Category: Government

What a fortnight! Holy moly. In the last fortnight I have:

– Driven down to Canberra and back for a meeting with NOIE/AUUG/ACS/OSIA

– Attended and spoke at the Open Source Forum in Sydney (a small do mainly for government. My talk was on community, why it is important and where it fits)

– Worked overtime to meet a whole heap of work schedules.

– Released a press release (which required an all nighter effort) and commented on various inquiries.

– Rusty and Alli were up for the weekend, so there was much Teppanyaki, Yum Cha and happy cup all round 🙂 Also tried to subtly pack that weekend for the move.

– Rusty and I met with ZDnet who were nice enough to give us some media advice about press releases and the like. Thanks guys!

– Met up by chance with some friends I haven’t seen for ages. Hi Viv, Louise! HUGS!

– Attended the SLUG AGM. Congratulations to the new ctte. Rock on!

– Had Richard Keech from Red Hat for dinner. Now this is embarrassing! I got an email from Richard saying he was in town on a Red Hat training thing, and for some reason I thought it was Richard Ford from Beijing Linux Users Group who also does Red Hat training. I was all excited and asked him to dinner at our house, told him to bring his swimmers (because coming from a Chinese winter I knew he’d appreciate it) and saying to pass on hello to Jenny. Of course this Richard had no idea what I was talking about and just agreed. He came along, and as the lift opened, I was expecting a huge Aussie footballer ex-pat, and so went straight past Richard K, whom I hadn’t met before. Once the confusion was sorted, I was at a bit of a loss, but it was a pleasant evening, and nice to meet him 🙂

– Moved house over basically 4 days (sat packing, sun new furniture move, mondayour stuff over to new house, old stuff to donation place, and tuesday we got pro’s to finish it off as we were so screwed)!! DRAMA !! I now share Jeffs hatred of moving, although I must say I have _NEVER_ had so much trouble moving. We have both been quite sick throughout the whole episode, and just looking to relax. LA, ACS, work, study, rest, and sanity have all come second place while the moving went on. Now to catch up!

– Organised our next Kung Fu demo, this weekend at the Newtown festival. Should be super sweet!

PHEW! Now I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep a while. Luckily the new place has a sauna, spa and pool. Winter Sauna parties at our place!! Rock! This evening, I am going to surrender myself to Kung Fu, and then have a swim. Yay!

I forgot to blog about this 🙂 I was in line at uni, and listening to a couple of Software Engineer students chatting behind me. They brought up Linux a few times, and I started chatting to them. It turns out their uni only really uses Minix and Solaris to teach which was interesting. Anyway one of the guys was _really_ keen on Linux, I suggested he come along to SLUG some day. As we were rambling about random people, I mentioned Jeff and how kewl it is to see the GNOME world at that level, and how proud I am of him. This dude looked at me in shock, grinned, and explaimed “Are you….Pipka!” to which I buried my head in my hands 🙂 I forget that people know of/about me from random places, it really is like a big family sometimes 🙂 He knew about the infamous “The Little Furnace” GNOME release which was also amusing 😉

For those interested, I study politics in the Middle East and Mandarin, go figure 🙂

Had a nice weekend, catching up with sleep and rest from the busy week last week. Last week included a drive to Canberra and meeting with NOIE, AUUG, OSIA and ACS. It also included a meeting with the Editor Group, to organise our LA media training and such. The weekend saw Rusty and Alli come up. Rusty came to a meeting with a supportive publisher with me, where they gave us some hints and tips on dealing with the media. Rusty, Alli, Jeff and I enjoyed Teppanyaki, Yum Cha, and Thai over the weekend. I want to have visitors more often so we eat out more 😉 Rusty and Alli are a lot of fun, I just wish we’d already moved so they could enjoy the new place which is much nicer 🙂 It was a nice weekend, Jeff and I finally caught up on sleep, and the future is looking rosy with moving next weekend! (even though we haven’t packed yet)

Got to see my family, which was great. I really miss them a lot, and it is wonderful to catch up. One day I will give up some of this madness and have more time for such things. Right now, it is all engines go, and I find it hard to sit still.

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!

