I’m told that “standard browser, standard phone” is all that’s needed to attend live, but recordings are Windows Media Video (WMV) files, which I think isn’t great for an Open Source Webinar. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who attends, including whether it played nicely with your software.

I didn’t get to LinuxExpo, partly because of Monday Machine-Mangling Madness but I saw LinuxExpo 2008 — Robert Castelo from the Drupal point-of-view. I also didn’t get to Public Sector Online (report by Andrew Lewin with links to more) and I definitely didn’t travel to Toronto, so the report on the Free Software and Open Source Symposium from Randy Metcalfe is pretty welcome.

I wrote about the Social Enterprise Photography Competition and Cooperatives South-West Trade Fair last Friday – the photography competition deadline has been extended to 7 November. So you’ve still time to capture a vision of a more progressive approach to business that values people and the planet as well as profit.

Last Friday was Get Online Day but TTLLP didn’t do anything for it this year – I took one look and reached similar conclusions to Graham Jones: Get online…! Oh – you are…! Related to that: on Tuesday, I got really annoyed about how many branches of government (national, regional, sub-regional and local) are obsessed about the private sector and are paying even less attention to other types of businesses, includingbuying off-the-shelf software which doesn’t conform to their stated policies about accessibility and interoperability. (Sorry if you saw evidence of that outburst… yes, local councillors are pretty powerless and get as annoyed about incompetent government services as everyone else.)

It seems I’m not the only one feeling that good cooperative businesses are being overlooked. The ICA have recently sent an open letter to the Governments of the G-8 reminding them that co-operative financial institutions are an alternative secure, stable and sustainable model of business owned and controlled by people.

Finally, a bit of advance notice here: “The inaugural Creativity & Business International Network (c&binet) will take place at The Grove in Hertfordshire from 26 – 28 October 2009” – is this something that free software and free culture supporters should get involved with? (And why did they pick a name that includes an XML special character?)

It is also the start of British Food Fortnight. (Tip to total coverage cooperative.) There is an open day 11-3 at Thatchers Cider, near here in Sandford. (To get there from Worle by bike, leave through St Georges to Bourton, then Hewish, Puxton, Nye, over the Strawberry Line and you’ll arrive on Nye Road in Sandford – turn right for the cider. I’m not sure of the best way from Locking direction…)

Tomorrow is the second equinox and International Day of Peace. (Tip to New Internationalist cooperative.)

What are you doing this weekend?

• Bristol Knowledge Unconference: Friday 5th September 2008 *
• Tour of Britain, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, Tuesday 9th September – other UK locations 7-14 September, itv4 7pm highlights daily *
• NoseRub DevCamp, Cologne, 13.-14. September 2008
• BathCamp, Bath, Somerset, 13-14th September
• Bristol Anarchist Bookfair, St Werburgh’s Centre, Bristol, 13-14th September
• Software Freedom Day, Global, 20 September 2008
• Scripting Enabled, London, 19th and 20th September
• Listening to the Social Entrepreneur, London Docklands, 9 Oct 2008 *
• LinuxWorld, London Olympia, 23-25 Oct 2008 *
• enterprise week, UK, part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, 17-23 November
• Cooperatives-SW/RISE Trade Fair, Bristol, 1st December *

I’m pretty sure I’ll go to the *d ones – which others do you think I should go to? Will you be at any of these? Any comments to make on/to any of them? Any more to add to the list?

“Software in the Public Interest, Inc., will hold a public board of directors meeting on Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 19:00 UTC. [...] SPI meetings are held on the OFTC IRC network, irc.oftc.net, in #spi. [...] Agenda“

A couple of weeks ago, I asked why people do and don’t join SPI? The answers I got can be grouped into a few headings:-

Don’t know about SPI

“I admit that I was unaware of SPI. However seeing its age, a few familiar names on the board and also on the project list it looks like a solid organisation.”

“I too am unfamiliar with your organization”

“I guess I would be yet aother person who was not aware of this group.”

“Lack of awareness of SPI is probably the biggest hurdle. I too, was unaware of SPI. I am aware of the Linux Foundation and the FSF and others, but how does SPI differentiate itself and its goals from those organizations?”

Don’t know about joining

“The membership page on the SPI website is buried at the bottom of a secondary menu. One has to really go looking for it. And this definitely gives the impression that adding members is not a very high priority.”

“I’ve been looking a while for how to join, is not the first time, I did before and never found it until now”

Don’t see why to join

“Even as an open source software advocate, I have not joined SPI because my particular interest and focus is on Plone. The Plone Foundation handles largely the same functions that SPI does for smaller, independent groups.”

