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

FSA 21st of July — Planning for Software Freedom Day
by FSM Committee 19 Jul '22

19 Jul '22

Hi all, This month at Free Software Australia we are getting geared up for Software Freedom Day and organizing this year's event in September. We will start off the meeting with a retrospective of SFD events held in Australia in the past. We will then have a group discussion about the event and theme for this year, we will create a draft timeline for the day and organise committee meetings in the lead up to the event. We will also draft up some templates for reaching out to speakers and send out a call for speakers. This eventwill be primarily aimed at the organisers of Free Software Australia and community members interested in getting involved but all are welcome to come along and learn about how we run the event. Details: Thursday, 21st of July 2022, 7:00pm-8:30pm AEDT Join us at: https://venue.electronworkshop.com.au/r/freesoftwareaus Join the FSA mailing list to be notified of events: https://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software… 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

1 0

FSA 16th of June — Mobilizon - Event Managment software that respects your freedom
by FSM Committee 05 Jun '22

05 Jun '22

Hi Free Software Fans, This month at Free Software Australia we are continuing our adventures into the Fediverse by exploring Mobilizon. Mobilizon is an event organization and group management platform built on free and open source software and it also another great project backed by the Framasoft cooperative. We will have a presentation abut the history of Mobilizon and explore it's community and capabilities. It will be quite interesting to discuss how we can use it for the FSA group and we also the possibility of expanding the use of Mobilizon in Australia. While Mobilizon is probably of most interest to event organisers, this will be a non-technical event and all are welcome to come along and learn about another great platform from the Fediverse. Note the new starting time is a bit earlier our previous times. Details: - Thursday, 16th of June 2022, 7:00pm-8:30pm AEDT - Join us at: https://venue.electronworkshop.com.au/r/freesoftwareaus - Join the FSA mailing list to be notified of events: https://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software… - 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

1 0

FSA 19th of May — Brainstorming how Free Software Australia will broaden FLOSS adoption
by FSM Committee 05 May '22

05 May '22

Hi everyone, This month is very special as we’ll be looking more into details how Free Software Australia can reach its goals : broadening the adoption of FLOSS in Australia. It’s a brainstorming session for people interested in the future and development of FSA. We’ll discuss the mid and long term goals we want to reach as a group, the place of FSA in the Australian FLOSS society, its relationship to organisations, administrations and the general public, as well as what could be the different milestones of this journey. We’ll open the session with an inspirational presentation about Framasoft, who are the largest not-for-profit FLOSS organization worldwide. We will discuss its main actions and activities over the past decade and how it led to the creation of CHATONS — kittens in French — the Collective of Hosters Alternative, Transparent, Open, Neutral and Solidarity. We will also have a presentation about CHATONS to see what activities and initiatives they have started. The story of these two successful entities and their actions should provide us with plenty of grist for our mill. This will be a non-technical event and all are welcome to share their insights. Note the new starting time is a bit earlier than previous meetups. Details Thursday, 19th of May 2022, 7:00pm-8:30pm AEDT Join us at: https://venue.electronworkshop.com.au/r/freesoftwareaus Join the FSA mailing list to be notified of events: https://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software… 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

1 0

Guix Packaging meetup today
by Yuchen Pei 24 Apr '22

24 Apr '22

If you don't have a plan for Anzac Day yet, maybe join the guix packaging meetup: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2022-04/msg00175.html AIUI it is the first time the meetup takes place on an APAC friendly time (12:30pm AEST). Best, Yuchen -- PGP Key: 47F9 D050 1E11 8879 9040 4941 2126 7E93 EF86 DFD0 <https://ypei.org/assets/ypei-pubkey.txt>

1 0

FSA 21st Apr — PeerTube - Peer-to-peer video sharing for the people
by FSM Committee 04 Apr '22

