Category: Government

SLUG: moving from geeks to mainstream

Currently nominations are on for the Sydney LUG and I nominated a a guy called Jamie Honan, who is a prior president of SLUG, all round great guy, and a very sane backboard for bouncing around ideas. He is also very softly spoken, and thoughtful. Anyway, unfortunately he declined, but he had these wise words which I think are relevant for LUGs all around the country:

People may wish to think a bit about the future of SLUG. For many years, out of neccessity, we have been a ‘geek’ group. Users of Linux were also like that. Linux is now mainstream, and I believe is poised to take prominence in the desktop.

This prominence presents its own challenges. While Linux becomes ever more ubiquitious, it is ever more easy to ignore the ideas and ideals that drove the formation of Linux. Now, millions of web surfers have the benefit of Linux and know nothing of the fears, the dreams that drove its inception.

How do we cross that divide? How do we reach out to the new users of Linux and show them that they too can become connected. That to give, a small gift only please; a bug report, show a friend how it’s done, is to join in and become part of something much larger.

The challenge for us in SLUG is to reach out, beyond our comfort zone. To try to connect with people who don’t share our technology biases and starting points, to make not so much the technology accessable, but to make our humanity, our ideals and ideas accessable.

Can I make one small suggestion? We have to listen first.

Sometimes in the excitement in getting our ideas across we lose touch with our audience. Sometimes they are trying to tell us what they need, what their problems are, and we don’t listen. Think about it

I strongly agree, and I think LUGs are going to remain important in the future both as a place of technical expertise and for ideas to flow, but also as a place where the underlying values of FOSS remain strong. Some people see LUGs getting less relevant as FOSS hits the mainstream, I see them becoming more relevant. People will be picking up the technology but still disconnected from it and the community, but LUGs provide the grounding to both technical creativity and community values that have made FOSS what it is today. We teach and practise the importance of software and information freedom that sometimes is either taken for granted or forgetten about.

Waugh Partners… what is it good for? :)

So the new consulting business Waugh Partners is going well. I’ve nabbed my first few consulting jobs, and I’m making a name for myself as a consultant. I thought long and hard about my skills and what is needed in Australia, and I realised that vendor-neutral strategic consulting is what people really need in order to go from ad-hoc FOSS jobs to a planned approach to FOSS for their businesses. For example, understanding how to skill up, how to find commercially viable versus non-commercially viable software, where to get support, how to modify existing policies to be FOSS friendly, such as procurement policies, and finally how to understand the wide world of FOSS and how it can benefit businesses and Government alike. I look forward to helping grow the industry generally, and in particular helping all the little FOSS companies become more competitive and knowledgable about what they need to compete in the large corporate and Government arenas.

One of my main aims is to get Australia being more globally competitive in ICT and to also start using FOSS to solve the technical, business/economic _and_ the social challenges of this country, but baby steps at a time 🙂

I am seriously looking forward to Linuxworld as I think it’ll help me achieve my business and personal goals, and I am so happy that we are finally starting to realise the broader benefits of FOSS in my own country.

Rock on Australia! 😀

Leon is coming back!

Here is part of a message about Leons pretty gutsy recovery. He has always been a strong character in the community and now he is showing his strength in his rapid recovery:

Leon was conscious most of the day yesterday (thursday), and very much in his own mind! Yesterday, when I arrived at the hospital, he had been positioned in the pink chair again, and was holding his head up with minimum support, and impatiently jiggling his legs and tapping his fingers, while looking huntedly about the room, obviously unhappy with his situation. Through answering yes/no questions with a nod or head shake, he was able to communicate (quite emphatically!) that he was very angry, and depressed, and in quite some pain from his back in the position he was placed, and frustrated about not being able to speak, or make himself understood when he mouthed words. He let me know that he didn’t want me to leave him, even to go to the toilet, that he was scared of the prison his body was being, and he wanted to get back on top of things, specifically asking for his laptop!

Rock on Leon, keep it up and we are all thinking of you 🙂

Geek girls on the way!

So over the last few days I have presented about the wide world of IT and in particular FOSS to about 1200 out of ~2400 young women at school. The event was called Go girl, go for IT which admittedly is a bit of a silly name, but the event itself was incredible. Loads of great speakers, heaps of very smart, confident and rocking young women, prizes, a beautiful Ducati motorbike (for show only 🙁 ) and much more. I think some stats out of this will be great and very interesting.

Every one of these attendees took home a copy of The Open CD, kindly donated by Kevin Russell from Opensource WA which is a great Government project with a demo centre of loads of FOSS as well as doing mini-projects like buses kitted out with computers to help people in rural and remote WA. Every one of these women learnt something about FOSS and why we have all been drawn to the penguin, and hopefully more of them will participate in FOSS andfind out for themselves how wonderful and diverse a world it is 🙂

Rock on geek girls, and welcome to the community!

Charging kids a copyright fee for internet usage

Wow, I think Australias premier copyright body, Copyright Agency Limited has finally gone one step too far:

“SCHOOLS have warned they will have to turn off the internet if a move by the nation’s copyright collection society forces them to pay a fee every time a teacher instructs students to browse a website.”

I’ve said it before, and I continue to say, we are putting a price tag on our education, and our ability to evolve. Hopefully this will push people yet another step to realising that protecting IP can go too far, and we end up protecting business rights at the expense of individual and society rights.

I highly recommend anyone who cares about the quality of education in Australian schools to write to the Hon Julie Bishop, the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Perhaps we can get this issue on the political agenda. Perhaps we can get people thinking about this bigger issue of only making information available under the rules corporates set.

We’re thinking of you Leon

Leon Brooks who is a well known and loved member of the Australian FOSS community was in an accident on Saturday. We all send our support, love and strength to Leon, and also to his wife Lucy, and children.

Every member of our community is like a big family, and what hurts one, hurts everyone. We are thinking of you Leon.

“Cracks in the dam”?

I found this article today which is very disappointing. I was very much looking forward to meeting and hearing Bill Hilf as he has been talked up to me as a good person with the right ideas about Open Source, regardless of his employer. Hilf used to lead IBMs Linux strategy and has great commercial experience in Open Source, hence my disappointment. Ah well, after this bad press hopefully Microsoft will let him come to Linuxworld Australia next year 🙂

Why Linux is better

This wonderful little guide to why Linux is better by Manu Cornet is fantastic! Complete with cute pictures 🙂

“I guess people won’t switch to Linux because it’s free (as in free speech, they probably don’t care) or because it’s free (as in free beer, they probably think they didn’t pay for Windows), but because they see new, great features that Windows doesn’t have. So here are a few reasons why Linux rocks!”

Free Software around the world

So in Spain I had the honour of sitting on a panel with some of the worlds movers and shakers in getting OSS into Governments all around the world. I met Peter Quinn who was driving the Massachusetts effort, as well as representatives from Argentina, the Eurpoean Commission and the lovely Marcelo Branco from Brazil. It was great hearing different approaches to Open Source and it was awesome to see these countries and regions taking on Open Source to solve their technical, business, economic and social challenges.

Also the Go Girl event in Perth in a couple of weeks was covered in Computerworld recently 🙂