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Yesterday and today I helped out on the Linux Australia booth at Edexpo in Sydney. We had almost a dozen people helping out, handing out CD’s, and generally getting people excited. It was AWESOME! We handed out about 600 CD’s, got loads of parents, teachers and kids excited about Linux and Open Source. We had a competition, and gave out kewl prizes like fluffy penguins. Some great local companies helped out to make a great couple of days. We painted on the expo mural, had a wonderful setup showing off video, games, office software, and much more, Jeff found his old computer science teacher from school, some girls drew some penguins for us which was cool. The whole team did a great job, and Chris even got pictures from the camera uploading every minute to the SLUG website which rocked, even though there are some silly pictures there. The wall foo we organised was also pretty sweet. Many many thanks particularly to Moe and Sara who put this together and did an awesome job!

Healthy Harold was there too! Much to a happy pipkas surprise 😉 and by the end of today Jeff was looking as calm as a Buddha

Jeff and I have finally gotten over the wedding/conference foo, and then last weekend was a Kung Fu exam for me, which was awesome! I am proud to say I passed the exam bringing me one step closer 🙂 Mothers day was lovely, I was in Yass and cooked Mum (and Dad) brekkie and did nice daughterish things. Now to finally catch up on writing up notes from the last month of conversations and meetings. Some pretty kewl stuff is coming up, and I need to be well prepared for it 🙂

HA ha!

“So, I do think that Microsoft is seriously trying to reach out to the open-source community … and strangle it.” – Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (eWeek)

The Civil Society at WSIS came up with this, and someone asked me for it so I thought I’d blog it 🙂

“Software is the cultural technique of the digital age and access to it determines who may participate in a digital world. Free Software with its freedoms of use for any purpose, studying, modification and redistribution is an essential building block for an empowering, sustainable and inclusive information society.

“No software model should be forbidden or negatively regulated, but Free Software should be promoted for its unique social, educational, scientific, political and economic benefits and opportunities.” – The Civil Society Declaration at WSIS 2003

Post wedding stress has cropped up which is frustrating. I love my parents dearly, and without them the wedding could not have happened anywhere near as well as it did. Now there will be several years of making up for Jeff and my conference craziness and complete lack of foresight with what needed to be done for the wedding. Thankyou Mum and Dad!

I feel so lucky at the moment. I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks with some of the most amazing people in the Open Source community. LCA was incredible, as always, and this year was the best for me, because I now know so many people that come, from all over Australia and the world. I saw great talks, had grat discussions, found new friends, and further planned out how to save the world. Skipping from conversation to conversation my brain was buzzing all week with ideas, and awe. I feel so much a part of something, and so proud to be contributing to it. Anyway, now I have stacks of notes and idea to write up, so my next week will be pretty full 🙂

Ubuntu Downunder was fun. I was there only on and off during the week, but again I was surrounded by inspiring people and inspiring conversations. Thankyou to everyone I’ve spent time with over the last two weeks. Open Love!

It is kind of funny when two journos cover the same talk with completely different focuses 🙂 Check out how “Rift divides FOSS community, says Linux body” and then “Linux threatened by ‘polarisation’“. I think I struck something of a chord, hence at the moment writing it up properly.

AGIMO have produced “A Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies“. It is an extremely well written document that demonstrates how well the Australian Government have come to understand the opportunties and challenges of Open Source Software. It is also a product of the good work of many members of the community who have gone out of their way to articulate and explain the concepts of Open Source to the private and public sectors. An awesome job AGIMO, and rock on to LA, OSIA and AUUG for their combined work in taking the love beyond the community. I highly recommend reading the document and learning how to approach Government and other audiences about OSS.

Thanks for putting up more wedding photos to Mary and Catie!

I can honestly say I have had the most AMAZING week! On Sunday Jeff and I married, which was fantastic! Honestly the most amazing day and we felt so proud to be sharing it with so many people we love. At the ceremony, afterparty and now at LCA. We will be absolutely blogging any more photos we get, all the professional ones will come printed and on cd, so they’ll go up. Now I’ve a real incentive to get some to put all our photos in online 🙂 What to choose…

I have a personal plea to the interweb at large, as of Sunday I have lost my “Pia Smith” Googlejuice. Many thanks to those who have helped contribute to getting it back.

LCA has ROCKED WAY HARD!!!! I have had heaps of fun, given three talks (two to gov and one to the main conference) and I think I’ve achieved what I set out for. A whole raft of people are inspired to kick ass and a lot of issues I’ve been concerned about are off my chest 🙂 I really love this conference, and the community. Being able to have 100 thought provoking and incredible conversations with people who have similar values, and similar concerns is nothing if not mind blowing. I thank every single person who makes this event what it is, the organisers who have put on an amazing conference, the sponsors, the speakers, and of course all the attendees.

At my talk I spoke about the 5o’s. The idea that many of us are stuck somewhere between the business focus of Open Source and the inflexibile extremeness of Free Software. The things I care about are:

• open source
• open licence (as defined by the OSI)
• open standards
• open knowledge
• open community

My good friend AJ came up with the best possible description for this. OPEN LOVE! (Note – AJ is walking around saying I suck at the moment because I illustrated the concept in my talk with a picture of him in swimmers 😉 Ironically enough when googling for “open love” (not recommended) you’ll find a reference to loving open source, rock on! I also spoke about the code vs culture issue we have, but I’ll blog about that when I put my slides up in the next couple of days when I add all the feedback from yesterday into it.

Pia Waugh!!! Yay googlejuice!

Michael Still, champion that he is has decided to run a minibus to Yass for the wedding party. Check out his blog for details. The minibus runs from Canberra Sunday afternoon.