Andrew's blog

One of the things that people may not realise, is the number of meetings that go into putting together a linux.conf.au. Currently we have fortnightly meetings (but only one to go!) so that everyone can be kept up to date on where things are, what (if any) issues there are in the various areas and to generally have a chat.

The photo here's a typical LCA2010 organising meeting. The scones aren't typical - they were made by Andrew & Heather's son Max, who you can see through the door (they were certainly appreciated, thanks Max!). We've been using the training room at Catalyst as a handy location in town that easy for people to get to, and tucked out of the way.

Also not visible in the photo are Susanne and our son Adam, and Heather who's taking the photo.

Attending LCA2010? Use LinkedIn?

How about showing you're attending on the LCA2010 event on LinkedIn!

Wow, has it really been two months since the last blog post? No wonder, we've been flat out!

• Announced our second keynoter - Nat Torkington
• Call for papers closed
• Announced the successful miniconfs
• The Paper Review Committee started the paper review process of our over 300 paper submissions.
• Published our accommodation options
• The Paper Review Committee had a face-to-face meeting in Sydney
• Announced our third and fourth keynotes - Gabriella Coleman and Glyn Moody.
• The accepted talks were scheduled
• We released a new logo, with a competition and 20 hours later gave away a hobbyist ticket to Mark Piper
• Call for Miniconf Papers opened
• Three Funding programmes were finalised and then announced
• And then on Monday, we released the talk schedule

Busy times, and it is only going to get busier, when I first wrote this article on Monday, Susanne was 39 weeks pregnant, not long to go now on that front... It turns out I was right, she gave birth to Adam Robert Ruthven this morning. More news to follow soon.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Friday 24 July 2009 – The LCA2010 Organising Committee have been overwhelmed by the numbers and quality of the papers submitted to linux.conf.au so far!

The success of the papers so far has put us in a generous mood. So we've decided to give all you slackers out there an extension on the Call for Papers by one week!

Call for Papers Now Closing: Friday 31 July 2009 at 17:00 NZST

Remember, to increase your chances of acceptance, check out the Papers Info page on our website before submitting your paper.

Wow, the linux.conf.au 2010 team have had a an awesome response to our Call for Miniconfs with over 32 amazing submissions. But the work isn't over yet!

Our Call for Papers is still open, but closes on Friday. That's right, Friday. If you'd like the opportunity to speak at one of the best FOSS conferences in the world, this is your chance, we want to hear from you!

For more information about submitting a paper, have a look at the Papers Info page on our website.

The linux.conf.au 2010 organising team is proud to announce the first keynote speaker for LCA2010!

Our first speaker has a distinguished reputation in the free software world, with significant contributions to Debian, Ubuntu and OLPC across a variety of areas including development, policy, advocacy, activism, education and writing. He is an active board member with several non-profit organisations including The Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom International, and he is involved in the global discussion of copyright, software patents and free culture.

We'd like to welcome Benjamin Mako Hill as our first confirmed keynote speaker for LCA2010!

For information see the full announcement

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Monday 15th June 2009 - Linux.conf.au announced the opening of its Call for Miniconfs for LCA2010. Miniconfs provide the opportunity of hosting 1-day mini-conferences on a variety of topics that run for 2 out of the 5 days during linux.conf.au. The Call for Miniconfs will remain open until 17 July 2009, after which time successful Miniconf Proposals will be notified and the best twelve selected to be included on the programme for LCA2010.

"Miniconfs are an important part of Linux.conf.au each year, and provide a great opportunity to host an entire day of sessions specific to a topic", says Andrew Ruthven, LCA2010 Director. "We're proud of hosting LCA2010 in Wellington, New Zealand and hope to see a variety of Miniconf Proposals to showcase the technical expertise of world's leading experts in free and open source software. When you gather IT experts together like this, the collective energy can help shape the future direction of emerging projects and developing technologies. That's what LCA2010 is all about – people getting together and making a difference".

IT businesses, government and community groups from around the world will also have the opportunity to showcase their work through presentations, displays and demonstrations at the LCA2010 Open Day, which will be held on Saturday 23rd January 2010. The conference will open its doors to the general public and highlight the best of breed Free and Open Source technology.

