[Reply sent to whole FSM list, for the sake of people interested. But don't feel obliged to read fully if you're not so interested.] Hi Rik! On Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 08:52, Rik Tindall wrote:

Kia ora, hello, greetings from Ootautahi / Christchurch, Aotearoa-NZ, across the ditch!

Great to hear from you!

I am with the Sydenham GNU/Linux Users / Free Software Group here and have just realised you're our nearest relatives, literally :)

While my grandfather's line migrated here from near Launceston TAS 100-odd years ago, it is Software Freedom Day that unites us today.

Which is why I write.

You are https://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2021/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/Free%2...

We are https://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2021/NewZealand/Christchurch/FreeNix

Thanks for intro. I'm actually on the FSM committee (and I'm a not-very-active member of LUV and LA). Hear I'm speaking on my own behalf, but I think most of my opinions will be shared more-or-less with the rest of our community.

SFD21 went ok for us, we had very modest engagement under covid lockdown conditions. But the parallel with how FSM-LA has run SFD21 now stands out to us.

To summarise: FSM-LA used BigBlueButton and we used Jitsi; FSM-LA had rich content (well-organised speakers) and we had prepared none (while we tested the venue / hardware / software / people mix for teleconferencing). In hindsight, we could/should have dialed in to FSM-LA to observe / participate. Our belated apologies, thus.

Well, first, congratulations for running an SFD event! No apology needed. Remember, we've had years of experience running Melbourne's SFD event, back when it used to happen in the physical world. I haven't been involved all that time, but there is that continuity and collective memory in the community. And we also had the experience of running a smaller (afternoon only) online SFD event last year, as well as running our monthly FSM meetings online through the pandemic (same for the LUV folk). And there was quite a bit going on behind the scenes about various video-meeting setups. At one stage, we were planning to use Jitsi too, until we got the kind offer of BBB hosting from Electron Workshop, who are a great supporter of our community. And in hindsight, we too should've reached out more to other, neighboring groups like yours. We managed to link up with the SFD in Adelaide, and Kylie Willison took us on a virtual tour of their hackerspace during our lightning-talks session. But in the rush at the end to get the event to happen at all, lots of things that we could've done didn't get done — we have only the time and efforts of our relatively small number of volunteers. Only right now, when I was checking up some things on the global SFD website did I discover that there was also an event in nice warm Darwin (and a live one too). I guess they were late putting it up on the website.

The experience is spawning a vision for how to improve SFD year on year. We now have conversation started with Fred Muller of DFF/SFD along these lines. The emphasis - as for everyone suffering covid lockdowns lately - is optimised teleconferencing to achieve quality collective outcomes.

For sure, for sure, for sure. It really is a very different world. There is the very immediate restriction of lockdown, which forces us into online meetings. But then we've learnt that there are many plusses to being online. We've had bigger attendance at our monthly FSM meetings. For some of our members, a long trip into the City for a physical meeting, with a late-night trip back home, is a real obstacle. We had a few international attendees at our SFD. Really a lot to say about this. But, in short, the old adage of "think globally, act locally" needs some re-thinking, when "local" and "global" acquire new meanings.

So I'm writing to request/invite more online conversation please and offer this test link for anyone keen to meet and share notes so far please: https://meet.jit.si/SFD2021

Yeah, that'd be great. We local organizers, still have some jobs to do, like editing video recordings, and maybe catch our breaths. But chatting along these lines fairly soon would be good.

Excellent to be back in touch with Melbourne again, a place I have spent several happy weeks and months in the past decade, Epping area.

Yeah. Good to be in touch with you. I'm physically in North Melbourne, Wurundjeri land. Been here for over 30 years now.

Kia kaha - keep up the great work!

Yeah. I have say, looking at the recent news, there are a lot of things New Zealand does better than Australia at the moment. That's getting a bit off-topic for SFD, but not entirely unrelated. — Smiles, Les.