Slashdot Mirror

The publically available summary of the research doesn't give much information on whom was surveyed. Perhaps the survey group was primarily composed of small businesses, which make up the largest number of enterprises here. Those businesses would likely not be using servers, which is where you'd expect to find more Linux users (cf. the desktop).

The survey aside, there are lots of companies using Linux in New Zealand (including yours truly). In a week's time we are hosting one of the three biggest Linux conferences right here in Dunedin. And even companies like Microsoft are making the most of Linux down here.

The end is perhaps not quite nigh.

--
One of those rare antipodean companies using Linux

Well LCA http://conf.linux.org.au/ is about to start and there seems to be at least 8 miniconfs on before hand. If this is not evidence of strong community involvement in open source, what is?

[Engage Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]
If you want to hear from another of the Ubuntu guys check out this interview I did with Jeff Waugh:

laupdate_ep_6_20051001.mp3
laupdate_ep_6_20051001.ogg


[Disengaging Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]

[Engage Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]
If you want to hear from another of the Ubuntu guys check out this interview I did with Jeff Waugh:

laupdate_ep_6_20051001.mp3
laupdate_ep_6_20051001.ogg


[Disengaging Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]

The Free Trade Agreement that Australia signed with the United States last year had certain gotchas including parts of the DMCA being forced upon us and software patents becoming law in Australia.

This is one of the reasons why the Kazaa case is being fought in Australia because our DMCA laws are nearly identical to the US version now.

More information is available here:

- Linux.org.au

- The Agreement

There are other fun gotchas linked on this page that do not relate to the parent:

Trade Watch Oz

Ah tin foil hat time! News Flah Linus Torvalds rejects "damn hippie communism", takes "Evil Facist Capitalism".

Here is the situation, a couple of years ago a company in Adelaide, South Australia trademarked the word Linux and started to demand license fees from anyone else who used the word linux. Linux Australia applied to have the trademark disallowed and won. Now the Linux Mark Institute with the assistance of Linux Australia are attempting to get Linux trademarked and hand the trademark over to Linus.

We are not going to breaking down the door of every shop that sells linux and demanding $5,000.00, that is reserved for those companies that earn a crap load every year. Yes companies such as Redhat and LinuxJournal have special rights with regards to Linux, this is because they were prepared to pony up the dough and lawyers to get the Linux name trademarked in the first place.

Yes the initial mail out was handled badly, however we are not trying to gouge everyone and lay the loot at the feet of our holy master okay?

Another poster's response that it's costly to spend 200,- USD for a volunteer is true! It should be maxium 5,- USD! It makes a big difference for a student/volunteer/third world engineer...

But it would be better to let it dilute and render every trademark protection in that sense impossible (including 'evil trademark use')! "Dilution" is an expensive word to call it when other people use your trademark without license, it renders a trademark unenforcable. Sure, it would mean that a porn site calling itself 'The Linux Gang Bang' wouldn't be a problem. But - seriously - do you really believe anybody would be interested in calling it like that? And what would be the problem with that?

Tradmark dilution is already there - virtually no Linux consulting shop has a license - nowhere, worldwide. Why has Maddog choosen this moment to change this and use Australia as a testing ground?

Is his VA Linux-stock-owned money running low? And is that the reason why Larry tried to push Slashdot to post Maddog's reply?

Maybe we find out in a next episode of Slashdot ;-)

But if Linus really cares about the community, letting the trademark dilute is certainly the best option availble!

Does anybody have a link to something a little more informative?

A number of people have attempted to clarify this, including on Slashdot. I'll post the full text http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2005- August/msg00084.html, since most people seem to dislike reading linked articles.

Subject: Re: Quick press enquiry re LinuxMark enforcement
From: Jon maddog Hall
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:25:04 -0400
To: "David Braue"
Cc: maddog@li.org

David,

Your story is quite accurate, LAI is acting in Australia on behalf of LMI, and this is not a "scam".

Since 1995, when an unfortunate incident in the United States showed us that the world is not made of altruistic people and companies, Linux International has been defending the Linux Trademark. At that time an entity had obtained a US trademark on the word "Linux", and was trying to obtain twenty-five percent of the REVENUES of companies that had the word "Linux" in their name, or in their product names. Instead of all the member companies fighting this battle individually, Linux International fought it and won. Unfortunately it cost us a lot of money to do this, despite the pro bono efforts of Gerry Davis, of the law firm of Davis and Schroeder.

