what are we doing today, brain?

I was really proud to be involved in Senator Lundy’s Foundations of Open Summit and wanted to follow up with some more resources. There are videos from all talks available, Donna just did a great blog post about it as did Brianna from Wikipedia.

It is important to recognise the initiative and interest of Senator Kate Lundy in openness, and I greatly thank her for her efforts in getting openness on the political agenda.

The submissions from the day (which all participants were open to contribute) are also online which all contribute to the 2020 Summit discussions are awesome. Some tidbits:

The rise of the use of FOSS in the IT industry is without doubt a revolutionary force that will have a huge impact on the way that society interacts with computers into the future. The question that I would like addressed by the Australia 2020 summit is what can be done to ensure that Australia can benefit to the maximum degree possible from this change in the IT world.

Andrew Tridgell - Freedom Fighter

It is widely acknowledged that open access to Crown copyright material is important not only as an element of open democracy, but is “a key driver of social, cultural and economic development”. With the emergence of digital technologies that enable dissemination of government material at low cost, copyright law is now the last significant barrier to truly open government.

Jessica Coates - Creative Commons

Establish a national mechanism for discoverability of spatial data. Discoverability is necessary to effectively deliver spatial data when and where it is needed, especially in emergencies but increasingly for general use, and would unlock enormous opportunities for innovation and creativity with the use of these data.

David Hocking, CEO ASIBA

Australia’s infrastructure will face even more difficult challenges unless we take advantage of IPv6, particularly for water and energy. For instance, critical energy and resource conservation measures will require large increases in the scope of control systems. There is an urgent need for greater national IP capability to use in reducing our global footprint in this way, but the capacity of our
current IP system is nearly exhausted.

Tony Hill - Internet Society of Australia

Amend the Broadcast Act to clearly define the fair use of broadcast material nationally for all educational institutions. Amend the role of Screen Rights to measure/clear international sources.

Clarify that educational organisations have clearance to use any free- to-air live broadcast services and to share them nationally within the academic realm for purposes of study, archive and analysis. As part of their participation in Australian society, any broadcaster supplying free-to-air (unencrypted) services anywhere within our shores would be bound to allow national open access to their material for educational use.

George Bray

Physical Infra-structure and facilities be made available for the schools sector to improve network speeds and bandwidth traffic loads.

Kevin Karp, StudentNet

Open information and knowledge – allow information produced by the public sector to be easily accessible and freely available to citizens and businesses for reuse, including commercialisation with appropriate exceptions such as law enforcement, security and privacy. Placing government produced IP in the public domain, such as maps and data, can unlock public and private value - U.S. property appraisal data makes www.zillow.com a more innovative service for home buyers than www.suburbview.com

Patrick McCormick, The Nous Group

Open Source is no longer an emerging technology. It is here now. OSIA[2] believes it’s in Australia’s best interest to not only adopt Open Source software, but actively contribute to the Open Source economy of ideas and innovation. Each of the 10 areas of focus for the 2020 Summit depend on the new reality of a global interconnected information economy. Google and Wikipedia were built with Open Source Software because it was the only way it could be done. Open Source Software enables us to compete, connect and communicate.

Donna Benjamin - Director - Open Source Industry Australia

If the potentially major transformative benefits to be derived from “Open” both from the technological and digital knowledge perspectives are to be fully realised then it is essential to establish or identify internationally credible standards and specifications etc. which support the desired outcomes. The real value and potential of PSI is realised only through its extensive re-use. Open will overcome the present major impediments which prevent this full potential from being realised.

Neale Hooper - Principal Lawyer, Whole of Government Licensing Project, Office of Economic and Statistical Research, Queensland Treasury

The availability of high speed broadband across Australia has the potential to reduce many problems of resourcing and access to information faced in Australia due to our dispersed population. Students and researchers in remote areas could be provided with equal access to quality resources and texts that students in metropolitan centres have. If every student has access to a computer and high speed broadband, then all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, can have access to knowledge.

However, the ADA is concerned that overly complex and restrictive provisions in the Copyright Act 1968 continue to impede this potential. [...] In short, the ADA sees great potential in the digital education revolution, however, without significant copyright reform the ADA believes that students will have access to high speed broadband, but will not have the access to knowledge that should flow from this.
Laura Simes, Australian Digital Alliance

Laura Simes, Australian Digital Alliance

We have The Internet technology and we have the need. Many more activities need to be open and accessible, so that together we might advance the world instead of letting it slide into catastrophe.

