'm significantly younger than most > people. I'll try to find out more at Adacamp. > > I think people need to bear in mind that when a woman takes an interest in > computing, at least in my experience, you have to put up with a lot of > stigma around your interest and being discluded from a young age. > Right from primary school I was discluded largely for my interest in > computing and games over things like sparkly gel pens. > High School was better because I attended a partially selective school, but > a girl I knew that was years younger than me ended up not going on the > school camp she wanted to (games camp) because of the stigma around going > to the nerd camp. For her it would have been hard to go completely against > her existing social group and she would have been teased by them. > > The point of that is, that women coming to things like this have probably > had to take a lot in their pursuit of that interest. Probably been actively > discouraged along the way, and may well still be getting actively > discouraged. The complementing stuff isn't about coddling women, it's about > being nice to people in general and taking specific care to be nice to > people that may feel excluded, or have forces pushing them away from the > group in order to make them more likely to stay. > > Bianca >

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Changes to mailing list settings to strip off/convert HTML mail
by Ben Sturmfels 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

Hi Folks, I noticed a few messages in the recent discussion were a bit hard to read because they were in HTML. I've just flicked a few switches in the mailing list settings that should strip off or convert the HTML parts. Let me know if you notice any problems as I'm not particularly experienced with Mailman. Ben

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Brisbane free software interest group
by Fraser Tweedale 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Hello all, At linux.conf.au last week, a BoF was held for people interested in forming a free software interest group in Brisbane. The response was good, and we agreed to meet on the aust-free-software list for further planning. Ben Sturmfels has kindly (and quickly) set up a free-software-bris list for us, so we will carry on organising there: free-software-bris(a)lists.softwarefreeom.com.au http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-bris I am very excited about seeing a free software group focused on advocacy, activism, education and *freedom* up and running in Brisbane. If you're in Brisbane or want to show your support and give advice/feedback, join the list and let's get to work! Cheers, Fraser

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Fwd: Autoreply from ljk+auto@csse.unimelb.edu.au re: Re: encoura
by Russell Coker 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Could Les please be unsubscribed until he fixes his mail server. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Autoreply from ljk+auto(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au re: Re: [free-software- melb] encoura Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012, 23:59:22 From: Les Kitchen <ljk(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au> To: russell(a)coker.com.au CC: ljk+auto(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au Dear Sender: Unfortunately, I receive large amounts of junk email, which takes excessive time to process manually, even just to delete it. Therefore I have installed an automatic mail filter to detect mail from addresses unknown to me, and to send this automatic reply. In order to reach me directly, you will need to include in your "Subject:" line the password that appears as the last line of this message. (Your "Subject:" line can include additional text as well, but must include the password in order to pass the mail filter.) This password will be valid for one week -- after that you may need to send a new message in order to receive a fresh password. If you reply to this message, do not include any of this message in the body of your reply, since my mail filter uses tests against the contents of this message to detect bounces from bogus mail addresses. (Mail-delivery systems normally include the entire bounced message in their notification of non-delivery.) Your original message to me will be stored for a short time (approximately one week), so you will probably not need to resend your original message -- just inform me of its existence, so I can retrieve it manually. I apologize for this inconvenience. If you have any difficulties contacting me (possibly through some unintended malfunction of my mail filter), then you can find non-electronic contact details on my Web page, whose http URL you can obtain by replacing commas with dots, and the minus sign with a tilde in the following line: www,csse,unimelb,edu,au/-ljk Yours sincerely, Les Kitchen. Password is on the next non-blank line: seK6zWuq ----------------------------------------- -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Next free software discussion group is 16 February - Encouraging women
by Ben Sturmfels 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

Hi Folks, Based on the recent mailing list discussion, I think we've found a great topic for the first Free Software Melbourne of 2012! -------------------------------------- Melbourne Free Software Interest Group -------------------------------------- Thursday 16 February, 6pm (please arrive 10 mins early) VPAC Head Office Training Room (see website) http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/ Agenda: 1. Encouraging women in the free software community (discussion) We had some useful discussion on diversity at Software Freedom Day this year, so would be great to expand upon this. I'm sure our members attending AdaCamp and linux.conf.au will have plenty of ideas flowing. Look forward to seeing you there! Regards, Ben

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Cory Doctorow talk on 'Free Computing'
by Patrick Sunter 17 Jan '12

17 Jan '12

Hi all, this is a long talk, and slightly O/T, but quite interesting I think if you have a bit of reading/listening time this weekend now the cricket's finished ;) Doctorow makes some telling points about problems with trying to 'lock down' general purpose (often Linux-based) computing machines, and thus germane to the FOSS software world from a broader perspective. http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html -- Pat.

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Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
by Patrick Elliott-Brennan 15 Jan '12

15 Jan '12

Thanks, Russell. Great links and good post. Regards, Patrick (sent from Linux conf au) > > http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/08/terrible-bargain-we-have- > regretfully.html > > Could ALL the men on this list please read the above blog post, particularly > paragraph 11 onwards. If you start reading the post and think for a moment > that it doesn't mean you then IT REALLY MEANS YOU. > > There are some men who have been saying sensible things which indicate that > they have actually considered the issues. They should read that post too. > It's something that we should all read periodically to keep things in the > correct perspective. > > http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents > > The above URL has already been cited. I think that if this discussion > continues in the current form then it will justify another entry there. > > -- > My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ > My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au

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Re: [free-software-melb] encouraging women
by Russell Coker 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012, Andrew Pam <xanni(a)sericyb.com.au> wrote: > Changing the subject won't start a new thread of discussion; the > "In-Reply-To" headers preserve the thread regardless of the "Subject" > headers of the messages. It's preferable to use the "compose new email > to this address" feature of your email client instead of "reply". https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/wiki/ K9 mail (the best MUA I've found for Android) has poor support for doing that. There is no direct way of doing it and it seems impossible to create such a new message without first adding the address in question to your contacts. Copy/paste is impractical when you have a tiny screen and even tinier text. If someone wants to start writing free software for Android then this could be a good feature to add... PS It would be nice if Mailman supported users who have multiple email addresses, taking russell+lists to be the same as russell would be convenient for me. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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War on the Internet: it doesn't have to be like this
by Ben Finney 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

Howdy all, Here's an event that is likely of interest to free-software supporters. When: Saturday 21st January 2012, 3.00 - 5.00pm Where: Trades Hall, Corner Lygon & Victoria Streets, Carlton The response of governments and corporations to Wikileaks, Anonymous, the occupy movement and the Arab Spring has been defensive and warlike. The internet and social media were declared tools of agitation. Behaviour that sought peaceful democratic reform was characterised as treasonous or even terrorist. Government asserted the right to flick the internet off-switch, and law enforcement, Internet Service Providers, telcos and the judiciary were enlisted to harass activists via subpoenas, takedown notices, mercenary denial of service attacks, and direct denial of services based on unexplained breaches of hard to find user licences. It also involved the ritual harassment of activists in the far corners of international airports, dark places reserved for unlawful arrivals and criminal suspects. It doesn't have to be like this. Come and hear from an activist, journalist, researcher and legislator challenging the gatekeepers and proposing alternatives to the weaponisation of cyberspace. <URL:http://www.efa.org.au/2012/01/08/war-on-the-internet/> -- \ “I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then | `\ I thought ‘Why should I? He never reads any of mine.’” —Spike | _o__) Milligan | Ben Finney

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encouraging women
by Bianca Gibson 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

No meaning to me replying to that talk, I just searched to find the email address, hit reply and forgot to change the the subject.

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