Linux International has been defending the Linux Trademark for the world, which due to the costs of registering and obtaining International Trade Marks is VERY expensive. Linux International has spent over 300,000 USD to do this over the years. LI is a non-profit and does not have very much revenue, so some of this money has come from my own personal checkbook. While I can not say how much money I have spent on defending the mark per se, I can tell you that I have spent about 250,000 USD of my own money in keeping LI alive. I am not looking for medals or a chest to pin them on. I am only stating this to show people that this is not a "scam", nor is anyone making any money off this other than the international legal and trademark community, and I am sure that they are necessary and justifiable fees. Certainly Jeremy Malcolm has seemed to be above board and conscientious in all of our dealings with him, as has Jonathan Oxer and the rest of the fine people at LAI.

After a while the board of Linux International recognized the advantage of forming a separate non-profit, the Linux Mark Institute (LMI). We need LMI to be self-funding, and following trademark laws in the 200 countries of the world is very expensive. In addition to the normal issues of a company obtaining a trademark of their own product, using their own name, we have issues such as:

o "Who owns the right to use 'Linux'"
o "Who (therefore) has the right to the broad name 'Linux University'?"
o "Can there be more than one "Linux University? If so, what should its name be?"
o "If I call my company 'Linux Experts', does this mean that I am the only group of 'Linux Experts' worldwide?....shouldn't everyone come to me because I called myself 'Linux Experts'?"

as well as the issues of people who wish to use the name in bad ways (as a pornography attractor or on items confusing to the Linux market).

We have tried to make the licensing as unobtrusive as possible, tailored to the amounts of money that people might be making off the use of the mark, and with an eye to keeping the cost to non-profits and user groups as low as possible. We also have to re-license the name periodically so we can protect against "name squatting" (ala URLs) and defunct entities who no longer need the name they registered.

The trademark laws of the world were not created in the days of the World Wide Web, or even the Internet, where unscrupulous people can take advantage of a good name for a good idea and create havoc for people who want to start legitimate industry in their territory under a mark that is registered in some other coun

Read Maddog's comments here. or on Groklaw.
This is being done by/for Linux International, Linus and the entire Linux community, and all this bashing of Jeremy is unjust. Take off your tinfoil hats long enough to find out the truth before inserting your foot in your mouth and running down paranoia lane!

Will this suffice?

"Oh, but that must be fake." Go on, I dare you :-P

Jon "maddog" Hall posted an explanation of the history of the Linux trademark (and Linux International's defense of the trademark) together with a statement supporting Linux Australia's and Jeremy Malcolm's actions in this to the Linux Australia list:

Linux International has been defending the Linux Trademark for the world, which due to the costs of registering and obtaining International Trade Marks is VERY expensive. Linux International has spent over 300,000 USD to do this over the years. LI is a non-profit and does not have very much revenue, so some of this money has come from my own personal checkbook. While I can not say how much money I have spent on defending the mark per se, I can tell you that I have spent about 250,000 USD of my own money in keeping LI alive. I am not looking for medals or a chest to pin them on. I am only stating this to show people that this is not a "scam", nor is anyone making any money off this other than the international legal and trademark community, and I am sure that they are necessary and justifiable fees. Certainly Jeremy Malcolm has seemed to be above board and conscientious in all of our dealings with him, as has Jonathan Oxer and the rest of the fine people at LAI.

After a while the board of Linux International recognized the advantage of forming a separate non-profit, the Linux Mark Institute (LMI). We need LMI to be self-funding, and following trademark laws in the 200 countries of the world is very expensive.

dude... do you think he is trying to hide something by being honest about it? A 'Jon Oxer' is the president (probably same guy). see http://www.linux.org.au/about/ctte

My 2c:
The reaction by Linux Australia seems to be a preventative/defensive measure.

From http://www.linux.org.au/contact

Organisation

Email
        Committee - ctte@linux.org.au
Fax
        +61 2 8211 5211
Mail
        Linux Australia Inc
        GPO Box 4788
        Sydney NSW 2001
        Australia

So Linus is working for linux.org.au ?

