November 2013 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

TPP IP chapter leak
by Bianca Gibson 30 Nov '13

30 Nov '13

The Trans Pacific Partnership IP chapter was leaked a while ago, EFA article below: https://www.efa.org.au/2013/11/14/tpp-no-fair-no-share/ I haven't read the leak, but it sounds very problematic from the analysis I've read. Choice's petition has over 10,000 sigs, there is a link in the EFA article to it. Cheers, Bianca

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Fwd: [Chat] LCA2014 Official Announcement
by Bianca Gibson 28 Nov '13

28 Nov '13

Lots of linux.conf.au 2014 details below. I'm really looking forward to it, I hope to see lots of you there. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paul Del Fante <pdelfante(a)gmail.com> LCA2014 Official Announcement Announcing linux.conf.au 2014 Overview In January 2014, Perth, Western Australia will be playing host to the continents premier open source conference – linux.conf.au. linux.conf.au draws attendees and speakers worldwide from all spheres of open source, geeks, hackers, professionals, hobbyists and business partners. Conference Format The linux.conf.au conference runs over 5 days from Monday 6th January to Friday 10th January. Conference tickets are available at Professional, Hobbyist and Student levels with associated pricing and perks. Over the first two days we host a series of miniconfs, small single day conferences covering particular topics. Intended as an incubator for related technologies and interests that could eventually hold their own conferences. The miniconfs are managed and run as independent conferences with their own call for papers and management committees. The remaining three days feature a packed conference schedule, in 2014 we will be running presentations over 5 simultaneous tracks. Each track will feature four 45 minute presentations per day. The full programme is available on our website at http://linux.conf.au/programme/schedule. On most days before the main sessions, the conference will open with a keynote presentation. The keynotes tend to follow a less technical approach and provide commentary and insight on broad global trends and open source challenges. Birds of a Feather Sessions Run outside the scope of the formal presentation agenda, linux.conf.au encourages delegates to arrange “Birds of a Feather” - BOF - sessions. These draw together people with a specific area of interest and are run after hours. Typical BOF sessions range from Astronomy, Video capture, Running, Cycling, Hacking and many others. The BOF sessions are a great opportunity to meet and socialise with like minded people during the conference. Video and Streaming All presentations made at linux.conf.au will be recorded and the completed videos made available for download and online viewing. This year we will be attempting to provide a live stream of the proceedings too. Social Programme The linux.conf.au tries to be as accessible to participants as possible, we generally run a partners programme to provide some interest and entertainment to partners of attendees who are not interested in participating. We also arrange a creche facility to care for children while delegates are attending presentations. We also run several semi-formal networking sessions including a speakers dinner on Tuesday, a professional delegates networking function on the Thursday and a penguin dinner open to all delegates on the Wednesday. In addition to the above, various organisations will be hosting social gatherings during the conference and on free evenings. Keynotes At present, we've announced two keynote presenters, with a third still being determined. The confirmed keynote presenters so far are: Jonathon Oxer Jon will be presenting an overview of the latest developments to the ArduSat project as part of his keynote presentation during linux.conf.au 2014 in Perth, Western Australia. Jon has been hacking on both hardware and software since he was a little tacker. Most recently he's been focusing more on the Open Hardware side, co-founding Freetronics as a direct result of organising the first Arduino Miniconf at LCA2010. His books include "Ubuntu Hacks" and "Practical Arduino". Jon has been variously referred to as Australia's geekiest man and as a cyborg-in-progress. As part of his “SuperHouse” home automation series, Jon has taken keyless entry to an all new level by embedding an RFID tag into his arm using a vet's chipping tool. Recently he has been working on ArduSat, a satellite that aims to give hobbyists, students and space enthusiasts an opportunity to design and run their own experiments in space. By choosing a standardised platform based on the hugely popular Arduino hardware design, ArduSat allows anyone to develop and prototype experiments at home using readily accessible parts and all based on a simple open source software environment. Kate Chapman Kate Chapman is the Executive Director of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is an initiative of OpenStreetMap to apply the principles of open source and open data sharing towards humanitarian response and economic development. