Computing Assistance Support & Education Inc – CASE Notes

CASE president Darrell Burkey has travelled north to attend Linux Conf Australia 2011, a large and very popular IT event.

“linux.conf.au (lca) is a conference about Open Source Software, including Linux. It brings together the world’s community of Linux and open source enthusiasts who make considerable contributions to open source software.”

Flying to the recently flooded city of Brisbane for the full event we have no doubt we’ll come away with a treasure trove of information, new contacts and new ideas we can apply to ICT in community-service sector. We use a wide range of Open Source solutions in our day-to-day operations and strive to stay abreast with developments in this fast moving and very exciting industry. Friends of CASE have also been in attendance at the conference, Pia Waugh has been tweeting comprehensively as usual and Andrew Tridgell has given a presentation on coffee and Linux. Mark Pesce, who we heard from and were impressed by at Connecting Up 2009, also a keynote speaker at lca2011, has been keeping up quality coverage via his Twitter feed here.

For more information about the event please check out the official page. We’ll provide further coverage here as we put the material together!

Thanks for everyone who turned out for our AGM which turned out to be a great event. Nick and Stuart from Woden Community Services gave a great presentation detailing how they performed a major IT overhaul for their group, with great results. What’s more, they brought copies of all their high quality documentation to share. Brilliant! Then we surprised Andrew Tridgell with Kate Lundy dropping by to do a small presentation bestowing to him life-membership and a new Sonic Screwdriver. A heartfelt speech for someone who has helped a lot. The business end of the AGM concluded quickly with Darrell Burkey re-elected as President, Amanda Plowright as Vice President, myself as Committee Member and we’d like to welcome Stuart Hogan to the committee as well. Thanks for volunteering!

Ever wondered why a top software developer would spend his time helping out non-profit organisations? Is it possible to be involved in a court case with Microsoft for 10 years and come away happy? Did CASE really teach a Masters level course in Free and Open Source software development at the Australian National University?

Hear what Andrew Tridgell has to say when CASE Management Committee member Sam McKeon and Darrell Burkey get together for a conversation about all of the above and more.

It’s a fairly casual podcast this time around but we quickly get to the heart of the matter.

You can listen to this podcast by heading over to our podcast page and selecting Episode 5!