So it's either legit, and Linus is working with them (and planning on charging $$$), or it's crap.

And as for
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159125&c id=13327348
- their website is www.linux.org.au

So one person thinks the guy is not a loon, and a lot of other people think he is. And that one person is suspect.

Too late to try to spin it now.

Linux Australia is the group organising the big linux.conf.au conference each year. (Both Linus and /. editors have attended in the past...)

They are currently in the process of setting themselves up as the group to talk to if you want to talk to FOSS volunteers in Australia. This is pretty much a self-appointed role for them, but they have put a lot of effort into communicating with the LUGs all over the country and they have deeper pockets and a higher profile than the LUGs due to organising the region's major FOSS conference, so the LUGs are, as far as I know, consenting. Most Linux Australia people are pretty active in their own LUG: the Sydney and Perth groups have a great deal of overlap with Linux Australia. LA is also open membership and most conference attendees do end up joining (it's free with the conference admission) so a reasonable chunk of FOSS developers in Australia have voting rights. Rusty Russell and Andrew Tridgell have both been involved to varying degrees.

So they are a legitimate user group, or meta-user group, as much as any other LUG in Australia. It's in their role as the umbrella of Linux in Australia that they seem to have asked Malcolm to act to shore up Linus's claim to "Linux" in Australia, currently in doubt because so many businesses already use the word.

The reason is that unscrupulous operators have been abusing the Linux trademark, and so Linux Australia decided to persue securing it on behalf of Linus. (aka doing the right thing)

The T's and C's (i.e. charging for use of the trademark Linux in Australia) are no different from those identified in the Linus-approved Linux Mark Institute. But note, that Jeremy Malcolm's notice is NOT asking for money, just saying that in the future you may be asked to licence the trademark if you sell a product that is levereging the Linux trademark. This is a key point in trademark law - to secure the trademark in the first place to stop some companies from doing the wrong thing.

See Jon Oxer's blog post on the topic (he's Linux Australia's president).

So the fact that Linux Australia are paying him and have claimed him as their own means nothing. What exactly do we have to do to convince you that he's legit? Would an out of band communication help? Get off your ass, call Linux Australia and ask them. Jesus Christ. I hope Jeremy Malcolm sues you for libel. I really do.

I would like to point out that your client seems to admint they can not sue for the use of the word "Linux". Here is the proof:
Linux Australia: ABN 56 987 117 479 Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Linux Australia TM is a trademark of Linux Australia Inc. All material on this page is Copyright © "Linux Australia" unless otherwise noted.
This comes from the clients site at: http://old.linux.org.au/projects/calu/ Just look at the bottem of the page. I have take a screenshot if you happen to miss it with a huge red circle around it.
I'm sure nothing has changed between 1999 and 2005 that would mean Linus Torvalds had lost his paten to your client. If it has, then this should of been noted by your client on said page when it was "Last modified: August 16 2005 10:07:12".
Thank you for your time and have a good day.

Yep, and they faked Jonathan Oxer's Blog and the press page of Linux Australia that links to the zdnet article above is also faked, and if you were to get off your ass and call them the guy answering the phone wouldn't really be from Linux Australia, he'd be a midget who does voice impersonations for the CIA. I said it before, I'll say it again, lay off the crack pipe.

Yep, and they faked Jonathan Oxer's Blog and the press page of Linux Australia that links to the zdnet article above is also faked, and if you were to get off your ass and call them the guy answering the phone wouldn't really be from Linux Australia, he'd be a midget who does voice impersonations for the CIA. I said it before, I'll say it again, lay off the crack pipe.

lay off the crack pipe.

About 90 companies with products, services or websites containing the word "Linux" recently received letters of demand from Perth lawyer Jeremy Malcolm.

Acting for user group Linux Australia Inc, he asks recipients to sign statements saying their use of the word is subject to the group's licence agreement, which has fees of $A200 to $A5000 under a successful trademark application. Those using the term in a descriptive sense do not have to pay, he says.

"It is your legal responsibility to obtain a licence from the Linux Mark Institute before you are allowed to use the word 'Linux' as part of your product or service name or brand," Mr Malcolm wrote to companies.

