Barry Vercoe on OLPC – 16th May talk

One Laptop per Child – Empowering children and communities

Barry Vercoe from the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project will be giving a talk about the project on Friday the 16th May. Barry will talk about projects he has been involved in, successes around the world and some of the plans for the region. There will be OLPC laptops on display for demonstration and some information on how you can get involved in the project locally. Barry is also a board member of the newly formed OLPC Australia which will be focusing on the needs of children in Australia and the region, including the Pacific Islands.

Date: Friday the 16th May
Place: Mitchell Theatre, Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
Time: 6.00pm – 7.00pm
Cost: Free

Please RSVP to pia.waugh@olpc.org.au for catering purposes. Some refreshments will be available.

A broken work record!

Yesterday I did a 24 hour work day. 5pm to the following 5pm. It was crazy! I had a good sleep last night, and came back onsite for today.

Basically it was only supposed to be overnight, but then there were some complications in the morning so staying “for an hour or two in the morning” just lengthened out.

I’ll be having a restful weekend, promise 🙂

A new model for artists

Nine Inch Nails have for a long time been one of my favourite bands. The music may not appeal to everyone (not my parents anyway!), however the ideas and leadership of Trent Reznor are quite incredible. Even though this happened a little while ago, I know many people who would be interested in this who aren’t NIN fans and read my blog 🙂

Trent Reznor - yum!

Last time NIN toured Australia, Reznor made the news by basically giving permission to “steal” his music, saying that the music companies have been ripping music lovers and artists off for years in a despicable manner. At the time he was still bound to a music label so you can imagine they weren’t too happy about this statement.

When he finished that contract, he decided to try something new. Something that has proven new models can work to the benefit of artists, and that openness and financial gain need not be mutually exclusive. I think his example will simultaneously inspire artists to explore new models and inject a great deal of concern into the large music labels and fear-mongers like Copyright Agency Limited (CAL).

So what did he do? The latest Nine Inch Nails album – “Ghosts” – has been released online with five options:

  • A quarter of the album is available freely (“high-quality, DRM-free MP3s”) under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Licence along with some beautiful artwork. People are strongly encouraged to remix these tracks
  • The full album is available for sale from the website for USD$5 under normal copyright
  • A 2xCD set – 2 audio CDs with 16 page booklet is available for USD$10
  • A $75 deluxe edition – hardcover fabric slipcase with 2xCDs, 1 data DVD with all tracks in multi-track format and a Blu-ray disc
  • Finally there is a special package available for USD$300 for hard core NIN fans. There were 2500 of these and they sold out in three days before the album even was released. That’s USD$750,000 alone!

All up it is clear NIN have made many millions from this album, and without the limitations and impediments of a record company.

It is completely possible now for many artists to create and publish their works online, make money, and maintain ownership of their work (as opposed to having to sign it over to a company, which authors typically do for a set period and musicians do for good). Massive global connectivity also gives artists the ability to take their talents globally in an instant!

Overbearing lock-down of artistic works (such as DRM or DMCA-like measures) benefit neither the artist nor their fans, and it takes just a little imagination and thought to balance the value of openness and the internet with the necessity of financial success for artists. Trent Reznor has done an incredible job at showing this in practical terms.

I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.

Wired article

Foundations of Open 2020 submissions are up

I was really proud to be involved in Senator Lundy’s Foundations of Open Summit and wanted to follow up with some more resources. There are videos from all talks available, Donna just did a great blog post about it as did Brianna from Wikipedia.

It is important to recognise the initiative and interest of Senator Kate Lundy in openness, and I greatly thank her for her efforts in getting openness on the political agenda.

The submissions from the day (which all participants were open to contribute) are also online which all contribute to the 2020 Summit discussions are awesome. Some tidbits:

The rise of the use of FOSS in the IT industry is without doubt a revolutionary force that will have a huge impact on the way that society interacts with computers into the future. The question that I would like addressed by the Australia 2020 summit is what can be done to ensure that Australia can benefit to the maximum degree possible from this change in the IT world.

Andrew Tridgell – Freedom Fighter 🙂

It is widely acknowledged that open access to Crown copyright material is important not only as an element of open democracy, but is “a key driver of social, cultural and economic development”. With the emergence of digital technologies that enable dissemination of government material at low cost, copyright law is now the last significant barrier to truly open government.

Jessica Coates – Creative Commons

Establish a national mechanism for discoverability of spatial data. Discoverability is necessary to effectively deliver spatial data when and where it is needed, especially in emergencies but increasingly for general use, and would unlock enormous opportunities for innovation and creativity with the use of these data.

David Hocking, CEO ASIBA

Australia’s infrastructure will face even more difficult challenges unless we take advantage of IPv6, particularly for water and energy. For instance, critical energy and resource conservation measures will require large increases in the scope of control systems. There is an urgent need for greater national IP capability to use in reducing our global footprint in this way, but the capacity of our
current IP system is nearly exhausted.

Tony Hill – Internet Society of Australia

Amend the Broadcast Act to clearly define the fair use of broadcast material nationally for all educational institutions. Amend the role of Screen Rights to measure/clear international sources.

Clarify that educational organisations have clearance to use any free- to-air live broadcast services and to share them nationally within the academic realm for purposes of study, archive and analysis. As part of their participation in Australian society, any broadcaster supplying free-to-air (unencrypted) services anywhere within our shores would be bound to allow national open access to their material for educational use.