LCA2010 is easily affordable for professionals and hobbyists alike, thanks to generous sponsorship by leading proponents of free and open source software, and because the conference - much like the software - is largely organised by volunteers. If your business or organisation would like to take this opportunity to support LCA2010, please visit http://www.lca2010.org.nz/sponsors/why_sponsor.

Registrations to LCA2010 will open to delegates in September 2009.

About linux.conf.au

Linux.conf.au is one of the world's best conferences for free and open source software! The coming Linux.conf.au, LCA2010, will be held at the Wellington Convention Centre in Wellington, New Zealand from Monday 18th January to Saturday 23rd January 2010. LCA2010 is fun, informal and seriously technical, bringing together Free and Open Source developers, users and community champions from around the world. LCA2010 is the second time linux.conf.au has been held in New Zealand, with the first being Dunedin in 2006.

For more information see: http://www.lca2010.org.nz/

About Linux Australia

Linux Australia (http://www.linux.org.au/) is the peak body for Linux User Groups (LUGs) around Australia, and as such represents approximately 5000 Australian Linux users and developers. Linux Australia facilitates the organisation of this international Free Software conference in a different Australasian city each year.

For more information see: http://www.linux.org.au/

Emperor Penguin Sponsors

LCA2010 is proud to acknowledge the support of our Emperor Penguin Sponsor, InternetNZ.

For more information see: http://www.internetnz.org.nz/

Media Enquiries

LCA2010 Organisers
Email: media@lca2010.org.nz
Phone/Fax: +64 (4) 802 0422

Wow, has it really been two weeks since the Capital Cabal had a bunch of the Ghosts of Conference Past in Wellington? It feels like it was, well, this weekend - and it's only Saturday morning!

One of the traditions of linux.conf.au that works really well is called the Ghosts Weekend. This is when the current organisers invite a selection of previous organisers somewhere for a weekend so they can perform a brain dump about things that went right for them, and in some cases, more importantly, what went wrong. They also go over the organisers plans to make sure that they're on track.

This all leads to a pretty intensive weekend!

We started on Friday with picking everyone up from the airport (my final pickup was 00:30, then we had to find some soda water for Ben & Leah's duty free Gin!). Saturday morning was a walk around all the venues, yes they're all within walking distance of one another. After a fantastic lunch at Coyote's we then hit a meeting room and got down to discussions.

If you're running a discussion like this, and most people in the room have laptops then I highly recommend using Gobby to take your notes. Everyone has a slightly different take on things, so note down slightly different things. Fantastic.

Our discussions continued over dinner on Saturday night which was at Fujiyama Teppanyaki, which is certainly a fun place to have dinner. Stewart did an amazing job at dodging the bit of cooked egg that one of the chefs flung his way!

Sunday was back in the meeting room for continuing discussions. Followed by a few well earned beers and dinner at Wellington Brewery Bar. nom, nom, nom.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend and I'd like thank the Ghosts who attended, give apologies to the Ghosts we couldn't invite and give a huge thank you to Susanne for organising a fantastic weekend that went incredibly smoothly!

So today there is a public demonstration at MIDDAY on Parliament grounds in support of MPs speaking against Section 92A.

Details are here.

"In Wellington on the steps of Parliament on Thursday 19th at MIDDAY with a petition handover at 12:30pm. This is a postive event where we will hand out hundreds of CDs and thank the politicans that support us - so please keep it friendly and polite. While we appreciate people arranging their own demonstrations it might be best if we don't dilute our numbers with multiple events.

We want everyone reading this to email everyone they know in Wellington about this. We can't let this be another internet protest that results in few people turning up. This is important so we need to prove it in numbers.

NOTE: Please don't wear all black as that has negative associations with other demonstrations but instead come along with bright clothes and BLACK PLACARDS!"

As an example of how to be awesome do this

Awesome! Susanne and I have just announced at LCA2009 that linux.conf.au in 2010 will be held in Wellington, New Zealand! The website for LCA2010 is at www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz.

During our announcement we wanted to show a fantastic little clip from 42 Below about Wellington. But following the tradition of Hobarts annoucement at LCA2008 we had sound FAIL, so it didn't work. Please, go and check out the video clip on YouTube. (But ignore the bit about winning a trip to Wellington, the competition has finished.)

Follow the signs, visit Wellington!