User group president Jonathan Oxer says the trademark application is to protect the name from abuse. "At this point, the exercise is not about extracting fees from people," he says. "It's an extremely small number of people that are likely to have to licence it. It's about establishing the trademark. This is the reality of working in the commercial world that we're in now."

Reactions ranged from support to confusion.

"I suspected it was a scam, so I posted the message (to a local mailing list) to find out more," says Richard Ham, a Sunshine Coast IT consultant whose ventures include his EdIT Counsel consultancy and Linux-related website http://linuxhowtos.net/">linuxhowtos.net.

Investigations relieved Mr Ham's concerns, but not everyone is so understanding.

"There's been a mixture of positive support and paranoia, and that's kind of what I expected," says Mr Malcolm, who was engaged in a celebrated 2002 anti-spamming case against Perth company T3.

The trademark action emerged after a 2003 conflict in which an Adelaide Linux consultancy called itself Linux Australia Pty Ltd. The user group, in operation for years, took exception to the name's similarity and blocked the application through IP Australia. The consultancy changed its name to OpenEra but the incident highlighted that the Linux name was in legal limbo because it was unregistered.

The user group acted to become an agent for the Linux Mark Institute, a US-based organisation created in 2002 to police use of Linux creator Linus Torvalds' trademark after he became concerned about a website operator selling pornography through http://linuxchix.com/">linuxchix.com.

The Australian trademark application was lodged with the trademarks office on January 19 last year. It has an acceptance due date of September 7.

In the weeks leading to that date, Mr Malcolm hopes to build momentum for the initiative so the trademark will be granted to Mr Torvalds, with the user group monitoring use in Australia.

About a dozen letters have been returned and Mr Malcolm is in talks with IP Australia over whether that is enough.

"I'm hopeful that just to show that we've got positive responses from some of the most important users of Linux out there will be enough to convince IP Australia to grant the trademark," he says.

OpenEra, whose inadvertent naming conflict with the user group started the process, got its letter last week and "we'll be signing it", says managing director Hosi Stankovic.

"We have the legacy of (the dispute) and all the hate mails but we don't really have any objections to (the user group) registering the name," he says.

"We just want a trademark and to have it safe to trade with."

BSD - it's just Linux for old guys! http://linux.org.au/conf/2002/abstracts.html#bsd

...I am not now, nor have I ever been, a camwhore.

I do, however, take pictures of stuff that ain't whores.

• Simple
• Flexible
• Effective

well , where do you live then?

the list of LUGs in australia can be found at the linux australia LUG page .

...is wait for it to be finished (chopped, possibly remixed from different audio if needed, possibly direct video from the screen pasted in - a job I don't envy in this case since Mark had OOImpress set for automatic advance and kept going back, rendered into a compressible format) and released. (-:

Let the organisers know that you care. Conf delegates and speakers get a CD/DVD set snailmailed out automagically, you may be able to buy and/or download a DVD (or just the video) later as well.

Our local observatory (with live night-sky camera) is Gummint-funded. This leads to some interesting effects.

Much of their computing equipment has been scrounged - and doesn't appear on any equipment manifests - because there was no budget for it. They have a Pentium-90 driving (pointing) their main 'scope with a backup P-90 literally sitting on the next shelf in case it dies.

The few pieces of gear that they do get grants for are typically extremely fancy. On the rare occasions when ThePowersThatBe say "yes, you can have a computer to process the incoming images," then the cost of that actual computer system and absolutely nothing else is almost immaterial as long as it fits certain criteria.

So... in the room to the left of the one housing the P-90 sits a you-beauty glow-in-the-dark (well, not literally, it would cause backscatter) state-of-the-art box with double overhead ThermalTakes and all the trimmings. Just one. And I bet they crammed memory and disks into that baby's purchasing spec until the chassis groaned under the weight.

When Mark Shuttleworth gave his amazing talk at LCA2005, one of the things he mentioned was that the Yanks didn't want their astronauts (also going up in the Soyuz with Mark) flying to Baikonur in a rattly old Tupelov transport lest it unexpectedly drop out of the sky en route, but rather than come out and say so directly they came over all clever and simply pointed out that NASA regs forbade their astronauts to travel without seatbelts, which they knew the Tupelov wasn't fitted with. This was a mistake. On the day, the astronauts were marched out to the Tupelov, and aboard - and into a minibus in the cargo bay, where they sat and wore the minibus's seatbelts for the duration of the trip.