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team believes that freely available, up-to-date geographic data can be vital in responding to a disaster. They help communities and responders to utilize the OpenStreetMap data, and encourage them to contribute and update the data. Over the past two years Kate has been primarily based in Indonesia where she has lead the AusAID funded HOT program. The program Scenario Development for Contingency Planning (SD4CP) is a joint initiative of the Indonesian and Australian governments through BNPB (Indonesian Disaster Management Agency) and AusAID that aims to teach disaster mangers how to develop realistic impact scenario for contingency planning. HOT teaches disaster mangers to spatially analysis the combination of scientific hazard model outputs with community knowledge through the open-source software InaSAFE (Indonesia Scenario Assessment For Emergencies). OpenStreetMap is one of the keys elements of this procedure, as it allows the disaster mangers to draw on community knowledge to identify important buildings such as schools and hospitals that potentially be impacted during a disaster. We're really pleased to have Kate coming to talk with us as her personal efforts and her teams work represents an organization that we can really hold up as a shining example of how the open source model truly does work. Miniconfs Each year we try to select a range of topics for our focused mini conferences. This year's miniconf sessions are listed below. Monday: Systems Administration Developer, Testing, Release and Continuous integration Automation Open Government Open Radio Tuesday: OpenStack Linux Kernel Haecksen Astronomy Multimedia and Music Arduino Conference The main conference runs over the remaining three days, and is a full programme of five streams of deep technical presentations and tutorials covering a wide range of topics. To view the full schedule please visit our website at http://linux.conf.au/programme/schedule. Conference Location linux.conf.au will be held in Perth, Western Australia this year. Perth is Australia's most remote capital city, but is also where most of the action is happening. Perth is experiencing an huge amount of growth, driven by the mining boom, but encompassing all aspects of city life. Perth now has a vibrant cultural scene, and our outdoor lifestyle and coastal location is the envy of the world. The last linux.conf.au held in Perth was ten years ago in 2003, so we are really looking forward to hosting the conference again. The linux.conf.au conference is traditionally held on a university campus, utilising the lecture rooms and accommodation facilities they have to offer – 2014 is no exception, and we will be hosting the conference at the University of Western Australia (UWA). The UWA Crawley Campus is situated a short distance from the Perth CBD and adjacent to the magnificent Swan river and Kings Park public space. Accomodation Accommodation will be at the university colleges of St George's http://www.stgeorgescollege.com.au/ and Trinity http://www.trinity.uwa.edu.au/ for full details of the accomodation please refer to our wiki article https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Campus_accommodation. The accomodation is ideally situated just across the road from the conference and registration areas. Volunteering The conference is run as a voluntary effort. We rely on people to volunteer their time to organise and run the conference. During the conference we are always keen to welcome volunteers to come on board and help with the running of the conference. Interested people can sign up to volunteer at https://lca2014.linux.org.au/volunteer/new. We offer free registration for people who are willing to volunteer a significant portion of their time to the conference. Proposed Focus To provide a degree of consistency linux.conf.au normally selects a general focus to help guide the presenters in topic selection. For 2014 our focus is on “linux on the frontier and deep technical content”. With the scope of Linux broadening at such a rapid pace this provides a broad scope for speakers topics and allows topics to be drawn from just about any sphere of computing, be it cybernetics, mobile operating systems, astronomy, big data, gaming etc. Contacts Please send all correspondence to the LCA2014 Organising Team team(a)lists.lca2014.linux.org.au Our website is accessible from lca2014.linux.org.au #lca2014 _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list Chat(a)lists.lca2014.linux.org.au http://lists.lca2014.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/chat_lists.lca2014.linux…

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Software freedom discussion on Byte Into It, 2013-11-20
by Ben Finney 26 Nov '13

