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Discussion group this Thurs 16 February - Encouraging women
by Ben Sturmfels 15 Feb '12

15 Feb '12

Hi Folks, The first Free Software Melbourne discussion group is on this Thursday 16 February. Look forward to seeing you there! -------------------------------------- Melbourne Free Software Interest Group -------------------------------------- Thursday 16 February, 6pm (please arrive 10 mins early) VPAC Head Office Training Room (see website) http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/ Agenda: 1. Encouraging women in the free software community (discussion) We'll be discussing how we can make our group, and the free software community in general a great experience for women. We're also just deciding on a single short article for pre-reading to help set the scene. Will let you know in the next few days. Regards, Ben

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Valentine's day: Show your love for free software
by Ben Finney 14 Feb '12

14 Feb '12

Howdy all, Free Software Foundation Europe is running a campaign for users to “Spread your love for Free Software” on Valentine's Day, 2012-02-14 (today as I write this in the early a.m.). Our online campaign aims at rising awareness to Free Software and the passionate, hard-working people behind it. Show them that you appreciate their work – it could make all the difference! Of course, there are lots of ways to declare one's love... Here are just some ideas about how you can go public and proclaim your love to Free Software. […] <URL:https://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/ilovefs.html> I'll note that Debian and derivatives use the ‘reportbug’ tool, which allows sending an appreciative note instead of a bug report: -k, --kudos Send appreciative email to the recorded maintainer address, rather than filing a bug report. Today, let's flood package maintainers with loving thanks for bringing us the free software we rely upon! -- \ “Nullius in verba” (“Take no-one's word for it”) —motto of the | `\ Royal Society, since 1663-06-30 | _o__) | Ben Finney

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Thursday dinner
by Brian May 14 Feb '12

14 Feb '12

Hello All, I thought I would join in here, yet another group, see what it is like. After all, it isn't like I have far to walk to get to the meetings :-) - I work at VPAC. I am a keen supporter of Free software (that is free as in Freedom). What time do meetings normally end? Dinner? Just asking, because if I can attend or not depends on my travel plans being worked out in advance. Ideally I need to be on the 7:17pm or 8:11pm Belgrave train to meet one of the last two buses for the day. Thanks -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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Excluding free software from patentability
by Brian May 14 Feb '12

14 Feb '12

Hello All, On the subject in the subject line - Excluding free software from patentability - it concerns me that there is a emphasis on software. As demonstrated at LCA2012 there seems to be increasing interest in open hardware, and I think hardware has exactly the same issues as software does regarding patents. -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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Thursday dinner
by Bianca Gibson 12 Feb '12

12 Feb '12

Hi, On Thursday can we go somewhere else for dinner after the meeting? I just got my wisdom teeth out, so can't eat a lot of things. We could go to the China Bar at Melbourne Central, that's very close and has food I can eat. Thanks, Bianca

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Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
by Patrick Elliott-Brennan 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

Bianca Gibson Ben Finney +1 On Jan 13, 2012 1:23 PM, < free-software-melb-request(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> wrote: > Send Free-software-melb mailing list submissions to > free-software-melb(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > > http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb > > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > free-software-melb-request(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > You can reach the person managing the list at > free-software-melb-owner(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Free-software-melb digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 2. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 3. Re: Encouraging women (Matt Giuca) > 4. encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 5. Re: encouraging women (Andrew Pam) > 6. Re: encouraging women (Bianca Gibson) > 7. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney) > 8. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:44:25 +1100 > From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson(a)gmail.com> > To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group > <free-software-melb(a)lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> > Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women > Message-ID: > <CAOZrvMPkk1fGzjjRV-4=DOd7wG0Q62KnB1XLOR=0UaKZ0qBH_g(a)mail.gmail.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > " I see complimenting any person on their achievement, without > referencing their sex or discriminating on that basis, to be one > improvement of many." > I agree there. To me, were a lot of groups tend to fall short is including > women or other minorities in the group without making us feel like the odd > one out. Very similar stuff can be said for age, someone I know that is > male and went to his first LUG at 15 felt like the odd one out, the next > youngest person was 21 and he found it daunting. > > If I'm complemented like the example I don't take it in a bad way, to me > it's just a complement. > > It's not rare for someone to comment around the same time that they meet > you about there not being many women in FOSS. If you are a young woman it > takes a pretty tough skin to show up and keep coming, partially due to > pressures completely external from the group. > > I'm not particularly good at judging how daunted people feel because I'm so > used to gaming culture. I've found FOSS groups more inclusive mainly > because I've received very little unwanted attention, whereas in gaming > culture I saw and sometimes was the target of much worse. > That could just be because in this case I'm significantly younger than most > people. I'll try to find out more at Adacamp. > > I think people need to bear in mind that when a woman takes an interest in > computing, at least in my experience, you have to put up with a lot of > stigma around your interest and being discluded from a young age. > Right from primary school I was discluded largely for my interest in > computing and games over things like sparkly gel pens. > High School was better because I attended a partially selective school, but > a girl I knew that was years younger than me ended up not going on the > school camp she wanted to (games camp) because of the stigma around going > to the nerd camp. For her it would have been hard to go completely against > her existing social group and she would have been teased by them. > > The point of that is, that women coming to things like this have probably > had to take a lot in their pursuit of that interest. Probably been actively > discouraged along the way, and may well still be getting actively > discouraged. The complementing stuff isn't about coddling women, it's about > being nice to people in general and taking specific care to be nice to > people that may feel excluded, or have forces pushing them away from the > group in order to make them more likely to stay. > > Bianca >

