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hpr_transcripts/hpr2229.txt

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+Episode: 2229
+Title: HPR2229: linux.conf.au 2017: Kathy Reid
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2229/hpr2229.mp3
+Transcribed: 2025-10-18 16:13:30
+
+---
+
+This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com.
+Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
+Better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthost.com.
+Good afternoon everyone, it's Clinton again, it's day 2 of Lynx Comfort U.
+I can still count the number of days in the conference so it's early on.
+We had the Lynx Australia elections last night and I am here with Cathy Reid, the new president
+of Lynx Australia.
+So this is a pretty free wheeling discussion, we'll just go over things, I'm not a journalist
+so I'm not here for any gotcha moments or anything like that.
+So yeah, so this is being recorded for Hacker Public Radio, Hacker Public Radio is a community
+broadcast channel, it's kind of like a community radio station, anyone can upload any shows
+and the remit is just to be interesting to Hacker's.
+So I think anything that we discuss about Lynx Comfort is probably we'll cover that.
+So I have had the pleasure of working with you on the Lynx Australia Council previously.
+I think you're a secretary when I was on the council and now you're president.
+That's right, it's scary, it's excited at the same time.
+I think Lynx Australia has a really popular history in Australia and I think one of the
+things that we've sorely needed for a long time is a bit of direction, a bit of strategic
+direction.
+We've sort of gone on as easter a number of years and I think that's great as well, but
+I think at the same time a lot of our systems and all of our processes probably need a bit
+of a rethink, they need a bit of a tweak and I'm just really glad that the membership
+said yeah let's do that and give me a bit of a mandate to do that.
+I think I'm sort of half with you and half against you there.
+From my point of view the job of the council is to make the nuts and bolts run as smoothly
+as possible so that people who want to run awesome conferences and events and not just
+conferences and events but they want to come up and do different things like I've already
+forgotten the name of it, what are the charities for this year, but the outreach and stuff
+like I would love to see Lynx Australia with all of the, it almost shouldn't matter who's
+on the council, it should be a smoothly running machine that's all well documented and
+then people who need some money or need some support can just sort of rock up and it's
+I need some money to do blah and the council like ideally should just be able to look at
+the proposal and see it's a little bit of money, there should be some outcome and give
+it a go sort of thing. So my take on it is that the processes of the council should be streamlined
+and documented and repeatable as much as possible but I also think that the council shouldn't
+be doing much, it should just be the infrastructure or the back bang, it shouldn't be out there
+in striving to be everything in everyone. I guess I partially agree with you, I think
+I agree with you that we should get the nuts and bolts done really well, the challenge
+from a council perspective, the challenge we have with doing the nuts and bolts really
+well is that some of the systems and some of the processes that we have in place at the
+moment make the nuts and bolts really laborious and really difficult. For instance, last year
+we did over 1500 financial transactions, so every transaction is to have an invoice or
+a receipt raised against it in the financial system and it needs to be reconciled. So
+it's about 10 to 15 minutes worth for every financial transaction and you multiply that
+by 1500 and suddenly there's hundreds of volunteer hours that go into getting the nuts and bolts
+right and we have to do that because we get all the data from an incorporated association.
+So what can we do to streamline that, what can we do to make that easier and then if you
+look at our membership system, membership system was written and was very, very fit for purpose
+10 to 12 years ago when it was written. Just for the listeners' appreciation, I cringed
+this and as the member software was mentioned, it is old. Yes, I think we both cringed
+out. So that membership system doesn't have some really basic functionality, it doesn't
+let us do things like membership renewal, it has some really big functionality gaps. But more
+importantly, what we don't have in terms of systems at the moment is ways to engage in connecting
+with our membership. So for instance, let's say there's a really great open source program
+running in say Queensland. At the moment I don't have or we don't have a really easy way of reaching
+those members and saying hey, there's this really great open source program in Queensland
+or in that region according to our records, you might be interested in this without causing
+noise for everyone who's not in that area. So part of the reason or part of the platform that I was
+running on this year was some renewal of those systems and I suspect there's a bit of a key
+message that's got lost along the way in terms of the way that we've approached the election this
+year. I'm not out to change the world in terms of Linux Australia. I want to create a really strong
+foundation where if the organisation wants to go in that direction in the future, they're going to
+have the systems and the processors and the foundation to be able to do that without overstretching
+the organisation. But we need to get that foundation right first otherwise we're going to be on
+shaky ground. Yep, absolutely. And I mean like there are some parallels with the Linux
+Australia conferences that have been involved in like for the longest time, PyCon and LA and some
+of the OSDCs that I've helped run. We've all been using the Zookeeper suite and that is old
+and it's showing its problems and thankfully this year Chris is the main organiser of
+Linux off our year this year has taken upon himself. He got a grant from somewhere to help write
+that. I believe it was the PyCon Foundation. Yeah, PSF, yep. To write a system that could be used
+around the conferences and anything to remove those sort of headaches and warts on the everyday
+systems that you're using I think is a great thing. And for a bit of clarity like if you're
+running an open source event in Australia you can go to Linux Australia and if they feel that
+an event that would help the Australian open source community they will cover you for the
+basic things that you need to run the event. So if you need to book a venue and you need to put
+up a reserve amount for that, Linux Australia will cover that. You never have to go into private
+debt to do those sort of things. There's all the public liability insurance that Linux Australia
+will cover you for. There's credit cards handling stuff that's set up so when you get people
+who want to register and pay for your conference you don't have to do all those things that
+if you are setting up a conference with the very first time in a brand new country all those
+very tedious things that have all been taken care of. So that's the main sort of thing that Linux
+Australia is involved in. There is a grants process as well for individuals and small groups.
