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>AUUG–The Organisation for Unix, Linux and Open Source Professionals

Volume 1, no. 2 — 23-mar-2006

Welcome

Welcome to the President's Newsletter — a once a month communique from AUUG HQ letting you know what we are up to and how you can get involved in the community of Open Computing professionals.

The John Lions Award

The AUUG Board is pleased to announce the relaunch of the John Lions Award for Research Work in Open Systems.

Associate Professor John Lions was a visionary academic at UNSW, author of the (in)famous Lions book — the Source Code and Commentary on UNIX Level 6 — and an AUUG founding father.

John's untimely passing in 1998 has not dimmed the affection in which he was held, and one way AUUG perpetuates his name and legacy is through the annual John Lions Award for Research Work in Open Systems.

This award is given to recognise outstanding student work in the field of standards based computing and/or open source.— Entry is open to full time students at any Australian university studying at Honours, Masters or Ph.D. level.

The award is judged on a submission from the student describing their work (this should be restricted to 3 pages).— The submission is judged on relevance, originality and the work's contribution to the field.— The judges may interview the student on their work in coming to a final decision.

All finalists (i.e. all works judged to meet the minimum standards of relevance and originality) will be awarded a $50 book voucher.

The overall winner will receive:

Submissions should be emailed to lions_award@auug.org.au

Please pass this information on to any students you know — details at http://www.auug.org.au/resources/lions_award.shtml

The John Lions Chair in Operating Systems

The University of New South Wales is establishing an endowed Chair to recognise the enormous contribution made by John Lions to the world of computing.

The Chair will be called The John Lions Chair in Operating Systems, and will enable an eminent academic to continue the John Lions tradition of insightful and inspirational teaching in operating systems.— The creation of the Chair will perpetuate the John Lions name, and new generations of students will benefit from his legacy.

The University of New South Wales is conducting an appeal to raise $2 million to establish the endowed Chair, and support is sought from individuals and corporations.— Following the generous donation of US$500,000 by Qualcomm Inc in September 2005, the University has decided to create the chair in 2006.— The contributions received so far will allow the chair to exist for a minimum of five years.— Fundraising is continuing to endow the chair in perpetuity.

AUUG members are encouraged to consider whether they are able to support the appeal — see http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/JohnLions for more information.

AUUG 2006

Although it is still a couple of months until the call for papers closes, it is not too early to put in your submission.— (Special mention to Frank Crawford who was first to put his submission in!)

Even if you are not planning to write a paper, it would be very helpful if you could print off the call for papers and put it on to your company's notice board — find it at http://www.auug.org.au/events/auug2006/cfp2.shtml

Submit a proposal or encourage your firends and colleagues to!  Remember, paper presenters get a free conference registration.— Tutorial presenters can get a free registration or 25% of the profit from their tute.

Conference info: http://www.auug.org.au/events/auug2006/

The AUUG Portal — Feature Of The Month

The AUUG portal at http://new.auug.org.au has been discontinued in favour of http://www.auug.org.au

The AUUG portal at http://new.auug.org.au/ is taking shape, with some real life content being added.— Already we have posted the conference proceedings from AUUG 2004, and proceedings from the 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2004 conferences are on their way.

This month's feature is the AUUG Forums — http://new.auug.org.au/forums

The forums allow a discussion on a topic to be preserved for historical reference.— It is very easy to contribute to any forum — just click on the forum that you are interested in, then either click on the topic of interest, or add a new topic by clicking on "post new item" then choosing "Topic".

Once you are viewing a topic it is easy to contribute — just click on the reply button and fill in the form to express your view, or use the "quick reply" form at the bottom of the topic page.

However — please note that to make a new topic or reply to an existing one, you must be logged in to the portal!

As an example — I have started a topic on where AUUG 2007 should be held. Please go to http://new.auug.org.au/forums/board/0001/ and tell us your views!

Also note that the portal supports RSS syndication — so look for the RSS logo (http://new.auug.org.au/forums/RSS) in the top right of selected pages.

AUUG Board Elections

Election time is nearly upon us again.— To help make AUUG the organisation you want it to be, please consider running for a position on the AUUG Board.

It is important that the AUUG board has a good cross section of the AUUG membership, so that the direction of AUUG can be set to benefit all members.— But beyond that serving on the board can be very interesting (you get to meet some great people) and good experience.— True story — in a recent job interview I mentioned some of the work I was doing in preparation for AUUG 2005.— The interviewer asked my to write that work into my CV, and that was the basis on which I was given a second interview.

You can read descriptions of the AUUG Board roles at http://new.auug.org.au/resources/roles/duties/

You can review the Secretary's Election Announcement at http://www.auug.org.au/pipermail/auug-announce/2006/000225.html

Positions Vacant

AUUG is always on the lookout for volunteer to help with aspects of running the organisation.— Currently we need:

Regards,

David Purdue
President
AUUG Inc.