New team takes over at Linux Australia

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 06 February 2008 17:06

Opinion and Analysis

Smith said liability insurance was one area in which LUGs could be helped by Linux Australia as it was better negotiated as a group.

He said the Linux scene today was greatly different from the days of 1999 when the first conference was held. Hosted at Monash University, it was bankrolled by the well-known kernel hacker Paul 'Rusty' Russell.

Today many companies had bet their future on Linux and the level of interest was much, much higher; hence, attracting sponsorship for the conference was relatively easy, he said.

However, even though funds were available, Smith said one always needed to be careful; thankfully, some of those who had been treasurers in the past - people like Anand Kumria and Mark Tearle - had put the necessary processes in place to manage expenditure.

He said he would like to see more and more people get involved in activities which were organised by Linux Australia. And as people developed better and better methods for organising aspects of the conference, he said he would like to make sure that no-one would have to re-invent the wheel.

Work for next year's conference will get under way slowly; every couple of weeks, there will be communication between the committee and one of the organisers. The basic plan for 2009 has already been submitted by Tasmania Linux User Group as part of its bid to host the conference.

The other Linux Australia office-bearers for 2008-09 are Steve Walsh (vice-president), Terry Dawson (secretary), Anthony Towns (treasurer), and James Turnbull, Paul Schulz and Melissa Draper (committee members).