04 Apr '22

Following on from last month's discussion and demonstration of Fed.Wiki we thought that we would explore another corner of the Fediverse,and so this month at Free Software Australia we'll be talking about Peertube. Along with discussing PeerTube itself we'll also explore how it benefits the Fediverse, the decentralised federation of social networks. Big words to speak about an alternative to Youtube that is growing in popularity in the Free/Libre and Open Source Software community, but PeerTube offers us the opportunity to take back control of our media sharing and consumption needs. We'll start the evening with a presentation about Peertube and the features of version 4.1 that was released almost a month ago. We'll have an overview of the new possibilities for instance administrators as well as for end users. After discussing how Peertube has a role to play in and beyond the Fediverse we'll open up the conversation for people to share video publishers, favorite channels and/or any videos they've come across and really liked in Peertube. This will be a non-technical event and all are welcome to share their favorite videos or just listen in. So join us for another discussion about the Fediverse at Free Software Australia. Details Thursday, 21st April 2022, 7:30pm-9:00pm AEDT Join us at: https://venue.electronworkshop.com.au/r/freesoftwareaus Join the FSA mailing list to be notified of events: https://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software… 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

1 0

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

6 5

FSA Mar 17th — Federation and the Fediverse
by FSM Committee 10 Mar '22

10 Mar '22

Hi everyone, This month at Free Software Australia we're going to talk about Federation and the Fediverse. What is Federation, how it's used and what licences are used in federated projects. We'll also look at how software licensing influences federations and what projects have adopted. The Fediverse is a great example of a global network of independent servers communicating through common protocols to provide social networking and other services. We'll start the evening with an introduction to the concept of federation and a discussion about how software licences impact federated projects. We will then take a look at some example federations in the Free Software world. We'll end the night with a demonstration of the Fediverse in action. This will be a non-technical event and all are welcome. So join us for a discussion about Federation at Free Software Australia this month. Details: Thursday, 17th March 2022, 7:30pm-9:00pm AEDT Join us at: https://venue.electronworkshop.com.au/r/freesoftwareaus Join the FSA mailing list to be notified of events: https://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software… 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

1 0

Follow-up on follow-up on Electronic Surveillance Reform (with URLs)
by Les Kitchen 08 Feb '22

08 Feb '22

Me again. Sorry for some confusion from wanting to get this out to you as quick as I could. 1. Now a couple of relevant URLs: - Electronic Surveillance Reform webpage (with link to page about submissions): + https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/la… - Discussion paper: + https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/reports-and-pubs/files/electronic-surveillan… A websearch on electronic surveillance reform australia showed up a few online articles, which might be worth reading — I haven't had time to do so yet myself. 2. My forwarding of the EFA mail got held up for moderation because it was over the 40kB size limit on this list, so it got sent out after my (smaller) followup, so was out of order and therefore confusing. — Smiles, Les.

1 0

Follow-up on Electronic Surveillance Reform
by Les Kitchen 07 Feb '22

07 Feb '22

I'll step back a little from my timing criticism. There's no publication date I can see on the Discussion Paper, but pdfinfo says it was created on 15-Nov-2021. And the webpage says "Last updated: 6 December 2021". So, if that's to be believed, the the request for submissions did have a better lead-time. Maybe it just took a while to get to EFA and then to me. And the Government is saying that the consultation process will continue in various forms through 2022, with an eye to legislating in 2023. Maybe there's some Government mailing list we can get on to get notifications about submissions... — Smiles, Les.

1 0

From EFA: Fwd: Help wanted: Have your say on Electronic Surveillance Reform
by Les Kitchen 07 Feb '22

