Linux geeks, New Zealand beckons

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 11 August 2009 08:19

Opinion and Analysis

A husband-wife team is in the driver's seat for the 11th Australian national Linux conference which kicks off in Wellington, New Zealand, on January 18 next year.
Apart from dealing with all the hassles that a conference of this nature throws up - though there are rewards aplenty - Andrew and Susanne Ruthven will also have to navigate that most difficult of experiences, the birth of a child, in this case their second.

The Ruthvens have been regulars at LCA - as it is better known - since 2006, when it was first held in New Zealand, with Dunedin playing host.

Andrew says that was sufficient for them to catch the bug. Not merely the attendees' bug but that of speakers as well.

He did a presentation in 2008 and organised a miniconf the following year, while Susanne was on the partners programme. "What is the next natural step? Why, organising an LCA of course!" he told iTWire during a joint interview.

A contributor to a number of FOSS projects over the years, Andrew is employed by Catalyst IT, New Zealand's biggest open source tech unit (corrected), as a senior software developer.

He works mostly on the shared registry system that is used to manage the .nz domain name space.

Susanne is a part-time barrister, specialising in criminal law and human rights law. The way Andrew tells it, their daughter Brooke has attended three LCAs -  2007 in-utero, and 2008 and 2009 in person.

Their second child, who is expected next month, will be the youngest LCA attendee in January. The pair have been together since 2002, and were married in 2006.

Finances are naturally a concern for any conference being held in such a vicious world environment, but the Ruthvens are quite tranquil about this aspect of the conference.

"We are pleased with how many organisations are supporting LCA2010. InternetNZ is indicative of that support, seeing as they've been on board  as a top sponsor since before the Wellington bid document was submitted to Linux Australia," Andrew told iTWire.

InternetNZ is the emperor penguin sponsor. Others who have pledged support thus far are Catalyst (royal penguin sponsor), egressive (hoiho penguin sponsor), 3months, Amberdms and iWantMyName (little blue penguin sponsors), and Serious Broadband, Epic, FXnetworks , and Scoop (supporting partners).