George Bray

Physical Infra-structure and facilities be made available for the schools sector to improve network speeds and bandwidth traffic loads.

Kevin Karp, StudentNet

Open information and knowledge – allow information produced by the public sector to be easily accessible and freely available to citizens and businesses for reuse, including commercialisation with appropriate exceptions such as law enforcement, security and privacy. Placing government produced IP in the public domain, such as maps and data, can unlock public and private value – U.S. property appraisal data makes www.zillow.com a more innovative service for home buyers than www.suburbview.com

Patrick McCormick, The Nous Group

Open Source is no longer an emerging technology. It is here now. OSIA[2] believes it’s in Australia’s best interest to not only adopt Open Source software, but actively contribute to the Open Source economy of ideas and innovation. Each of the 10 areas of focus for the 2020 Summit depend on the new reality of a global interconnected information economy. Google and Wikipedia were built with Open Source Software because it was the only way it could be done. Open Source Software enables us to compete, connect and communicate.

Donna Benjamin – Director – Open Source Industry Australia

If the potentially major transformative benefits to be derived from “Open” both from the technological and digital knowledge perspectives are to be fully realised then it is essential to establish or identify internationally credible standards and specifications etc. which support the desired outcomes. The real value and potential of PSI is realised only through its extensive re-use. Open will overcome the present major impediments which prevent this full potential from being realised.

Neale Hooper – Principal Lawyer, Whole of Government Licensing Project, Office of Economic and Statistical Research, Queensland Treasury

The availability of high speed broadband across Australia has the potential to reduce many problems of resourcing and access to information faced in Australia due to our dispersed population. Students and researchers in remote areas could be provided with equal access to quality resources and texts that students in metropolitan centres have. If every student has access to a computer and high speed broadband, then all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, can have access to knowledge.

However, the ADA is concerned that overly complex and restrictive provisions in the Copyright Act 1968 continue to impede this potential. […] In short, the ADA sees great potential in the digital education revolution, however, without significant copyright reform the ADA believes that students will have access to high speed broadband, but will not have the access to knowledge that should flow from this.
Laura Simes, Australian Digital Alliance

Laura Simes, Australian Digital Alliance

We have The Internet technology and we have the need. Many more activities need to be open and accessible, so that together we might advance the world instead of letting it slide into catastrophe.

Nick Sharp

Openness as a default position for ICT innovation and development provides many clear opportunities and advantages. Clear leadership and assistance is necessary from the Australian Government so individuals and organisations from all sectors can make informed decisions how openness can benefit them.

Me 🙂

Another news article about the event was in the Canberra Times, which had Jeff and I as the photo. Unexpected and a little odd 🙂

Foundations of Open in Canberra Times

Who’s going to the 2020 Summit?

Many people know that the 2020 Summit participants list was put online a little while ago. I’ve had a chance to have a skim of the names and see who was accepted. Unfortunately I didn’t get in, but there are some great people involved.

I am quite concerned about the lack of technology and ICT people represented. There are a few great people represented, like Terry Cutler and Lisa Harvey but there is a serious lack of saavy ICT people. It was interesting to see Microsoft represented by Steve Vamos, and I truly hope that there has been some level of balance and foresight in the selection of ICT representatives to ensure multiple perspectives are presented.

I was surprised to see Sheryle Moon wasn’t there, and I don’t believe any of the Open Source community or industry nominations were accepted. I rang the office to express my concern that technology seems rather underrepresented, and that within the technology sector represented there is no clear representation from the Open Source industry or community (that I can see), which is arguably one of Australia’s greatest ICT assets when it comes to future directions and socio-economic opportunities.

Luckily, we have a great chance to have our say through the Foundations of Open local summit being run by the inspiring and well informed Senator Kate Lundy. She recently spoke at the Sdyney Document Freedom Day event, which apparently was brilliant (I was unfortunately out of the state). She also did a great speech at the 2005 Sydney Software Freedom Day event.

Things not to do when busy #1 – go to hospital

Today, on the eve of our launch of the Open Source industry & community Census report I got a pretty nasty kidney infection that has been brewing for almost a week and a half, and had to go to hospital for most of the day (about 9 hours) for intravenous antibiotics and serious pain killers. Jeff was left holding the fort and finishing stuff off for tomorrow. Not a great day!

I’m ok, and on more antibiotics and pain killers for a few days, and I guess a few weeks of absolute rabid work just caught up with me. We’ll see how I go tomorrow, and hopefully I can stay out of hospital :/

Foundations of Open: Technology and Digital Knowledge

Senator Kate Lundy is hosting a fantastic event called the Foundations of Open: Technology and Digital Knowledge. It will include Open Source, Open Standards, Creative Commons, geospatial systems and open data, and IPV6 amongst other things.

The idea is to bring some great people together in a room and to have an open event which anyone can participate in over the web. The outcome of this event will be an input to the main 2020 Summit a couple of weeks later. There are a bunch of really great presenters and I know there will be several Open Source people there on the day (including Tridge, Rusty and us).

I’ll be speaking about specific things we could bring up for the 2020 Summit, including input from the Linux Australia report to the new Federal Treasurer, and ideas from other conversations with Government, the community and industry.

The Senator is using Moodle, streaming video on the day, and of course it is published on her Joomla website. Awesome! Great to see such rocking use of technology by a Senator! 🙂 Great work by Tom Worthington on the Moodle and he’ll be dealing with the streaming video on the day.