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Changes to mailing list settings to strip off/convert HTML mail
by Ben Sturmfels 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

Hi Folks, I noticed a few messages in the recent discussion were a bit hard to read because they were in HTML. I've just flicked a few switches in the mailing list settings that should strip off or convert the HTML parts. Let me know if you notice any problems as I'm not particularly experienced with Mailman. Ben

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Brisbane free software interest group
by Fraser Tweedale 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Hello all, At linux.conf.au last week, a BoF was held for people interested in forming a free software interest group in Brisbane. The response was good, and we agreed to meet on the aust-free-software list for further planning. Ben Sturmfels has kindly (and quickly) set up a free-software-bris list for us, so we will carry on organising there: free-software-bris(a)lists.softwarefreeom.com.au http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-bris I am very excited about seeing a free software group focused on advocacy, activism, education and *freedom* up and running in Brisbane. If you're in Brisbane or want to show your support and give advice/feedback, join the list and let's get to work! Cheers, Fraser

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Fwd: Autoreply from ljk+auto@csse.unimelb.edu.au re: Re: encoura
by Russell Coker 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Could Les please be unsubscribed until he fixes his mail server. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Autoreply from ljk+auto(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au re: Re: [free-software- melb] encoura Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012, 23:59:22 From: Les Kitchen <ljk(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au> To: russell(a)coker.com.au CC: ljk+auto(a)csse.unimelb.edu.au Dear Sender: Unfortunately, I receive large amounts of junk email, which takes excessive time to process manually, even just to delete it. Therefore I have installed an automatic mail filter to detect mail from addresses unknown to me, and to send this automatic reply. In order to reach me directly, you will need to include in your "Subject:" line the password that appears as the last line of this message. (Your "Subject:" line can include additional text as well, but must include the password in order to pass the mail filter.) This password will be valid for one week -- after that you may need to send a new message in order to receive a fresh password. If you reply to this message, do not include any of this message in the body of your reply, since my mail filter uses tests against the contents of this message to detect bounces from bogus mail addresses. (Mail-delivery systems normally include the entire bounced message in their notification of non-delivery.) Your original message to me will be stored for a short time (approximately one week), so you will probably not need to resend your original message -- just inform me of its existence, so I can retrieve it manually. I apologize for this inconvenience. If you have any difficulties contacting me (possibly through some unintended malfunction of my mail filter), then you can find non-electronic contact details on my Web page, whose http URL you can obtain by replacing commas with dots, and the minus sign with a tilde in the following line: www,csse,unimelb,edu,au/-ljk Yours sincerely, Les Kitchen. Password is on the next non-blank line: seK6zWuq ----------------------------------------- -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Next free software discussion group is 16 February - Encouraging women
by Ben Sturmfels 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

Hi Folks, Based on the recent mailing list discussion, I think we've found a great topic for the first Free Software Melbourne of 2012! -------------------------------------- Melbourne Free Software Interest Group -------------------------------------- Thursday 16 February, 6pm (please arrive 10 mins early) VPAC Head Office Training Room (see website) http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/ Agenda: 1. Encouraging women in the free software community (discussion) We had some useful discussion on diversity at Software Freedom Day this year, so would be great to expand upon this. I'm sure our members attending AdaCamp and linux.conf.au will have plenty of ideas flowing. Look forward to seeing you there! Regards, Ben

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