So LA did some press releases recently as well as some position papers on the FTA. We are doing a fairly intensive inquiry as to the actual effects of the FTA on Open Source in Australia, hiring lawyers are all 🙂 Rusty did an AWESOME job in getting everything together and researched, and then the Press team did a great job on their first assignment offering suggestions and advice. All in all quite a successful little project, but the fight is far from over. There is only about 9 weeks left to make an impression on the right people if we can even hope to not be screwed in the FTA translation to legislation. Got to stay on our toes and make sure the word gets out.

Also check out the new Open Source portal. We are talking to several groups to get buy in to this idea of having a single portal into the Australian Open Source world. A sinlge place to figure out which organisation is good for you (and they all have their uniqueness), what Open Source is, where to find case studies etc etc. Also have the Open Source Experts Group up on a web page. This group of people are doing advisory work on Government policy, an Open Source FAQ, and some other projects, all in collaboration with nearly all the Open Source organisations in Australia in some form or another. The people involved are working independently, but with industry and community input and concerns in mind. Rock on! Anything created by this group will of course be run by the linux-aus mailing list for input and advice.

A funny little ditty from personal life, I recently watched Natural Born Killers again, I LOVE that movie! There is a line that Mal says to Mickey “being with you is like kindergarten”. It reminds me of Jeff 🙂 we have so many silly little games and fun in our life, he really is my best friend, playmate, lover and partner in crime. Not a moment goes by when I don’t love him utterly. We put the ‘ow’ in shower.

Aww, the Bubby 😉

We had our committee meeting, and it rocked! We clarified our direction, covered a lot of little things that need to be done, then got on to the big stuff. The Press group will be going ahead definitely (watch the linux-aus space), along with training for those who need it. I’m not going to cover all the kewl stuff as it will be in the summary email to linux-aus in the next few days, however it was really good to tie the teams vision together and get everyone on track. Everyone is full of energy and ideas, and its is wonderful to work with them all. Go team 😉

Got to see some of my favourite Melbourne people, and we all went out both Friday and Saturday evening. Saw a few pubs, had some nice meals, and played some pool. It was good to see Alison if only briefly, and I was upset to learn that in Adelaide she caught my disease from visiting me in the hospital 🙁 SORRY!!

Also got to try Haigs chocolate for the first time. Thanks for the new addiction Michael 😛 I curse thee!

Pictures to be posted as soon as I get them 🙂 I’m also proud to say that I sneakily managed to weasel my way out of the silly idea proposed by some of the LUV gang to drink 7 pints of James Squire beers (the entire range?). Yay me 🙂

Man, what a week! Some rather interesting organisations have taken a huge and rather recent interest in Open Source. I’ve managed to get involved in a small group of people doing Open Source policy work, and have helped structure it so that there is reference to Open Source community and industry groups for information. This means that the community will have real input to the legislation of Open Source in this country for the first time. All of this to be explained further very soon in the circles I’m in but needless to say I’ve been flatstrap trying to sort out how it can work, calling people from different groups, testing the viability and need for this idea, and then starting to get the buy-in necessary for its success. Hopefully will be able to get some sort of consolidation from the many different Open Source stakeholders in Australia, in order to make a direct and strategic impact where we need to. To long has the direction of OSS in Australia been dictated by those who don’t understand its value. If the least we can do is have a single supported statement on what OSS is, and what it means to the average person, workplace or government, we are well on the way to a fair playground. More on that as it comes 🙂

Want to get together this wonderful Linux Australia Press group, and we finally have the go ahead from the committee. I will remain as Press Officer (making sure I get some training to aid in this role), Michael Davies will also act as a liason officer to the group, then we get some fiery skilled media people from the community who are interested in strategic media moves, rather than just shot in the dark reactive moves. Hopefully this year we can be more out there, and active publicly.

Also the issues surrounding the recent and controversial FTA with the US have come up. Now that some of the details on this ‘mutually beneficial agreement’ are known, it has become apparent that there is scope for serious damage to innovation in ICT, let alone Open Source development in this country. Something needs to be done to at least let people know the dangers in such a deal, notably patents and anti-circumvention legislation.