07 Feb '22

Hi people, I got this on the EFA mailing, and I'm forwarding it because I think it'll also be of interest to us Free Software people. As usual, the Government doesn't give much lead time on these submissions, and I haven't helped by some slippage from various distractions. You can make your own individual submission, I guess, but if you're interested in contributing to some sort of joint submission, please get in touch. -- Smiles, Les. ----- Original message ----- From: Electronic Frontiers Australia <ma(a)efa.org.au> To: Les Kitchen <ljk+efa(a)ljk.id.au <mailto:ljk%2Befa@ljk.id.au>> Subject: Help wanted: Have your say on Electronic Surveillance Reform Date: Thursday, February 03, 2022 09:54 News from Electronic Frontiers Australia. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ No images? Click here <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-e-chltjiy-ikltditrr-k/> <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-r/> *We need your help.* Hi Les, For Electronic Frontiers Australia’s Electronic Surveillance Reform submission, we need your help. Here’s what is happening… *The TL;DR* The Electronic Surveillance Reform seeks to update and modernise Australia’s “current patchwork of laws” relating to how telecommunications and surveillance devices are used to access data, listen to conversations and track movements for “serious crime” combating purposes. This legislation reform will mark the most significant change to national security in over *four* decades. We have until *February 11 2022* to urge decision-makers to value our right to privacy in the tug-of-war between personal freedom and national security. *How this intersects with daily life* Digital communication has transformed the way we live, work and play. Australia’s governments have struggled to keep up, and you can’t regulate what you don’t understand. While we’ve asked for better privacy protections and warned against the dangers of big tech, governments have been focussed on turning themselves into Facebook with arrest powers. Instead of automatically figuring out what payments you’re entitled to, we get Robodebt. Instead of keeping our data secure, we get The Capability. Instead of stopping ad tech from spying on us everywhere, we get metadata retention. *Electronic Frontiers Australia believes….* We deserve a government that uses technology to make our lives better, not worse. We need to remind the government what the national interest really is: a better future for every Australian, not just the privileged few. We don’t want a dystopian future of authoritarian surveillance. We want everyone to have access to computers that make our lives easier and more fun. Divider line The Electronic Surveillance Reform legislation is still in its early days, so in order to confront current challenges for a better future, it's important we draw inspiration from the experiences and perspectives of many. We encourage you to write your own submission to the Electronic Surveillance Reform here <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-y/> but should you wish to contribute to EFA’s submission, get in touch and let us know what is important to you. CONTACT <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-j/> *EFA in the news* *Aussie forced to hand over phones and passcodes to ABF* The Australian Border Force forced software developer James to hand over his phone and passcode, upon returning from a holiday in Fiji. This is a blatant example of the failing privacy rights afforded to Australians. Read our two cents on the whole ordeal here <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-t/>. *Everything else* It was a summer of submissions for EFA. Over January, we had a jam-packed calendar writing submissions to the Privacy Act Review and Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2021. *Here’s a snapshot on what we’re fighting for: * *Privacy Act Review* In our Privacy Act Review submission, EFA spoke of privacy as a collective good, not just an individual benefit. While some technological features, such as location tracking, are certainly convenient, they continue to pose unintended risks to the wider society (such as collecting and weaponising of highly personal data). *Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2021* In our Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill submission, EFA criticised the proposed Bill for seemingly handing over power to a privileged few which will allow them to harass their critics into silence. The Bill appears to be a cynical attempt to use genuine and warranted community concerns about online abuse to help powerful elites eliminate negative attention and defend their reputations. While you’re reading this, we’re preparing submissions to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Bill 2022, Electronic Surveillance Reform and Copyright Amendment (Access Reform) Bill 2021. At EFA we seek to represent all Internet users concerned with online liberties and rights. So, your feedback and thoughts are valued. Email us at comms(a)efa.org.au and tell us: what fires you up? What is important to you? What is privacy worth to you? We look forward to hearing from you! Keep in touch via Facebook <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-i/> and Twitter <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-d/>. Thanks, The EFA Board Twitter <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-l-chltjiy-ikltditrr-h/> Share <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-fb-chltjiy-ikltditrr-u/> Tweet <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-tw-chltjiy-ikltditrr-o/> Share <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-li-chltjiy-ikltditrr-b/> Forward <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.forwardtomyfriend.com/i-ikltditrr-6BAC…> Electronic Frontiers Australia, Inc. GPO Box 1235, Canberra ACT 2601 You are receiving this email because you are on EFA's supporters list. Preferences <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.updatemyprofile.com/i-chltjiy-6BACBB6F…> | Unsubscribe <https://electronicfrontiersaustralia.cmail19.com/t/i-u-chltjiy-ikltditrr-x/>

1 0