Hi Folks, Welcome to the many people who signed up to this list at Richard Stallman's recent speeches or on Software Freedom Day. It's been great to meet so many people interested in free software over the last week or so. This list now has around 100 participants. The Melbourne Free Software Interest Group meets once a month to talk about free software related issues. Our website: http://www.softwarefreedom.com.au/free-software-melb/ The next gathering is Thur 21 Oct, 6:30-7:30pm at the State Library of Victoria. We'll arrange some discussion topics before then and let you know via this list. Feel free to suggest a topic too. We usually go with non-technical topics. You may also be interested in (and perhaps have already signed) our petition against software patents. We see patents as being ill-suited to computation and information processing. Rather than promoting innovation, the severely inhibit innovation. We've collected over 400 signatures on a petition to the House of Representatives. Please take a copy of the petition to work if you're in the software industry, as this is our best chance to change the system. End Software Patents Australia (campaign run by our group): http://endsoftpatents.org/australia Copies of the petition are available from this website. Also, please consider being, or asking your CEO/Director etc. to be an ambassador to our campaign. You'd be among good company: http://endsoftpatents.org/australia#toc2 Regards, Ben