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

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

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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

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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

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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.

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Supporting Restricted Boot statement
by Ben Sturmfels 14 Aug '12

14 Aug '12

Hi Folks, At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot: http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know. Otherwise I'll email the FSF this weekend. There was some concern about the strong phrase "We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom", since it is foreseeable that someone could one day buy one of these devices either unknowingly or because there was no other alternative. I certainly understand these concerns in wanting to maintain your personal integrity. In both these scenarios though, you wouldn't have purchased a Restricted Boot device by your own free choice, so I don't think anyone would hold your original statement against you. Cheers, Ben

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Next meeting: Thursday the 16th of August
by Alex Fraser 14 Aug '12

14 Aug '12

Hi everyone, The next Free Software Melbourne meeting will be held this Thursday the 16th of August at 6:00pm. The excellent discussion topics will include: - Eaterprises and the Open Food Web [1] - Free software business models, including the use of trademarks (e.g. restriction of the use of the word "Firefox") - Software Freedom Day [2]. Have a think about how you might like to be involved. As usual, we will meet for two hours in the training room at VPAC from 6pm. Building 91 [-1] 110 Victoria Street Carlton South We'll head out for dinner after the meeting. Where should we go? Also, would anyone like to volunteer to bring snacks? Please reply to the list :) See you then, Alex [1] http://www.eaterprises.com.au/ [2] http://softwarefreedomday.org/ [-1] http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/

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software freedom discussion on Byte Into It, 2012-08-01
by Ben Finney 08 Aug '12

08 Aug '12

Howdy all, On last week's Byte Into It on 3RRR, a good chunk of the time was devoted to a software freedom discussion: * Valve Software are working on a Steam client for Ubuntu; Ben won't be using it because DRM and non-free games are both to be avoided even for games. * Gabe Newell, Valve's founder, acknowledges their success is very much due to free and open platforms, and it is evident that Valve and Intel programmers collaborating understand the need for software freedom. We discuss the benefits and barriers around these issues. Download the audio at <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/webpage/byte-into-it-1-august-2012>. -- \ “The power of accurate observation is frequently called | `\ cynicism by those who don't have it.” —George Bernard Shaw | _o__) | Ben Finney

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Re: [free-software-melb] Public Transport
by Tim Hamilton 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

> # ?Adding Melbourne?s timetables to Google Transit will be very > # welcome, but otherwise, the government is treating public > # transport timetables as though they were a state secret,? > # said Mr Bowen. ?This information ultimately belongs to the > # public and should be freely available to anyone who has an > # interest in using such data.? > > Of course that rumoured addition never happened. Data did appear > very briefly on this VIC government website from 2010 (for the > "app my state" competition) but it didn't last: > There was an episode of Stilgherrian's Patch Monday podcast that looked at a similar temporary GPS data service and API for Sydney's buses. While not free software centric the episode does cover a few of the issues that the NSW transport authority had in providing such GPS data as an ongoing service. Those interested in the subject may like to have a listen. Cheers Tim Hamilton -- Vote NO in referenda.

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Public Transport
by Brian May 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

Potential topic for future discussion: Open access to public transport information. Vancouver can do it, why can't we? http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2012/07/translink-api-developer-camp-j… -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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Schools pay millions for material free on net
by Brian May 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/schools-pay-millions-fo… Not sure if they are talking about any site on the Internet, or maybe a set of sites covered under the license. -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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