BTW, when the video DVD from LCA2005 gets published, bend heaven and earth to get yourself a copy. It's well worth-while for Mark's presentation alone ("Welcome to Khazakstan!"), and there are many other excellent presentations on it (Keith Packard explaining the sport of Window Hurling, for example, or E'dale demonstrating how to collapse a penguin's skull).

The point in that story which I wanted to use as an illustration here was that the minibus wasn't put aboard the transport for the astronauts' benefit. There was a budget for flying the Tupelov - pilots, fuel, landing fees and so on - but no budget for getting from the airport to where they were staying. So the van (which fell under the base's budget, so was financially covered) was fuelled up and driven aboard the Tupelov for use as a taxi while the transport 'plane was prepped for the return flight. In terms of working around bizarre regulations, NASA or not, the Americans really were amateurs playing in a professional field. (-:

Our local observatory (with live night-sky camera) is Gummint-funded. This leads to some interesting effects.

Much of their computing equipment has been scrounged - and doesn't appear on any equipment manifests - because there was no budget for it. They have a Pentium-90 driving (pointing) their main 'scope with a backup P-90 literally sitting on the next shelf in case it dies.

The few pieces of gear that they do get grants for are typically extremely fancy. On the rare occasions when ThePowersThatBe say "yes, you can have a computer to process the incoming images," then the cost of that actual computer system and absolutely nothing else is almost immaterial as long as it fits certain criteria.

So... in the room to the left of the one housing the P-90 sits a you-beauty glow-in-the-dark (well, not literally, it would cause backscatter) state-of-the-art box with double overhead ThermalTakes and all the trimmings. Just one. And I bet they crammed memory and disks into that baby's purchasing spec until the chassis groaned under the weight.

When Mark Shuttleworth gave his amazing talk at LCA2005, one of the things he mentioned was that the Yanks didn't want their astronauts (also going up in the Soyuz with Mark) flying to Baikonur in a rattly old Tupelov transport lest it unexpectedly drop out of the sky en route, but rather than come out and say so directly they came over all clever and simply pointed out that NASA regs forbade their astronauts to travel without seatbelts, which they knew the Tupelov wasn't fitted with. This was a mistake. On the day, the astronauts were marched out to the Tupelov, and aboard - and into a minibus in the cargo bay, where they sat and wore the minibus's seatbelts for the duration of the trip.

BTW, when the video DVD from LCA2005 gets published, bend heaven and earth to get yourself a copy. It's well worth-while for Mark's presentation alone ("Welcome to Khazakstan!"), and there are many other excellent presentations on it (Keith Packard explaining the sport of Window Hurling, for example, or E'dale demonstrating how to collapse a penguin's skull).

The point in that story which I wanted to use as an illustration here was that the minibus wasn't put aboard the transport for the astronauts' benefit. There was a budget for flying the Tupelov - pilots, fuel, landing fees and so on - but no budget for getting from the airport to where they were staying. So the van (which fell under the base's budget, so was financially covered) was fuelled up and driven aboard the Tupelov for use as a taxi while the transport 'plane was prepped for the return flight. In terms of working around bizarre regulations, NASA or not, the Americans really were amateurs playing in a professional field. (-:

Our local observatory (with live night-sky camera) is Gummint-funded. This leads to some interesting effects.

Much of their computing equipment has been scrounged - and doesn't appear on any equipment manifests - because there was no budget for it. They have a Pentium-90 driving (pointing) their main 'scope with a backup P-90 literally sitting on the next shelf in case it dies.

The few pieces of gear that they do get grants for are typically extremely fancy. On the rare occasions when ThePowersThatBe say "yes, you can have a computer to process the incoming images," then the cost of that actual computer system and absolutely nothing else is almost immaterial as long as it fits certain criteria.

So... in the room to the left of the one housing the P-90 sits a you-beauty glow-in-the-dark (well, not literally, it would cause backscatter) state-of-the-art box with double overhead ThermalTakes and all the trimmings. Just one. And I bet they crammed memory and disks into that baby's purchasing spec until the chassis groaned under the weight.

