Hi Folks, Thanks for coming along to the discussion group on the 18 October! Notes are below. The next discussion group is on 15 November. Adam Bolte will be telling us about his explorations in running free software network services from home, including email, chat, microblogging, code hosting and media sharing. Ben Finney will be telling us how to avoid being tracked on the web. On 20 December we're having an evening BBQ, probably on the banks of the Yarra. We realise that it's a busy time for many, so this will be very casual. On 17 January we're holding a games night to follow-up from our highly successful event a little while back. I'm really looking forward to the next few months! Regards, Ben Notes from discussion group 18 October 2012 ------------------------------------------- - Ben demoed Media Goblin for hosting photos and videos and his use to host baby photos - Discussed the Media Goblin crowd-funding campaign - goals to build federated replacement for YouTube/Flick etc. - choice to use FSF infrastructure rather than Kickstarter - experiences with crowd-funding, fund-raising and grants - Ben's annual urge to free the E-tax income tax software - most present use an accountant - small number use E-tax or complete tax return on paper - standard free software approach of just rewriting? - could we do better than just clone E-tax? - our chances of connecting to ATO's network services to eg. submit return? - perhaps just printing return would be big step - contacting the ATO? it might save work for them - getting the API details under "freedom of information" - what is the future is for desktop E-tax? - ATO could well be building a web-app - ABC iView - ABC's cease and desist on Jeremy Visser's python-iview - Discussed upcoming meetings/events (see above) - December/January is busy but decided to hold events anyway