Just a reminder that the LCA2010 funding programmes are due to close this Friday so get your applications in quick!

These funds are designed to fund delegates who contribute to the Open Source community who, without financial assistance, would not be able to attend LCA2010.

* InternetNZ Oceania Programme - funds people living in
Australasia-Pacific Region

* InternetNZ Kiwi Fellowship - funds people living in New Zealand

* Google Diverstiy Programme - for people in diverse groups.

To apply, see: http://www.lca2010.org.nz/register/funding

it's in Wellington New Zealand - 18th Jan to 23rd Jan.

There's still time to submit a speaking proposal to a miniconf:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/miniconfs

There are 3 funding programmes, if you're an open source contributor and need $$$ to get to Wellington for the conference.
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/media/news/89

The Programme is out - checkout the speakers and topics:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/schedule

There's is a partner's programme -- details coming soon.

Accomodation - there's student-style accomodation (which I reccomend) - also 4 star, 5 star, and apartments for groups/families.
This year there are couple and family accomodations available.
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/register/accommodation

The primary sponsors, who you should all be thinking good thoughts about now, are: Internet NZ and Google....

other sponsors: Catalyst, Canonical, Egressive, 3months, amberDMS, Dreamhost, Ingres, iwantmyname.com.

Last night, we announced 3x LCA2010 funding programmes to assist thosewho contribute to the Open Source communities:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/media/news/89

- InternetNZ Oceania Funding Programme (funds people living in the
Australasia and pacific)
- InternetNZ Kiwi Fellowship (funds new zealanders)
- Google Diversity Programme (funds for member of minority groups within open source - female, disabled, or other group.)

More details of the funding programmes can be found here:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/register/funding

recently:

I spoke in front of lotsa government people - on a panel along with the Vikram Kumar and Kate Lundy. It was videoed, but i don't know where to find the video. here's a photo:

organised a Girl Geek Dinner --- but more importantly, i found someone to take over organising the next one! Hurrah for Amber Craig

I got commit access to laconica - which is amusing. Who gives a 6 month pregnant person commit access? The project changed named this week to "statusnet". It's the software the power http://identi.ca

I went to Open Govt barcamp - including the hackfest. While there i recorded a podcast. Need to clean it up a bit, but my plan is to get about 5 interviews then advertise the podcast.

The mini confs have been announced. These are the one day conferences within a conference.
full announcement

They're all excellent FOSS topics, and in amongst these are some favourites that I'm really looking forward to.

The Education miniconf will be run by Tabitha Roder, the person i picked as my hero for Ada Lovelace day. She's also a moodle ninja and sensei by day, and the leader of OLPC/Sugar open source work in New Zealand. The Wellington "Friends in Testing" group has been growning from strength to strength this year, and now meets every Saturday to test the latest build. Education, of both the young and the not-so-young is one way the free and open source worlde grows and bring in fresh ideas from new people. It's also a much nicer community than some other parts of open source.

The "Free the Cloud" miniconf will be run by Evan Prodromou, most famous for founding and building http://identi.ca and the Laconica software behind it. He also wrote the Open Micro Blogging specification. "Cloud" is a common buzz word these days, but it's a real concept (once we agree on what it means). Licences like the AGPL (the William Wallace of open source licences) are unlocking code for the world to reuse and build apon.

At the Wellington OLPC Friends in testing session yesterday, the beginnings of plotting for a OLPC/Sugar miniconf for LCA2010 began.

Leading the charge is Tabitha Roder, along with from Walter Bender and the Wellington OLPC team. They've called for others in the region to join their bid [olpcfriends.org]

While i was at the testing session I decided to try my hand at a hello world sugar app. (Sugar is the environment running on the OLPC XO laptops)

Someone sent me a link to Sugar installing on FLOSS manuals, which tell that all i need do is:

apt-get install sugar

well, that bit works - but X will crash and die back to GDM after starting. Turns out the Jaunty version doesn't work.

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_NZ.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/jarabe/desktop/meshbox.py:19: DeprecationWarning: the sha module is deprecated; use the hashlib module instead
import sha

Miniconf are mini 1 day conferences (or sometimes 2 days). They happen on the Monday and Tuesday of LCA Linux conferences. The 2010 conference is in Wellington, and the call for miniconf proposals is open now.

By proposing a miniconf you're agreeing to host it: you find the speakers (usually you do your own call for papers after you announce your miniconf) and you find volunteers to do the MC announcement of the next speaker etc. The Main conference will find you a room, and AV gear etc.

They mini confs provide great variety to the conferences - the topics are diverse

Here's a list i've compiled of miniconfs from the past.

