Category: Uncategorized

Am I a “Young Achiever”?

I was very excited to be nominated by Brenda Aynsley for the Pearcey Award for Young Achievers. I’m not sure exactly what they are looking for, but if I am awarded it I’ll be one of two women to ever get it 🙂 I’m pretty happy just to have been nominated and I hope that I get a chance to get up and talk about how FOSS has helped me have all the opportunity in the world to do great things alongside great people.

Rock on 🙂

President of SFI – rock on!

Very recently I was voted the President of Software Freedom International, the group behind the well known Software Freedom Day. I’m pretty excited about this, and keen to get next years event firmly in the sights of more people all over the world. The rest of the board which consists of cool FOSS people from all over the world is on the SFD SFI page.

This years Software Freedom Day is shaping up pretty well, with over 140 teams participating all over the world, including 15 Australian teams and 7 teams in New Zealand. I think we are doing pretty well for such small countries 😉 I’m organising the Sydney event which is looking to be fantastic! More details on that soon 🙂

Riding with Alli

While I was in Canberra, one of things I did was meet up with Alli and finally meet the famous four-legged Dan. It was a wonderful albeit short visit, and Alli let me have a ride 🙂 I used to own horses and really miss riding so it was awesome fun! He was a little cheeky but I had him going over a few jumps. Then Alli put him through his paces beautifully 🙂 Thanks Alli!!

Thanks Canberra FOSSites :)

Yesterday afternoon a bunch of wonderful people came to meet for a coffee/beer at the All Bar Nun in Canberra. It was a great few hours and awesome to catch up with everyone that came (and a few new faces to attach to nicks :). I met up with Chris Smart who is behind the Kororaa project, Kristy Bennetts, David Symons (bimberi), Paul Wayper, Steve Walsh, Ingrid Finnane, Antti Roppola, Justin Freeman and more 🙂 Thanks everyone! I’ll definitely be coming back to Canberra soon as there were so many yummy dinners offered 🙂

I’ve also been talking to a bunch of Government agencies about FOSS and there will be some great new case studies of FOSS in research available on the ASK-OSS website in the coming weeks. Also, anyone in Sydney next week should take the opportunity to come along to a free legal and research seminar about FOSS, with Mark Webbink and Dan Ravicher speaking. Details on the ASK-OSS website.

Software Freedom Day – shirts and maps

Software Freedom Day 2006 is charging ahead with over 150 teams registered around the world. The board have decided to give 2 free shirts to each team and extra ones will be available to buy from our webstore for a mere AUD$20 each (including shipping) 🙂 They are bright orange and a rocking way to make your team stand out on the day 🙂 They will include a big SFD 2006 logo on the front.

Note: we can sort out something for teams from developing nations who need assistance in getting more shirts. Just drop an email to the SFD ctte on board@softwarefreedomday.org

Also, only about a third of all the registered teams have added their location to the SFD 2006 map, so get cracking! 🙂 The teams who had their details on the 2005 were not automatically added to the 2006 map, so put your team up now! 🙂

SFD 2006 map

Canberra truckin’

So I’m in Canberra all week this week, mostly in meetings about the ASK-OSS project, and a few Government meetings talking about FOSS. It has already been great, and there is a group of us putting together a statement recommending the use of Open Standards in Australian Government, which I’ll post as soon as it is finalised. We are also looking at doing a guide for FOSS software development in the public sector. Pretty cool stuff 🙂

I’m hoping to catch up with some of the local FOSSers, but I’ve missed the CLUG meeting, so I’m hoping to catch the programmers SIG and maybe a few people for a coffee/beer 🙂