26 Nov '13

Howdy all, On last week's Byte Into It on 3RRR radio, we discussed the following topics of relevance to software freedom: * There may be hope for Net Neutrality yet, with the United States Congress considering a Bill to prevent ISPs from blocking, restricting, or favouring any particular online video providers. * Happy Birthday to the Fedora Project free-software operating system, which is ten years old, and is about to release Version 20. * Infromation continues to trickle from the negiotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which points to a bleak future for consumers. * BitCoins continue to develop popularity - on November 13 a BitCoin would set you back $400, and by November 20, that same BitCoin was worth $555.20. * Dr Rikky Muller of Cortera Neurotechnologies joins the team to discuss her fascinating work designing devices aimed at treating incurable neurological conditions. On a similar topic, Karen Sandler of GNOME has identified the need for software on medical devices to be free. * Free Software Melbourne's Games Night, November 21, Level 1, RMIT Building 91, 110 Victoria St, Carlton. * Don't forget Digital Society featuring Cory Doctorow at the State Library of Victoria, November 22-25. At <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/byte-into-it-20-november-2013> you can download a low-resolution copy of the episode, or subscribers to 3RRR can get high-resolution audio of the show. -- \ “My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves | `\ to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my | _o__) aspirations.“ —Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860-09-23 | Ben Finney

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Free Software Melbourne Gaming Event - Thur 21st Nov
by Adam Bolte 21 Nov '13

21 Nov '13

Greetings all, As you may be aware, we have a very special Free Software Melbourne meet-up scheduled for Thursday night. It's time to get your game face on! :) We're going to be playing a variety of free software games, including old favourites such as OpenArena, Teeworlds and even Super Tux Kart. Additionally, we'll be putting the projector to good use and taking Alex's new Cargo game for a spin. I assure you, it's quite entertaining. So if you have a laptop or netbook, make sure to bring it (and perhaps your mouse and power adapter too). If you have a USB game-pad you'd like to try any of the games with, make sure you bring that along as well. Even PS2 and Xbox game-pads can generally work quite easily (so long as you have a USB adapter). Dinner sponsorship is yet to be confirmed, however we are planning to order pizzas. If you're interested and have any special dietary requirements, please let Alex know in advance to make sure we have you covered. If you don't already have the games, installer files or packages will be provided on the night (as well as the source code, naturally)! The meet-up will be held at our usual VPAC time and location: Date: Thursday 21st November Time: 6-9pm Location: VPAC Head Office Training Room Level 1, Building 91, 110 Victoria Street However if you can't make the location, fear not! This time we're prepared to try hosting external dedicated servers for the night so people that live too far away can still join in the fun. If this sounds like something you want to see, please post to the free-software-melb list to express interest. For everyone else, see you Thursday! Cheers, Adam

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LG Australia investigates smart TV spy claims
by Brian May 21 Nov '13

21 Nov '13

http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/security-it/lg-australia-investigates-smart… http://doctorbeet.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/lg-smart-tvs-logging-usb-filename… -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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Fwd: [Linux-aus] FLOSS 2013 Survey you may be interested in
by Bianca Gibson 19 Nov '13

19 Nov '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi everyone, You may be interested in the survey below The FLOSS 2013 survey In 2002, the first FLOSS survey was launched. With over 2500 participants, it was the first large survey of Free/Libre/Open Source developers around the world. This survey had major impact in the community, academia and politics. 10 years later we would like to replicate the survey in order to see how the community has changed. http://t.co/1df8p71n2A <end forwarded message> Cheers, Bianca

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Fwd: [Linux-aus] Linux Australia Travel Grants
by Bianca Gibson 13 Nov '13

13 Nov '13

"Linux Australia and linux.conf.au 2014 are pleased to announce the 2014 travel grants programme. linux.conf.au strives to be a conference that is open and accessible to the whole open source community. We realise however that, no matter how we arrange the pricing for the conference, it will still be unaffordable for some members of the community. These grants aim to reduce the financial barriers to attending linux.conf.au2014, by subsidising the registration and travel costs of contributors to the community who would otherwise have difficulty affording the cost of attending the conference. Please go to http://travelgrants.linux.org.au/ to read more and/or put in an application. Applications are due by 15 November, and winners will be informed by 1 December. LCA Travel Grants Organisers Michael Still and Kylie Willison"

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Fwd: [Linux-aus] Three days left: Nominate a community contributor for the 2014 Rusty Wrench
by Bianca Gibson 12 Nov '13

