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

Chipping in for an Ouya console?
by Ben Sturmfels 30 Jun '13

30 Jun '13

Hi Folks, At the last meeting I mentioned that I might be interested in chipping in for one of the Ouya [1] consoles as a way to support the development of the project. A console with 4 controllers shipped to Australia would be $209 USD [2]. I see they've already raised $8M in pre-sales though, so perhaps there are other free software organisations that would benefit more from a donation right now. I'm thinking instead of buying a video card from Think Penguin [3]. Ben [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-cons… [2] http://www.ouya.tv/buyouya/ [3] https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-express-20-vi…

7 25

Arguments against Australian Laws proposed to reduce internet privacy
by Astrid Nova 29 Aug '12

29 Aug '12

Please have a look at and send on the article linked to below on an issue that could affect us all catastrophically. The article supplies a really good argument against what the government is mooting. By the way, as an editor, I would welcome articles about how the hardware in ipods etc is becoming more and more dependent on proprietary software and that this will also undermine internet expression as the proprietary soft and hardware shapes internet use and content. Comments welcome. Sheila N All Australians to be treated as terrorist suspects? <http://candobetter.net/node/3023> Posted August 20th, 2012 by admin <http://candobetter.net/user/1> This article contains James Sinnamon's submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security <http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representa…> (PJCIS) which wants to pass new laws to make all your emails and other internet transactions up to two years back accessible to the Australian Government. *"If Australian governments were serious about protecting Australians from terrorism, they would not have given transnational corporations with interests in every kind of industry including military total access to information about resources and infrastructure relating to location and operation of power, water supply and telecommunications, land-use planning, national statistics, scientific research institutions and banks. What is left, I ask, for terrorists?" (James Sinnamon)* Also published <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32416> on /Global Research/.

4 5

Attorney-General's review of technological protection measure exceptions (aka DRM)
by Ben Sturmfels 26 Aug '12

26 Aug '12

A friend pointed out this recent review on what we refer to as DRM (Digital Restrictions Management): http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultationsreformsandreviews/Pages/ReviewofTechnolog… The submission period has just closed, but I figured it might make interesting reading. If anyone is keen, it's quite possible they'd accept a late submission. You might be interested to read the Australian Digital Alliance's submission here: http://www.digital.org.au/our-work/submission/attorney-generals-review-tech… Regards, Ben

3 2

Blender meeting this Thursday
by Alex Fraser 26 Aug '12

26 Aug '12

Hi all, If you're interested in free software graphics, you might like to come to the next Blender meeting! We're having a couple of beginner-oriented talks, as well as a Google Summer of Code project summary from one student: http://melbourneblender.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/talks-installing-add-ons-a… It's at the same time and place as our FSM meetings, this Thursday night. For further announcements, please subscribe to the MBS blog. Cheers, Alex

1 0

SFD
by Sven＠GMX 22 Aug '12

22 Aug '12

It's on Saturday the 15th of September: http://softwarefreedomday.org/ S/o ask in regard to helping organize it. What's got to be done? Is there a venue yet? Sven

2 1

FSM- Games night
by Sven＠GMX 21 Aug '12

21 Aug '12

Hi, in regards to the games night mentioned at the last meeting, there is a live distro called lglive and comes in two flavours, one is DVD size and the other one CD size (suitable for children and older hardware). http://live.linux-gamers.net/?s=download I reckon using this also at FSD is gonna draw people's attention to the event even more. I was at "Games Masters" last weekend and it is pretty much just about playing games for an unjustified admission fee. More info can be provided. Regards, Sven

4 8

Michel Bauwens - info
by Kirsten Larsen 21 Aug '12

21 Aug '12

Hi again At the meeting this week, Serenity and I mentioned the upcoming visit to Australia of this chap who we think is awesome and will no doubt be of interest to many of you (it's not just free software, it's a revolution ;) Bio attached, links below and more info on Melbourne events, including potential speaker for Software Freedom Day . . *Links* My favourite quick and compelling summary - http://www.masternewmedia.org/peer-to-peer-politics-and-its-vision-for-the-…, especially for those who prefer video to reading More recent writing re. emerging peer-to-peer common-ist political economy is outlined in "The Coming of the Commons" published on Red Pepper - see article link - http://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-coming-of-the-commons/ Note also Michel's excellent synthesis report on the Collaborative Economy, see link - http://p2pfoundation.net/Synthetic_Overview_of_the_Collaborative_Economy *Melbourne Events *As well as participating in Gathering '12<http://gathering12.wegatherhere.net/>, Michel will be providing 3 public presentations and discussions in Melbourne in September 2012 on: Peer-to-Peer, Relationality and the Emergence of the Commons Wednesday 12 September 2012 Monday 17 September 2012 Tuesday18 September 2012 More info to follow We're also planning a 'working session' for people doing P2P food software projects in Melbourne, probably on September 29th. *Software Freedom Day? * It looks like he will be in Melbourne on Sat 15th September and isn't booked up for anything else. I have put in a tentative morning booking for Software Freedom day to put it on his radar (with a note that there is no money). I'll pass his email onto Alex (and/or whoever else is organising) so you can see if he might do it for free. If you're not interested just let me know and we'll remove the booking Cheers Kirsten

