August 2021 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Mastodon
by Ben Sturmfels 13 Mar '22

13 Mar '22

Hi Folks, I'm getting into this Mastodon thing, but it'd be much more interesting if I could follow a few more people I know. Anyone care to reply with their Mastodon address? I'm @bensturmfels@mastodon.social. Cheers! Ben

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Licence controversies: Elastic Search and Audacity, Thursday, 19th August 2021
by FSM Committee 19 Aug '21

19 Aug '21

Licence controversies: Elastic Search and Audacity While we might have spent a lot of 2021 not doing much it's certainly been an exciting time for software licensing. Recently some big Free and Open Source projects have made licensing and related changes that could affect their communities for a long time to come and we're going to be talking about them this month at Free Software Melbourne. After being acquired by Muse Group the GPL2-licensed Audacity has added a controversial Contributor License Agreement, introduced controversial features and made controversial changes to their privacy agreement. There is also some uncertainty about whether GPLv3 will be the next licence for Audacity. Another well known (formerly Free and Open Source) project Elastic Search has recently adopted the SSPL which, while based on the GPLv3, is not recognised by the OSI or the FSF as a Free and Open licence. Would the AGPL have been a better solution, or is this an indicator of SSPLs success? We'll present the news and reports about these issues, explore what impact this might have on us and look at alternatives and forks that are currently available. We will also have a discussion about what this means for these projects and their communities. This will be a non technical event and all are welcome to join in the conversation or just listen in. We look forward to seeing you all online! Details Thursday, 19th August 2021, 7:30pm-9:00pm Join us at: https://meet.glasswings.com.au/b/fsm-iv6-tce-vpu Meeting Tips * Be sure to test your audio on the way in. Your mic will be muted when you join the room. * Headsets are recommended to reduce any feedback. Code of Conduct: https://freesoftware.org.au/code-of-conduct

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EmacsConf APAC version
by Yuchen Pei 09 Aug '21

09 Aug '21

Hello everyone, EmacsConf is the conference about the joy of Emacs, Emacs Lisp, and memorising key bindings. The 2021 Edition will take place 27th-28th November online, and the CFP is open until 30th September (<https://emacsconf.org/2021/cfp/>). If you have never heard of Emacs, it is an extensible self-documenting Lisp environment disguised as a text editor. You can use it as vi (<https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil>), to take notes and plan your days (<https://orgmode.org/>), send emails (like this one), browse the web (<https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/eww>), as a window manager (<https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EXWM>), or even unleash the power of butterflies (<https://xkcd.com/378/>). EmacsConf is a conference for people of all levels and backgrounds. In my view the 2020 Edition was one of the best organised online conferences. You can find more about the conference by checking out artefacts from the 2019 (<https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule/>) and 2020 (<https://emacsconf.org/2020/schedule/>) editions. As is often the case, the timing of the 2021 conference is unfavourable to us poor Antipodeans (9am-5pm American Eastern Standard time on either day, which translates to 1am-9am Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time), and to a lesser extent the rest of the APAC region. But worry not, as the timing also provides a perfect opportunity for us to take over once they are done, at least on Sunday 28th November. The EmacsConf organisers are indeed considering an "off-hour" session taking place during Australian day time on 28th November, and I am working with them on this. To that end, I would like to understand the level of interest. Are you interested in giving a talk at EmacsConf? Would you like the Saturday talks restreamed during day time on Sunday? If there's restreaming, would you like the possibility of speakers being present for live Q&As? Please let me know (hi(a)ypei.me) If you would like to give a talk, feel free to also submit your propsal directly (<https://emacsconf.org/2021/submit/>). Best, Yuchen -- PGP Key: 47F9 D050 1E11 8879 9040 4941 2126 7E93 EF86 DFD0

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Software Freedom Day and the 30th birthday of GNU/Linux
by FSM Committee 06 Aug '21

06 Aug '21

Hi everyone, This year on September the 18th we're going to be celebrating the 18th Software Freedom Day held in Melbourne. This year is also the 30th birthday of GNU/Linux. We are reaching out for anyone from the community interested in presenting. It could be a full presentation, a small lightning style talk or a demo of your favourite FLOSS software. You could talk about your first contribution to Open Source (or your latest one). Explain the 4 Freedoms and their importance to Free Software. You could also discuss the use of Free and Open Source software in your industry (although maybe let's keep the grim stories for regular meetings :p). Or you have another burning topic you think will fit with the event, let us know. If you're interested in getting involved please reply with your ideas. ~~ Ben

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