12 Nov '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mary Gardiner <mary(a)puzzling.org> Nominations for the Linux Australia 2014 Rusty Wrench award are open for just THREE MORE DAYS! This year, thanks to Linux Australia Council, the Rusty Wrench winner will receive admission to linux.conf.au 2014 in Perth and travel costs from Australian or New Zealand locations. Who is giving to the Free and Open Source Software community? Creating it, making us stronger and representing our interests? This is your chance to acknowledge them at http://linux.org.au/vote/rusty-wrench-nomination-form. ** Timeline ** Nominations close THIS Friday November 15, 2013 Winner announced at linux.conf.conf.au 2014 (6th to 10th January) ** More information ** See http://linux.org.au/projects/awards for the history of the award and http://linux.org.au/rusty-wrench-selection-infomation for more information about what community contributions the Rusty Wrench award recognises! Make your nomination at http://linux.org.au/vote/rusty-wrench-nomination-form Existing 2014 nominations can be found at http://linux.org.au/vote/rusty-wrench-nomination-form/nominations/2014 We *encourage* duplicate nominations of the same people, because they can add more information. -Mary Gardiner (with Rusty Russell, Pia Waugh, Kimberlee Weatherall, Donna Benjamin) _______________________________________________ linux-aus mailing list linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/linux-aus

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OWOOT Melbourne picnic
by Bianca Gibson 11 Nov '13

11 Nov '13

Hi all, There is an Oceania Women Of Open Technology (OWOOT) picnic coming up in December. Partners and children welcome. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi all, <snip> It's going to be at 1pm Saturday 14th of December at the western lawn in the botanic gardens. RSVP, dietary requirements and information in the following pad: http://piratepad.net/HsR3wzMLDH Cheers, Bianca

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Can you help JOY 94.9 FM on Sunday 1st December?
by Kathy Reid 01 Nov '13

01 Nov '13

Hi everyone, Hope this note finds you well, I'm posting this on behalf of Mr Avi Miller, a long time advocate of open source. Avi spends much of his free time assisting JOY 94.9 in Melbourne, and we'd like to make you aware of an event they are running in early December and seek support from the open source community. If you can assist, please respond back to Avi as below. Thanks for your consideration, Kathy ---- JOY 94.9 is Australia's only gay and lesbian community radio station and one of only 5 such radio stations in the world. We are also entirely volunteer-run, which makes us unique. On World AIDS Day 2013 on December 1st, JOY 94.9 celebrates its 20th birthday. To celebrate this remarkable achievement, JOY is planning to broadcast 24 hours of interactive video content live to air and the Internet starting at 6am AEDT on Sunday 1st December and ending at 6am AEDT Monday 2nd December. Speakers will be sourced from around the world and will interact with presenters and moderators based in the JOY 94.9 studios. In order to achieve this, we're looking for (more than) a few good volunteers who are tech-savvy and GLBTIQ-friendly to assist before and during the broadcast to ensure the success of the event. We need anyone with a few hours to spare who can monitor the camera, the Internet connection, the Google Hangout connection and generally troubleshoot what is likely to be loaned Windows or Mac laptops for the event. Our requirements match those of the Google Hangouts on Air/YouTube combination: the ability to have two (or more) participants interacting via video and audio and then being broadcast to a 1-to-many video delivery system to viewers around the world. If you know of an alternative to the Google Hangout/YouTube combination, I'm all ears for that too! We need this to run for 24 hours, we'll have at least 24 (if not more) speakers, many from around the world, many from areas with limited Internet bandwidth. Our fall-back is to use normal telephone lines if the speaker is unable to connect to the Internet from their location. If you are willing and able to participate in any way, either with pre-planning or on-the-day assistance, please contact Avi Miller, the JOY 94.9 Online Development Manager atavim(a)joy.org.au with your skills and availability. If you are able to loan A/V equipment or working F/OSS-based laptops that can connect and broadcast video and audio to Google Hangouts, that would be appreciated too. We have no bias towards technology except that which can be begged, borrowed or bought (if absolutely necessary).

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