2009:

Open Source Databases
Linux Kernel
System administration
MythTV
LinuxChix
Mobile Devices
Business of Open Source
Linux Security
Multimedia
Virtualisation
GAming
Freedom

2008:

Community Wireless
Debian
Education
Embedded
Fedora
Multimedia
Security
Virtualisation
Distro Summit
Gaming
Gentoo
Gnome
kernel
LinuxChix
MySQL
System Administration

2007

Debian
Gnome
Education
Embedded
Virtualisation
MySQL
Research
Gaming
Kernel
Postgres
OpenOffice
LinuxChix

Here are some things I know the NZ opensource community is into, and I'd like to see proposed by somebody for Wellington 2010:
Linux/opensource Automobiles
Opensource in Governments
Opensource in Mobile and/or Telecommunications.
One Laptop Per Child / Sugar.

Here's the missing photos of the upcoming Linux Conference LCA2010 venue -- the Keynote venue. (conference is 18th to 23rd January 2010).

More photos of the rest of the venue

Here are some photos of the Venue we'll be using for LCA2010.
Not shown is the main keynote venue -- but everything else was used for Software Freedom day in 2008, and will be set up very similarly for January 2010.

some of the rooms for talks (varying sizes)

alcoves for chats

The mighty opensource conference named "LCA" is coming to Wellington in January 2010.

Start thinking of ideas for mini confs. these are 1/2 day or 1 day series of talks - all under a topic. Think of awesome topics where a good series of talks will ensue

past miniconfs include: gnome, gaming, embedded, databases, php, perl, python.

Some nifty timely ideas might be Linux powered cars, mobile development, clouds.... whatever people might be interested in current times.

- Call for mini-confs opens up 15th June.
- Call for papers opens up 29th June.

Internet NZ have signed on as a key sponsor of the upcoming Linux & opensource conference (the conference usually known as linux.conf.au)

This is slightly old news, but worth repeating
http://blog.internetnz.net.nz/?p=265

The annual Linux.conf.au conference will be held in January 2010 in Wellington - the second time it has been held in New Zealand. It will bring together local and international open source practitioners who contribute to the Linux operating system and numerous other open source projects. Linux creator Linus Torvalds regularly attends this event.

InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson says open source has played, and continues to play, a key role in achieving InternetNZ’s vision of an open and uncaptureable Internet.

“Every New Zealander that uses the Internet is an open source user. It’s the backbone of almost everything business and government does these days. If you want to get close to the people that have built the core technology of the 21st century, you go to conferences like LCA2010. I’m thrilled it is being held right on our doorstep.”

“It is particularly timely that LCA2010 is being held in Wellington. Government agencies have been caught up in something of a technical monoculture, leading to missed opportunity and detachment from key transformations that the Internet has enabled. Any IT staff in the public sector unfamiliar with open source would get a huge boost talking with technical folk that have enjoyed the freedom of unfettered global collaboration.”

I'm in the process of confirming the 5 star acommodation for linux.conf.au in wellington, January 2010.

Here's one potential room for lca2010

there is a grand piano, and there's room for a couple racks of servers too.

I'm working through booking the accomidation for Linux.conf.au 2010.

It'll be a good mixture:

• few ultracheap dorm rooms & backpackers
• hundreds and hundreds of student-style single rooms
• probably a few "apartment style" rooms, with 5 bedrooms and shared kitchen
• 3 star hotel rooms
• and 5 star hotels for those that live this way ;-)

Folks who want something else, can definitely find it in Wellington. The dates are 18th to 23rd January and there's pretty much something for everyone.

It won't compare to the HOGWARTS experience that was Melbourne 2008.

Last night i dreamed i did some public speaking, and then i won a sparkly pink tiara with pink fur trim.

Turns out it was true!
http://up.org.nz/predictions-2009/

i think this means i'm now supreme blogger in wellington!! (there can be only one, etc. etc.)

I was part of a panel of bloggers who were asked to make predictions for the coming year. The other bloggers where Miraz Jordon, Philip Fierlinger and Mauricio Freitas

Miraz predicted apple taking over the laptop market (75%!) and we'll need a licence to use the internet read more - Philip is actually a salesman for apple iphones - and Mauricio agreed opensource is going to take over the world but his kitchen might not get finished in time.

Here are the predicions i made:

Gadgets

Opensource will take over the gadget world (finally!)

webkit will be on more and more gadgets, but so will opera (closed source) and mozilla will make some inroads into mobile (and about time too for mozilla). This was confirmed today by the announcement that Mozilla have employed a programmer from palm

Hey Aussies - wanna know more about wellington before you commit to a trip to Linux.conf.au in Wellington 2010?? Check out this video:

I'm not sure why there's a whole section about the government giving people money.... wtf.

