[plug] AOSS6 update

[Steve Landers]

hi Folks,

It's now less than two weeks to the Sixth Australian Open Source 
Symposium, to
be held in Perth on Thursday October 28th, at the OpenSource WA
demonstration centre at Technology Park, Bentley.

AOSS is an annual one day symposium, run by OSS (Open Source Software)
developers, for OSS developers. Of course, non-developers are welcome
and encouraged to attend.

This year's event will be held at the OpenSource WA demonstration centre
at Technology Park, Bentley.

Full details (including registration) can be found at
http://www.auug.org.au/events/2004/aoss

The cost is
students $30
AUUG + SLPWA members $60
affiliated group members $75 (PLUG, SLUG, LA, ACS, etc)
non-members $100

This price represents outstanding value and includes morning/afternoon
tea/coffee, and a stand-up lunch, and a variety of speakers addressing 
a diverse
range of topics, as shown in the attached abstracts

Steve

--
Steve Landers, Vice President
AUUG Incorporated
Ph: +61 2 8824 9511;  Fax: +61 2 8824 9522;  
mailto:steve.landers at auug.org.au


--------------------

Open-Source Thinking applied to Timetabling,
Dr Chris McDonald, Computer Science & Software Engineering
The University of Western Australia

The University of Western Australia, like all teaching institutions, has
a challenging timetabling problem - to allocate thousands of students to
their weekly teaching activities, optimizing for a minimum of clashes,
while honouring constraints such as venue capacities and students'
ranked preferences. This presentation will describe the problem and our
single
processor and distributed algorithmic solutions under Linux, but will
focus on the benefits brought to this project by simple, open-source
design and implementation paradigms. Technologies addressed will
include Apache and Tcl/Tk

--------------------

Choosing an Open Source Content Management Systms
Julian Coyne,  Unified Business Systems, Perth

Western Australia is comprised of 144 Local Governments - each holding
one or more domains under the "wa.gov.au" domain. The Western
Australian Local Government Association is the peak organisation of
Local Government in Western Australia. Through the "Linking Councils
and Communities" (LCC) Program, the Association has been tasked to
deliver a strategic framework to standardise the management of online
content and enhance the delivery of online services within these
domains.

With the standardisation of one of WA's most publicly visible data
stores on the line, the need to deliver a robust and flexible content
management framework capable of scaling across the State was vital to
the overall success of the Program. Following exhaustive investigations
of proprietary and open-source systems, an open source approach was
selected as being the best-fit for the Program.

The LCC Program contracted Unified Business Systems Pty Ltd for the
initial consultancy into open source content management frameworks. 
This included the rigorous evaluation of 20 open source Content
Management Systems over a two month period and provided key
recommendations to the Program. This presentation will cover the
evaluations, recommendations and successes of the Program in employing
Open Source Software

--------------------

Using an embedded Linux device as an application server
Mikolaj Habryn, Sydney

A number of small, low cost Linux based devices are now available. This
paper describes using such boxes (specifically, the Linksys WRT54GS
wireless router) as application servers running kaffe and
network-related apps, including XML, crypto, and various other fruit.

During the afternoon tea/coffee break there will be a demonstration of
such a device being used as a an application server

--------------------

Building a business on open source software
Matthew Lambie, The Frontier Group, Perth

This talk describes the experience of starting a software business
based on extending open source software for small to medium businesses.
Topics covered will include the general "how to start a business"
aspects including registration and taxation concerns, as well as more
focussed topics like picking what languages and platforms you like (and
are good at), developing software professionally, marketing and
attracting customers and how to manage workflow

--------------------

Using Open Source in running community non-profit hosting
Shayne O’Neill, Perth

The author will talk about the role open source software has assumed in
the
imc-perth tech collective providing free website hosting , email
adresses
and email lists to low/no budget groups in the environmental and social
justice areas, and how this has lead to us working with
the wider open source community to develop software for these tasks.

------

AOSS 6 is presented by AUUG Inc, with the support of SLPWA - Society of
Linux Professionals (Western Australia) Inc, OpenSource WA and the
University of Western Australia School of Computer Science and Software
Engineering.

AUUG website: http://www.auug.org.au/
AUUG Phone:  1 800 625 655
SLPWA website: http://www.slpwa.asn.au/
OpenSource WA: http://www.opensource.wa.gov.au/
UWA CSSE: http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/

------

About AUUG Inc

AUUG: The Organisation for Unix, Linux and Open Source Professionals

AUUG's role is building a community by connecting, supporting and
promoting people with an interest in interoperable computing - which we
see as a key to achieving fitness for purpose and value for money in
Information and Communication Technology.

Our members are professionals who care about
•  Unix operating systems from proprietary vendors
•  Linux, BSD and other Open Source operating systems
•  Open standards, specifically those which enable the free and
                     unrestricted interchange of information
•  Open Source applications, regardless of the platform they run on
•  other cool technical stuff