Nick Sharp

Openness as a default position for ICT innovation and development provides many clear opportunities and advantages. Clear leadership and assistance is necessary from the Australian Government so individuals and organisations from all sectors can make informed decisions how openness can benefit them.

Me

Another news article about the event was in the Canberra Times, which had Jeff and I as the photo. Unexpected and a little odd

The Software Freedom International Board are currently judging the best SFD07 competition entries, and there is a great video about the Mt Gambier Software Freedom Day event which made it to WIN news in Australia. Nice one to Peter and the team there

The winners of the SFD07 competition will be announced in November.

Jeff and I are now just over halfway through our national “Meet the Open Source Industry” roadshow.

It has been an excellent turn out in most cities, with great numbers in Brisbane, Darwin and Adelaide. Canberra wasn’t as well attended as we accidentally planned the event the morning after the long weekend, and Sydney was a little low on numbers due to over-busy Sydney people being slackers.

Tomorrow is the Perth event, and then next week is Melbourne and Hobart, all of which are looking great. Soon, we’ll publish slides from the roadshow including the Open Source companies we introduced all around the country!

Today is the Open Source Western Australia Symposium, a collaboration between the Department of Industry and Resources and the Western Australian Supercomputer Program. I helped them with some of their speakers and WASP have also created a good relationship with the Perth Linux User Group, which is cool. WASP even ran the Perth Software Freedom Day event.

Today they are also announcing the first major research project into the use of FOSS in the Western Australian Government and market, based on the national AGIMO survey into the use of FOSS in Federal Government earlier this year. Waugh Partners is running the survey and assisting with the analysis, which we are pretty excited about.

So the short of it is there is a lot happening, and we need to blog more regularly (hint, hint Jeff)

Check out the Software Freedom Day map below for all the teams participating this year! Over 300 now and still registering! Rock on everyone! Software Freedom Day is one week away on September the 15th.

After some annoying issues, we finally have the balloons and stickers being shipped out to all the SFD teams. Check them out below I’m a little disappointed with the stickers, but all in all they look great! All teams will be getting about 20 of both. Next year we’ll be getting loads more!

Phil Harper has just released the SFD07 version of The Open CD, a great FOSS CD with software for Windows. Nice work Phil! SFD teams, or even just interested individuals can download and burn it for SFD or any other useful outreach event

The artwork (a nice black and white label) is included in the iso.

A few days ago I did a short 1 hour talk on FOSS for about 30 IT teachers in Sydney. It was a lot of fun and it reminded me how spending just a little time can have such a great effect! Finding people who are keen to hear about and who can really use FOSS really helps the chances of success in your message having an impact. Thus far the people I’ve found to be most open to hearing about FOSS and also the concepts of Software Freedom, Free Knowledge and a digital democracy are teachers, activists, people in the NGO/non-profit sector and students. Politicians are also good to chat to, and there is a growing community of FOSS saavy lawyers too.

Any opportunity you get to talk to these people can often have a great flow on effect to their spheres of influence. I’ve had many occasions where someone I spoke to comes back to me months or years later to help them take it further, or to assist in some great scheme they’ve created with others.

It has been flat out recently. Jeff and I are working hard and getting some great new work (more news to come!), FOSS is really taking off in Australia in Government, corporate and education, and apart from being so flat out, life is really good

Software Freedom Day is only 5 weeks away, and the website (which is hosted by Canonical) is down and has been for 2 days. Terrible timing! We expect it to be back up soon and it isn’t slowing down our shipment or other plans, but we’ve no way to let the teams know that yet.

I’ve just released a press release on SFD 2007. If people could follow the link and repost this as far and wide as they can (and translations very welcome!) that would be awesome! Below is a taste

September 15th marks Software Freedom Day, the world’s largest celebration and outreach effort about why transparent and sustainable technologies like Free & Open Source Software are so important. Community groups in more than 80 countries organise local activities and programs on Software Freedom Day to educate the wider public about free software: what it is, how it works and its relationship to human rights and sustainability. We already have over 140 teams around the world registered: join them in spreading the word! Registrations for Software Freedom Day teams that want to receive a free SFD team pack close in two weeks, so register now!

Full press release available here! Only two months away, time for everyone to get their skates on!

This is too cool. Chris Yeoh has created a virtual SFD 2007 tshirt based on the real ones in Second Life and people can pick them up online. Nice work Chris!

I love our community

I forgot to show off our new sticker design. Kudos to Phil Harper who does most of our artwork. Great work Phil!

Note: the real sticker artwork also has the date on it