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

MS Windows alternative
by Sven＠GMX 08 Apr '14

08 Apr '14

Though in an early stage it's a great idea with huge potential. http://www.reactos.org/ Sven, VK3SIX

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Data freedom for everyone: the Document Liberation Project
by Ben Finney 08 Apr '14

08 Apr '14

Howdy all, Last week, the Document Liberation Project announced their existence. ===== The Document Liberation Project is a home for the growing community of developers united to free users from vendor lock-in of content. […] What happens when not just an individual, but an entire organization such as a government is unable to read or access digital data from past years? […] Going forward, the obvious solution to this problem is to use true open standards that are duly and fully documented. But as things stand today, we must face a daunting reality: a significant amount of our legacy digital content is encoded in proprietary, undocumented formats. The Document Liberation Project was created in the hope that it would empower individuals, organizations, and governments to recover their data from proprietary formats and provide a mechanism to transition that data into open file formats, returning effective control over the content from computer companies to the actual authors. ===== The project <URL:http://www.documentliberation.org/> builds on the great success of the Document Foundation in making Open Document Format, and the LibreOffice tools for converting from legacy to open formats. How should Free Software Melbourne respond? -- \ “If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of | `\ danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, | _o__) Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney

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Embrace the Remix
by Alex Fraser 01 Apr '14

01 Apr '14

Hi all, This is a very interesting talk about how creativity builds on existing work. The speaker specifically calls out patents as a problem. And he gets a standing ovation at the end - so hopefully that means people who go to TED talks feel the same way :) http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix Cheers, Alex

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Summary of last Thursday's meet-up incl. committee election
by Ben Sturmfels 26 Mar '14

26 Mar '14

Hi Everyone, Great to see many of you last Thursday night! We elected a new committee (see below), saw my new laptop running Coreboot, phone running Replicant and discussed some of the recent happenings in the Free Software world like LibrePlanet, MediaGoblin and Mailpile. And I must say Big Mama's Korean food is consistently amazing. Next meet-up is Thursday 17 April at 6pm. See you there! Regards, Ben Election results ---------------- We held our election for the committee. Alex is stepping aside for now due to other commitments, so a big thanks to him for his work as President. The newly elected committee is: President: Adam Bolte Vice President: Andrew Spiers Secretary: Ben Sturmfels Treasurer: Ben Finney Our next election will be March 2015. Meet-up day of the week ----------------------- We also discussed the possibility of varying the meet-up day to allow others to attend. There wasn't any clearly better day though, so no action taken at the moment. We might consider having an occasional event on another day. Ideas welcome.

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Re: [free-software-melb] Free software discussion group this Thursday 20th March
by Adam Bolte 19 Mar '14

19 Mar '14

Greetings all, This coming Thursday (tomorrow night) is the next scheduled meet-up for our Free software discussion group, and it's a very important one. We have a few things lined up which we'd like to discuss. * Ben has a couple of new freedom-respecting gadgets for show and tell. * Items in recent news, such as: - GOG announcing DRM-free games for GNU/Linux (albeit proprietary) - LibrePlanet 2014 - MediaGoblin updates - "back doors" discovered by the Replicant project in Samsung phones. - Mailpile If there are other important/interesting topics you feel should be discussed, feel free to suggest them on the night. However, the main topic of the night is expected to be the committee elections. Hopefully we get a good showing of people interested in voting (although voting isn't compulsory). If anyone is interested, we'll go out to dinner somewhere nearby afterwards. Date: Thursday 20 March Time: 6-9pm Location: VPAC Head Office Training Room Level 1, Building 91, 110 Victoria Street A map is on the website: http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/ See you all there! Cheers, Adam

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FSM meeting 2014-02-18: dinner at Big Mama (Korean restaurant)
by Alex Fraser 23 Feb '14

