Well our press release was successful, has been published by a couple of people, and more to come. Many positive responses from the community, and most importantly, people are ready to act. We are putting together a FAQ sheet of how people can do their bit about the FTA issue. Anyone concerned can certainly contact their local parliament member, or write a letter, or go to the appropriate link when I link it from my blog 🙂
Going to have a meeting tomorrow with NOIE, AUUG, OSIA, and ACS about communication strategies and the like. I’m so glad that it is starting to come together. I love our Open Source landscape, all the groups with their own characters and ideas, all the open communication and sharing of ideas. Some people think we should have _one_ group to do everything and more efficiently allocate resources and such. My thoughts are that many groups grew from a need, a need they couldn’t fulfill from existing groups. Having a wide range of choice full of interesting characters and different points of view is the Open Source way, is the Australian way 🙂 If one group saying they are the _ONE_ was created tomorrow, 10 more would spring up simply in protest if nothing else. Getting the groups talking together and being able to define their places in the landscape is important, however multiple groups can only be a good thing. It ‘keeps the bastards honest’ if you don’t mind my Australian 🙂 I tried to define the Open Source landscape in a way to explain to outsiders. I think the Opensource.org.au site as a portal will certainly simplify things. There is certainly a need for an interface for government and such, however it doesn’t need to translate as one organisation. It can be an abstraction layer, to whatever groups are involved. Enter opensource.org.au.
On that topic, opensource.org.au will certainly have more work done to it. Still needs case studies, and heaps of stuff. If anyone is interested please feel free to mail me 🙂 (pia at linux.org.au)
My Mum and Dad bought a theatre in Yass! I am so proud of them! The place has been out of use for 30 years, and they are putting money into it to reinvigorate the already active theatre group in Yass, and give something back to their home. Rock on!