When Mark Shuttleworth gave his amazing talk at LCA2005, one of the things he mentioned was that the Yanks didn't want their astronauts (also going up in the Soyuz with Mark) flying to Baikonur in a rattly old Tupelov transport lest it unexpectedly drop out of the sky en route, but rather than come out and say so directly they came over all clever and simply pointed out that NASA regs forbade their astronauts to travel without seatbelts, which they knew the Tupelov wasn't fitted with. This was a mistake. On the day, the astronauts were marched out to the Tupelov, and aboard - and into a minibus in the cargo bay, where they sat and wore the minibus's seatbelts for the duration of the trip.

BTW, when the video DVD from LCA2005 gets published, bend heaven and earth to get yourself a copy. It's well worth-while for Mark's presentation alone ("Welcome to Khazakstan!"), and there are many other excellent presentations on it (Keith Packard explaining the sport of Window Hurling, for example, or E'dale demonstrating how to collapse a penguin's skull).

The point in that story which I wanted to use as an illustration here was that the minibus wasn't put aboard the transport for the astronauts' benefit. There was a budget for flying the Tupelov - pilots, fuel, landing fees and so on - but no budget for getting from the airport to where they were staying. So the van (which fell under the base's budget, so was financially covered) was fuelled up and driven aboard the Tupelov for use as a taxi while the transport 'plane was prepped for the return flight. In terms of working around bizarre regulations, NASA or not, the Americans really were amateurs playing in a professional field. (-:

This morning Jonathan Corbet mentioned this news in detail, at this talk

However, It's a same that Linus wasn't here himself to talk about it, as in previous years.

So there'll be no re-enactment of that famous penguin nip, which made history and changed the world. :(

Your portrayal of the situation in Brazil is at the very least unfair.

The Brazilian government is spending on developing the code base that will save them millions, but I'm sure government management software does not make Slashdot headlines like "a tool for hacking GTK+". Migrating to a Free Software platform does not involve only installing Linux distros; migrating the actual systems that run on top of the platform is the most substantial work.

Brazilian involvement with Free Software started in my home state, Rio Grande do Sul, where the state government started a big push for free software in its IT agency. The systems of the state's public bank were migrated to free software, and its very pleasant sight to see Tux in the ATM's wallpapers. Incidentally, it is also in Rio Grande do Sul that the International Forum on Free Software takes place (and where the World Social Forum was created). The party who was in state government when these initiatives took place has now won the federal elections, so these developments are now starting to take place in national scale. Brazil spends billions every year in proprietary software licenses -- yes, spend money installing free software is a great move, especially in the long run.

In my personal experience as a Brazilian from Rio Grande do Sul, I can say that the development of a culture of Free Software there is as important as funding coding. The Forums served as a great incentive to the FS project I'm involved with, the GoboLinux distribution, a project born in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It was also in the Forums that I was exposed to another Brazilian Free Software project, the Lua language, which I now took part in my MsC project, funded by -- you guess -- the Brazilian government. So there's your "big project the Brazilian government funded on FOSS". Of course, we could use more research grants, but that's a more general problem of low incentive to science R&D (a recurring problem in the so-called Third World). At least, now, the grants are given by the government with the explicit condition that research results are made available under an OSI-approved license. To me, that's a great thing.

There are quite a number of conferences that happen around the Open Source community, and many of the lectures and tutorials are recorded. The Linux Conference of Australia (and it's coming up again btw) is a good resource, and most of the talks that have been sone over the last few years are available in Speex format. You'd have to convert to some other format if whatever you're listening on can't do Speex. Also remember that some of these talks really do require you to look at the slides, so it's probably better aimed at someone with a laptop.

There are quite a number of conferences that happen around the Open Source community, and many of the lectures and tutorials are recorded. The Linux Conference of Australia (and it's coming up again btw) is a good resource, and most of the talks that have been sone over the last few years are available in Speex format. You'd have to convert to some other format if whatever you're listening on can't do Speex. Also remember that some of these talks really do require you to look at the slides, so it's probably better aimed at someone with a laptop.

The transcript is available starting on page 55 of this PDF (called a Hansard, apparently.)

There's now an illustrated version of his opening statement here, but the questions from the senators are much more interesting and you'll find them in the Hansard.

Dumb, dumb, dumb AC troll!

Dumb, dumb, dumb AC troll!