On a more personal note, Kung Fu is rocking. I study Shaolin Gung Fu with an amazing group of people. My teachers’ teacher (Da Shi) is still the most impressive human being I’ve encountered. Intellectually, physically, spiritually and emotionally he is centred, giving and the best teacher one could ask for. I can only hope that one day I can see with even one percent of his clarity.

Getting things happening with the Australia Chinese Friendship Society (http://acfs.com.au/). Organising some hardware for them, trying to sort out their policies and practices (many of which are outdated). It is quite interesting to deal with one organisation which is 100% online, and another that is 100% offline. Certainly a learning experience. Last November I was actually supposed to meet the President of China, Hu Jintao, through this group, however that was when I got sick, and also had to cancel the Brazil trip to their International Free Software Forum. I will be there this year in June with bells on 🙂

Well no, I won’t torture you with an ode 🙂 but I do dedicate this to my dog, who is due to be put down tomorrow. He is about 18 years old, so he did pretty well. Funny cos’ I just get my head screwed on, and my dog has to be put down. Ah well, get all the bad karma out of the way and then hopefully back to rocking. Pound, love!

So, now I am President of Linux Australia, on the Australia Chinese Friendship Society, doing kung fu regularly, re-creating the LA website with drupal, soon to be studying Chinese Mandarin and politics at uni, _and_ trying to not fail in my ‘paid’ work. I need better time management, I need a job that I can be passionate about to help give me the energy for my out of hours stuff, I need to live in a cooler climate. I need to stop finding excuses 🙂

I NEED A HUG!

I didn’t get to blog much over the last few weeks, so here’s a catch up 🙂

Just discovered the joy of Orkut, an “online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends” and latest fad for the online community 😉 So far I only have 14 friends but unbelievably am connected to 27561 people through these links. It has kewl profiling of people, community groups, photos, forums, and heaps of functionality. Check it out!

I never got to put up pictures of my class in china. Also some pictures from my presentation to the Beijing Linux Users Group. They are a great group and I hope to be able to help them develop.

We went and saw some Chinese theatre and acrobatics, which was awesome! A big hello to my drinking buddies Li li and Jenny. And then as a special treat on my last day, much to Natalie and my delight it snowed! We presented Simon his wonderful present and I flew home. I always get ‘homesick’ when I leave China. Oh well I’ll just have to return soon 🙂

We had my Dad’s birthday when I got home, where I finally got to wear my chinese dress with very red lipstick 🙂 It was a fun night with Dad being pampered as usual. Jeff was a little worried about dessert, but it was all good 🙂 I even saw my old Maths teacher.

The little I got to see of linux.conf.au was good. It was wonderful to see Bdale, Michael Davies, the old and then new LA committees, Thom, Mike Beattie, the CLUG/LUV/PLUG/LinuxSA/HUMBUG/SLUG/AUUG dudes, and all the rest, as well as meeting new people like Keith Packard (the naughty pixie) and Havoc (the cranberry juice extraordinaire). I did pretty well for the 1.5 days I got to attend 🙂

Had our first Linux Australia meeting which went well. We have a big face to face meeting in only a few weeks, then things will start rocking. More to come.

The elections for LA were excellent! I was still stuck in hospital but had live ward updates from Rusty through Alli. Thanks guys! We have a great new team and I’m really looking forward to working with everyone this year. We have a lot to do, and now with the fiddly things out of the way, we have the ability to get in and rock! I will probably call rank and barr Michael D from any duties for a month (otherwise he may not last the year 😉

Having not had the opportunity to speak to nearly as many people as I wanted to, I’d like to invite all people to bring to the linux-aus mailing list (linux-aus@linux.org.au) ideas and suggestions for this year. We’ll be getting a few things out of the way for the first 6 weeks (web site, clean up of actions etc) and then will be re-evaluating direction and tactics for the year.

I was very sad about not being able to go the much of the conference, but I had some wonderful visitors who made my day, and a card with more than 400 signatures on it from everyone at the Penguin dinner, thanks everyone! It was the best ‘get well’ present I could ask for 🙂

And now back home, still recovering from Influenza A (no, it isn’t SARS) and it looks like Jeff is coming down with it too. Another week off work to recover and then back into it. You find all these things that are really important and they make the work worries seem so small. Hopefully I can keep them in perspective…