It doesn't matter how much you directly participate in software
freedom or what operating system you run, all that matters is that you
would like to live in a world of software freedom where every
individual can control the code that runs on their computer and the
conditions under which it executes. It's that time of the year for all
of us who compute to celebrate our freedoms in technology and indulge
in the finer details of keeping our increasingly digital lives under
our direct control.
Free Software Melbourne, in conjunction with Linux Users Victoria, is
celebrating the 13th annual Software Freedom Day. With a variety of
talks and workshops helping everyone to get the most out of the
Free/Libre and Open Source communities and the free software they make
available
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Venue
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Our gracious hosts this year are:
Electron Workshop co-working space
31 Arden Street, North Melbourne
Map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/
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Time Table
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A (data) array of wonderful talkers have been so kind as to help
spread the word or just give you a tour of some great programs that
respect you.
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What does the Australian democratic system have in common with Eurovision?
No. It's not the wigs and over the top singing... No not the ongoing controversies and backstabbing...
It's the backroom dealings over the voting, that and Paul Foxworthy. While it's too soon to fully understand the ramifications of the updated senate voting it's never too soon to start talking about Eurovision. This month Paul will discuss his ongoing auprefs.info project and how similar techniques might be applicable to other (more entertaining) voting systems
We'll also be having our regular Gnews segment where we hope to discuss something other than the census, but we'll have to see about that, and as usual we'll end the night with a stroll down Errol st to KL Bunga Raya. Doors at Electron Workshop (31 Arden Street) open at 6pm with the event kicking off at about 6:30pm and drinks are available at EW member prices!
Free Software Melbourne - Meetup Thursday 21th July 2016
Free Software Melbourne - Meetup 16th June 2016
What’s that sound? That’s the next free software meeting coming down the tracks. If you are watching Netflix, grabbing the latest audio book from Audible or just streaming the next big smash flop on Pandora… DON'T DO THAT! If you do then you are deep into the realm of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), something that our main guest this month knows a few things about.
Meet Adam Turner, Free lance journalist, our main speaker and all round good guy (I can safely presume); as he chats to us about how DRM affects our lives. Having been a writer for close to two decade for the likes of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald plus almost every local technology publication online you could care to mention AND having a weekly podcast discussing all facets of modern technology. One gets the feeling he might know a thing or two about these issues and it will be a fascination talk and discussion. For more information check out his website www.adamturner.com.au
For more additional information about how DRM is affecting our lives check out https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
As is the standard there will be the monthly Gnews sure to get people chatting so please, do get involved. We want to hear your voice. Bring a friend if you want as everyone is welcome.
Come join our community on Thursday 16th June at the Electron Workshop; 31 Arden Street, North Melbourne.
Doors open at 6pm with the talks going from 6:30pm til 8pm then dinner around the corner. Tea and Coffee will be provided gratis with other drinks available for purchase.
See you all there!
Hi digital freedom advocates,
Last month we had our annual elections for Free Software Melbourne ... and lookout Stallman, I've got my eye on your job now that I've conquered the top job at FSM, hahaha. Big thanks go out to our outgoing members Ben S. and Scott. It was a fantastic year and we'll be missing Scotts overflowing enthusiasm and Bens inspirational dedication.
I also wanted to make a list of software discussed at our show-and-tell session last month, so without further ado, in order of appearance:
Starting us off was our newly elected secretary Damien demonstrating an Ardour plugin he's written for boosting quieter sounds in an audio recording without making louder noises clip... "peak limiter" I think it was called, I couldn't find that exact plugin, but here's a link to Damians Zam-plugins instead
Our other new committee member, my new second in command if you will, Michael showed us how to (questionably) improve the quality of our sleep using RedShift (formerly Flux) and gave us all a live demo of it in action... sweet!
I presented PanDoc which was a bit of a cop out as I've been implicitly advertising it all year in the Gnews... never the less, I'll be using it again later tonight :)
Adam Bolte our very own System Saviour showed us how to savour the special moments we have with our systems and do screen capture like a boss with Shutter... I never knew you could be so specific, you can just capture a specific menu!
Alex discussed his woes with text editors, and the elixir that is the Atom text editor (which was covered in Aprils Gnews, yay)
He also espoused the virtues of Docker Proxy and advised us that he's contributed to a fork that effectively performes a man-in-the-middle attack on your docker containers so that it can transparently proxy ssl connections... nice
Les gave us a small social hack the US government uses to get around copyright issues (but you'll have to listen yourself to find out that one). He also discussed using git to host configuration files for EMACS and other programs, then cloning his environment onto a new system... handy! I'm still looking for a link to Les's personal configuration, but I'll update everyone when I find it :p