Dumb, dumb, dumb AC troll!

Dumb, dumb, dumb AC troll!

Dumb, dumb, dumb AC troll!

...because next year it'd have to be gnu.linux.conf.nz, and kiwiland doesn't have a "conf" 2LD.

It was originally called CALU, Conference of Australian Linux Users.

I want to call it Colloquy of Linux in Australia and New Zealand (CLANZ) but nobody's listening. (-:

We're (the royal we're) also idly toying with the idea of separate per-state user Colloquia.

Either way, LCA is top stuff. I hope we get Linus again this year. He likes to come along because of the low-profile, relaxed and informative ambience (you know, they force you onto a dunking stool, that kind of thing).

BTW, if you haven't yet punted around in Planet Linux Australia, do so. It's quite an education, here and there.

you missed last year conference?
Download best 2004 videos from Linux.Conf.Au 2004 Videos Information & Downloads Webpage


___________________________
Bridge - Linux Ethernet bridging

For those who are attending the conference there will also be a programming competition run during the conference.

Lots of fun was had by participants and observers at last year's competition.

For those who are attending the conference there will also be a programming competition run during the conference.

Lots of fun was had by participants and observers at last year's competition.

For those of you who are wondering where linux.conf.au 2006 is going to be, it will be held in Dunedin, New Zealand

No need to set up any fake-pirated-movie honeypots; the MPAA is already sending out enough frivolous legal threats to random websites for no apparent reason as it is.

For example: Scene.org got a copyright infringement notice a while ago claiming that a 62kb file supposedly contained an entire season of a television series. (What's funniest about this is when they sent the notice, the file wasn't even downloadable because it was still in /incoming!)
Linux Australia was the recipient of a similar notice about a couple of movies that they never had, Grind and Twisted. The files in question were Valgrind and Twisted Matrix.

The ARQuake project, on just such an idea, was presented at the Australian 2003 Linux Conference. See this abstract.

The URL of the Planet is:

http://planet.linux.org.au/

...lives on the LinuxAus server. Lots more than Linus, too. LA's current El Presidente in a VR suit. One of Linus and Tove's daughters in the head. Runes inside the suit. Rusty waving a laptop in a threatening manner. (-:

Suit stitched by my wife, her sister and a Chilean friend named Cecilia. Suit was balanced and padded to make the posture and waddle work right. Big sell job to get Linus into the suit by Tony Breeds-Taurima, LA Committee candidate and LCA2005 organiser (as well as LCA2003 organiser, PLUG secretary and president at various times). Intro/distraction by Rusty Russell.

See also the adjacent page-set with a gigabyte of random CC photos, mostly flowers of various kinds.

If you searched, you'd probably get lots more Linus and LCA pix. Many geeks, many cameras.

...lives on the LinuxAus server. Lots more than Linus, too. LA's current El Presidente in a VR suit. One of Linus and Tove's daughters in the head. Runes inside the suit. Rusty waving a laptop in a threatening manner. (-:

Suit stitched by my wife, her sister and a Chilean friend named Cecilia. Suit was balanced and padded to make the posture and waddle work right. Big sell job to get Linus into the suit by Tony Breeds-Taurima, LA Committee candidate and LCA2005 organiser (as well as LCA2003 organiser, PLUG secretary and president at various times). Intro/distraction by Rusty Russell.

See also the adjacent page-set with a gigabyte of random CC photos, mostly flowers of various kinds.

If you searched, you'd probably get lots more Linus and LCA pix. Many geeks, many cameras.

...lives on the LinuxAus server. Lots more than Linus, too. LA's current El Presidente in a VR suit. One of Linus and Tove's daughters in the head. Runes inside the suit. Rusty waving a laptop in a threatening manner. (-:

Suit stitched by my wife, her sister and a Chilean friend named Cecilia. Suit was balanced and padded to make the posture and waddle work right. Big sell job to get Linus into the suit by Tony Breeds-Taurima, LA Committee candidate and LCA2005 organiser (as well as LCA2003 organiser, PLUG secretary and president at various times). Intro/distraction by Rusty Russell.

See also the adjacent page-set with a gigabyte of random CC photos, mostly flowers of various kinds.

If you searched, you'd probably get lots more Linus and LCA pix. Many geeks, many cameras.