3 2

Team "Free Software Melbourne" at PyCon Australia
by Ben Sturmfels 20 Aug '12

20 Aug '12

Hi Folks, You'll be please to know that our Sydney correspondent Matt Giuca joined Ben Finney, Ben's friend Pete and I in the Australian Python conference's "codewars" programming event on Friday night. Our team, named "Free Software Melbourne", beat off around a dozen other teams (including many with freedom hating Macbooks hehe) to come runners up in the event. We almost took it out, but faltered in the final "creative" round. It was great to see several other Free Software Melbourners there too! Regards, Ben

7 6

Open Food Web links
by Kirsten Larsen 19 Aug '12

19 Aug '12

Hi people, Thanks for your interest in the Open Food Web project (those who were at the meeting the other night and others that I'm yet to meet :). For those of you that weren't there, basically we're developing something like e-bay for farmers that works closely with diverse distribution enterprises (community coops, box schemes etc) to make it easier to buy and get local food. We're committed to this being a free and open project, as we think there is a huge opportunity here if all the people working on it were collaborating! Can provide more information As discussed at the meeting, I have attached: - link to the Test Site - https://deep-sky-8243.herokuapp.com (free heroku hosting so bit slow and inclined to time out). This is all test data, feel free to put orders through etc (although obviously don't paypal or you'll pay me :) - If you want to look around the back-end, you can create an account and then email me and I'll give you admin access - FYI link to 'working' site - this is the one we're actually using (real farmers real food) but orders aren't open at the moment so don't put them in! - the source code is here https://github.com/andrewspinks/openfoodweb. (NB. License will be updated as soon as Andy is back from his holiday - most likely GNU GPL unless someone suggests a good reason why not. Re. discussion in the group, I think it is compatible with the license that Spree is distributed under - http://spreecommerce.com/resources/license? - "under the terms of the New BSD License", ) If you're interested in helping out, testing etc - that would be AWESOME! We have a trello board where we're racking up priority tasks, bugs etc (moving feast). Let me know if you're keen and I'll invite you so you have access. Cheers Kirsten

2 1

Software freedom discussion on Byte Into It, 2012-08-15
by Ben Finney 15 Aug '12

15 Aug '12

Howdy all, On last night's Byte Into It, we had whole lot of software freedom discussion, and Vanessa even gave a shout-out to Free Software Melbourne for tonight. * LibreOffice 3.6 released, and people can upgrade or stay with the previous release as it's still supported. * CyanogenMod 9 released as stable for dozens of smartphones and tablets. * A new TV-connected game console based on Android, the Ouya has been funded with over US$8mn and will be hackable from day one. * Adobe cautiously joins the free-software font movement with Source Sans Pro released under free software terms, treading ground blazed by foundries like Arkandis and Bitstream and The League of Moveable Type. * User rights online are championed by the Terms Of Service; Didn't Read and Data Protection announcements. * Codecademy adds Python courses to their online training. * Ben is excited leading up to this year's PyCon AU convention for Python programmers, in Hobart this weekend. * Tor Books, who earlier this year participated in the Day Against DRM by going completely DRM-free, is being targeted by a book publisher who wants authors to pressure Tor to DRM-encumber their books and bends the truth of DRM in the message. * We discuss how DRM is an anti-feature, that (unlike a feature) customers are willing to go to significant effort to avoid having in the product, as more people (in the USA) read e-books, more often than dead-tree books. * Music and book publishers release bundles of DRM-free, pay-what-you-want works. * Google announce they will make search rankings worse for sites targeted by takedown notices. * Monthly tech meetups in Melbourne: DrupalMel mentoring session, Melbourne Raspberry Jam, and Free Software Melbourne. At <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/webpage/byte-into-it-15-august-2012> you can download the audio for the show.

1 0