23 Feb '14

Happy new year*, free software Melbournians! It's time for another meeting! I know we talked about having a BBQ, but I must admit that the required work to organise it has neglected. So! let's meet for a *tasty dinner* at Big Ma-Ma [1]. It will be just like old times. See you there at 6pm this Thursday. If you're coming, please let me know (just to my email) so I can tell the restaurant how many people are coming. If you decide to come at the last minute, that's cool; just show up. Next month we'll have a regular meeting again. We'll have an election for the next committee, so please consider nominating for a position. If you know you don't want to be on the committee, we also need someone to volunteer to be the returning officer (the person who counts the votes). Let me know if you're interested. See you on Thursday, Alex * Or Happy Chinese GNU year, if you prefer. [1] http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/1524991/restaurant/CBD/Big-Mama-Melbourne

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Re: [free-software-melb] FSM meeting 2014-02-18: dinner at Big Mama (Korean restaurant)
by Andrew Spiers 18 Feb '14

18 Feb '14

I apologise, I can't make Thursday 2014-02-20. Next month! Andrew.

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Public Transport Not Traffic: Tech Volunteers Needed
by Dan Peade 05 Feb '14

05 Feb '14

Hi Free Software Melbourne, My name is Dan Peade and I'm a Melbourne based web application developer. In addition to my day job, I am currently trying to assemble a volunteer tech team to help with execution of the online strategy for the Public Transport Not Traffic Campaign (http://www.publictransportnottraffic.org/) We're looking for technical professionals with skills in software development (any languages), sysadmin, javascript, CSS/HTML and graphic design, who would be willing to contribute even the smallest amount of time to helping make the campaign a success. We'll definitely be focused on using open source as much as we can. The initiative is sponsored by Common Code, my employer, so all volunteers will have access to our office (organic fruit and beer often available!) as well as the chance to meet and network with other technical professionals in the industry. If you think you might be interested in getting involved and helping out, or know anyone who would be, please get in touch! I'm on email here: dan.peade(a)gmail.com Thanks for reading, Dan ----------------- Email: dan.peade(a)gmail.com

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Fwd: [luv-announce] LUV Penguin Picnic, Saturday 18 January 2014
by Bianca Gibson 11 Jan '14

11 Jan '14

Hi everyone, LUV extends a warm invitation to members of Free Software Melbourne and Melbourne Linux Users Group to join us at the LUV Penguin Picnic. Start: Jan 18 2014 12:00 End: Jan 18 2014 18:00 Location: Yarra Bank Reserve, Hawthorn. Link: http://luv.asn.au/2014/01/18 The Linux Users of Victoria Annual Penguin Picnic will be held on Saturday, January 18, starting at 12 noon at the Yarra Bank Reserve, Hawthorn. This is just near the intersection of Bridge Road, Burwood Rd, and Creswick Street, tram route 48, stop 22, trams every 12 minutes. Roughly a 23 minute trip from Southern Cross. Google Maps: -37.819794, 145.015785 Melways : 2H H-J 6-7 LUV will be providing various items for the BBQ, e.g., plates, sausages to cater for carnivores, pouletvores, piscevores, and herbivores, bread, onions, and sauces, and fruit. Please bring salads and drinks. The Annual Penguin Picnic is a big social occasion for members of LUV, a great opportunity to see in the New Year and LUV's first meeting of the year. Also please note that linux.conf.au will be held in Perth this year 6-10 January, 2014. There'll be no LUV main meeting nor beginners' workshop in January. These will resume in February. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat for their help in obtaining the Buzzard Lecture Theatre venue and VPAC for hosting, and BENK Open Systems for their financial support of the Beginners Workshops Linux Users of Victoria Inc., is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C. -- Les Kitchen (LUV) ljk+luv at domain ljk.id.au via fastmail.fm _______________________________________________ luv-announce mailing list luv-announce(a)luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-announce

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Blender meeting this Thursday
by Alex Fraser 08 Dec '13

08 Dec '13

Hi all, You might be interested to know that there's a Blender [3] user group meeting this Thursday [1]. There will be some interesting talks: - Duncan Macneil will present his Artomotion website [2] - Andrew Buttery will summarize his time at the Blender Conference in Amsterdam The meeting will be held at the same time and place as our regular FSM meetings, but one week earlier. If you're curious about this fantastic piece of free software, please come along. Cheers, Alex [1] http://melbourneblender.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/melbourne-blender-society-… [2] http://artomotion.com/ [3] http://blender.org/

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