“Why, what’s in it for me? The betterment of mankind or bragging rights when a corporations steals all of my work and gets rich off of it.”

“If you are someone who is very interested FOSS (free and open source software) rights and licenses, you are probably more inclined to become a part of the FSF (Free Software Foundation) or the OSI (Open Source Initiative).”

I’d welcome any thoughts you have on how we should overcome these barriers, either in the comments here, or on IRC #spi – I think I should be there a bit before or after the meeting. I’ll try to summarise the best over the next Wednesday or two.

Thanks to the other board members for running the election and restarting the voting machine as necessary. The postponed July meeting might happen in irc.oftc.net #spi today (Wednesday) at 1900UTC, but I expect they’ll announce it in the usual place before it happens.

Naturally, I’m disappointed that more news, members’ panels and the annual report weren’t attractive enough to get more votes, and that old untruths were being reposted to some forums, but I can’t get too upset about this year’s result because both elected candidates had fine manifestos. I’m glad that Jimmy Kaplowitz’s platform includes posting more news and look forward to seeing that.

Slightly worrying are the low turnout (down for the third year) and that over 80% of those few voters were from debian (my estimate). I’ve my suspicions why, but I’d love any non-voters to leave me a comment telling me why you think it is.

The apology: the summary of responses to my questions about SPI membership will appear next week because I made a mistake on one site, set the closing date a week late and I don’t see any way to edit surveys after they’ve opened. Oops. Sorry. (Now, if that site was running free software, I’d see if I could fix the user interface to allow previews.)

(Aside: I was going to include a bar chart of the voting, like last year, but WordPress’s stupid post editor strips style attributes from li tags. I’ll go looking for that with a hack-axe Real Soon Now, before it causes me serious trouble.)

I’m standing for election to the board of Software in the Public Interest this month, so I was wondering how many users who contribute to free and open source software have joined? If so, why? If not, what’s stopping you?

http://www.spi-inc.org is the organisation’s website. Even if I don’t get elected, I’m interested to know why people do and don’t join and would like to summarise the answers to SPI, so please mention if that’s not OK with you.

I’ll summarise some of the other answers I’ve had in a day or two.

One aspect I didn’t mention in the LugRadio Live Event Review was how old-fashioned it seemed in some ways.

I guess I’ve got used to seeing conferences experimenting with various web2.0 toys like live-blogging, feedback walls and so on, or the excellent live video streaming of DebConfs, but it was a bit of a surprise to find myself the only person in the audience who connected to the IRC channel from the event.

One possible reason for that was that the wireless network was a bit difficult, or at least that was what I was told. I felt quite smug with my 3G smartphone IRC client (which I’ll blog about later) until Rufus Pollock mentioned the 800+ patents involved in 3G. Damn – I guess I hate freedom.

In one way, I guess it’s appropriate if the network wasn’t up to the task. Broken networks were a regular feature of early ALUG meetings, as the end of this email hints.

Web2.0 was there a little bit. There was a facebook page (which I accidentally spammed while travelling to the event), flickr:lugradiolive and a twitter link of #lugradiolive – but how does that work? There’s no user called lugradiolive and you can’t have usernames containing # Update: twitter:#lugradiolive (thanks to Dave Briggs for the explanation in a comment).

Anyway, seeing as there will be another LUG Radio Live, maybe we can arrange something more interactive but free-software-friendly for 2009?

More reviews I’ve read: davee: Lugradio-in’ makes me feel good…, Peter Cannon: The party’s over for LugRadio Live and No’: Lugradio Undead – but why aren’t more people writing about this event? There seemed to be enough there. Or are they out there but I’m just not seeing them?

SPI’s next board meeting is today (Wednesday) at 1900 UTC on irc.oftc.net #spi and logs should appear here and on spi-general less than a day after. I’ve not seen a formal announcement yet, but I expect the agenda will appear here. (Update: the meeting has been postponed until after the election, but that wasn’t announced.) I’ve posted the log of the last board meeting and the log of the annual meeting to spi-general.

I’m standing for election to the board for the second time. My platform contains four main proposals:-

1. Anonymise SPI votes – all votes are traceable at present
2. More SPI news – including getting the official announcements out on time
3. Consult members more – run a web panel, if members are interested
4. Report on SPI performance – at least some annual report

and free software developers who have joined SPI (at no cost) can vote for me online.

If you’ve got any questions about my platform, please ask them here – or anywhere else that’s appropriate – and I’ll try to answer. I think it’s a much better platform because I learnt a lot from the last campaign, so I hope you’ll vote for me.