Here's the worst kept best secret in Wellington - Linux.conf.au is heading to wellington for 2010. This was finally officially announced at the 2009 conference final dinner in Hobart last night.

It began as a lunch time conversation in Sydney - then someone made a wiki page - then people volunteered, and we put together a team, picked Andrew Ruthven as our mighty leader, and created the winning conference bid. (with a huge amount of research and negotiation with wellington businesses and government in between)

Linux.conf.au varies from other opensource conferences I've attended, in that it's technically focused. Many conferences are targetted at management, and business owners making purchasing decisions. Linux.conf.au isn't. It's the actual hacker/coder/tester/degisners coming together to do face to face meetings, technical talks, and announcements from the people who actually build the opensource awesomeness we love.

It's a conference that's easy to get involved in. LCA was definitely a big part of my own decision to write more and more opensource code. (and there are plenty of ways to contribute, not just code).

Google-linux.conf.au Diversity Delegates Programme - linux.conf.au 2009 | 19 - 24 Jan | Marchsouth t

Google is pleased to partner with linux.conf.au organisers to offer travel and conference registrations subsidies to female delegates to attend linux.conf.au 2009 in Hobart, Tasmania. The joint Diversity ...

I caught a taxi out to newtown.. i had a feeling i would either find some shop keeper you didn't care and didn't want to help.. or i'd find someone so wonderful they'd give me everything i need.

The second was true. The lady in Rachna was so incredibly lovely..

After a few stumbling moments we (my sister and I) convince her we really want a "real" Saree - a glammed out version. Once we'd declared this was serious, she took us upstairs to a whole new world of Sarees...

OMG!!! they are so beautiful..

So, decked out in a Saree Petticoat, with a short short top and my bright white belly on show, i was wrapped in a intricately pleated Saree in vibrant blue.

Then it was my sister's turn, to do the pleating - in practise for tomorrow when she'll help me get into this Saree again.

The store keep notices the google logo on my T-shirt (one of the free ones from linux.conf.au) and so asks if i'm a computer geek -- and what is linux.. I explain it's like windows but without the sucking.. - and give her the URL to http://linuxchix.org.nz

With the saree chosen, we head downstairs - i get bangled up.. LOTS of bangles in gold and blue.

WOW! what fun.

A banana smoothie @ Plannar, and then back on a bus to town to find a wedding gift.

snuck up on me.. tomorrow i'm supposed to be doing a presentation on the wonderful things i learned @ linux.conf.au.

it's 11pm.. i'm gonna sleep!!! worry about preparing in the morning.

Here's a copy of my 7 days of fame on stuff.co.nz

Linux conference blog

Friday, 19 January 2007

This week Sydney is hosting the largest free and open source software
conference in the Southern Hemisphere. Linux.conf.au (LCA07) is an
influential gathering of over 800 interested users and software
developers.

Qtopia's green phone.

Appears to be GSM - which is a bummer because i work with a cdma telco. Looks like it all works, must find one to play with.

Hewlett Packard and Debian

Sounds like they're good buddies.
Lunch!
thought about heckling at the mysql "self healing databases" (why not right schemas that enforce not needing healing in the first place?)

Copyright and Copyleft

Someone made a kids card game involving publishing content. I arrived 10 minutes early, to find they had already started. They also finished very early.

Synchronization and Gnome

approached from the idea that MS windows and MacOs already do this, so gnome need to. They seem to want to create their own thing instead of using existing stuff. ipod syncing was one thing (isn't there heaps already in linux?) Think syncing your photos with flickr. I'm not sure if they really grasped "sync", not just push. If i tag my flickr photo will that tag make it's way back to my desktop? (maybe i should get involved with that one -- i do spend far too much time querying the flickr API).

Sys-admining with user packages

One of the catalyst directors described how catalyst maintain the account for on call sysadmins on so many servers. We use debian packages to create required packages (to get new accounts created) and conflicting packages (to remove staff who no longer need access).

Auto building Live CDs

i admit i got a bit absorbed in the distro flames on the irc channel, and missed much of this

next sunday, the 14th, i'm off to linux.conf.au
That's a whole weeks conference on linux.

It's in Sydney this year. I'm leaping on a plane, with 2 awesome ladies, penny, and a random sysadmin person who doesn't have a blog.

after the conference i'm staying the extra weekend in sydney, as well as the monday, which is Wellington anniversary..

Check my photo stream on flickr during the week..

I'll also try and blog a bit about the things i see, do, and learn over there.

To any and all my clients who may be reading this... i don't have a shiny new laptop, so i can't be working while in Sydney.. send your outrage to my boss ;-)