+Exactly. I don't think I've ever helped. No, I have sort of vaguely helped get a couple of
+grants like there's been things like like the Ruby on Rails, Women's events and Brisbane and
+stuff like that and I've done some of the paperwork to get like a lunch grant for things like that
+but we just want to talk about the grants. So every year we set aside a nominal budget for grants
+but that doesn't stop us for instance if you get a very robust grant or a grant that's very
+worthy of us you know we can dip into coffers and support that. But essentially our grants process
+tries to align the money that we spend with the values of Linux Australia so that
+that open community that respect for you know the diversity within our community and really
+that those ideals are free and open source software hardware communities really that open source
+culture. So one of the things that we do with our grant process it's not just the council that
+has input into grants we think it's really important that our community has input into those grants
+as well. So as part of our grants process we actually get the grant applicant to email that to
+the entire community and often there'll be no brain at the community also yes this is a good idea
+go ahead. Recently we had a brain application for some hardware forward cap Sydney and out of that
+discussion out of that community discussion there was actually more optimal solution that was
+proposed and that community got more assistance and more help for the problem now trying to
+solve through that grants process going through the community so I think that's a really strong
+thing. Instead of throwing some money at them I think I think the idea was that they they'd
+get some went to equipment but also some training on that Linux equipment. Exactly and so it's
+adding more value to the problem they're trying to solve. For me personally and this isn't necessarily
+something that the entire council is decided upon but for me personally what I'd like to see
+from our grants program is perhaps a larger grant that have more reach or more value on a longer
+term basis so for instance instead of needing $600 or $1,000 for some hardware what if there was
+a 20 or a $30,000 grant to run a program that had a long lasting impact for instance for an
+underrepresented group perhaps Indigenous people or people from a certain background to have
+exposure and involvement in open source. We've seen some really really strong benefits from having
+stronger diversity programs for women and other underrepresented groups but there are still some
+cohorts which are drastically underrepresented in open source and I personally would like to see
+some large grade applications where there's some rigor and you know some robust thinking behind
+how do we how do we use some of the resources we have for longer term benefit for the community.
+And you need to be able to show that sort of long-term planning to if you're in binding if you're
+in binding someone into your community and you're trying to show them the benefits of that you
+need to be able to show them like that that that 12 months 18 month program where they're going to
+get a little bit of help along the way so yeah and that's necessarily going to be a larger
+larger chunk of money like. And I think there's also an opportunity for us to pull resources
+with other organisations so for instance with government funding that funding sometimes needs to
+be matched by a corporate partner or private equity. I think there's an opportunity for Linux
+Australia to partner with other organisations like Internet Australia or Outer and partner
+with those organisations on projects that have overlapping values or overlapping benefit for
+those organisations. I think what Linux Australia needs to do in terms of your partnering
+approach is really understand at stake on our environment which other organisations should we
+prioritise engaging with you know and spend our effort engaging with where are those overlaps
+where could we work together collaboratively where are we competing you should other things
+that we should stop doing because there are already people doing those things or where are the
+gaps in the market as well so I think we need to take a strong look at our stakeholder relationships.
+Yep yep for sure yeah and I think it's like it's it's sort of interesting in the last couple of years
+like another sort of aspect to it is the the overall structure of Linux Australia is that if you
+want to do something you get assigned a subcommittee to do that thing so all of the conference
+is run as a subcommittee of Linux Australia all of the user groups across Australia that want
+to be part of Linux Australia they're running subcommittees and I think I think like we've got
+like one or two new user groups subcommittees. We have one coming on board so Linux is a
+Victoria recently voted to disincorporate as an incorporated association in the state of Victoria
+and have voted to become a subcommittee of Linux Australia and Linux Australia is in initial
+discussions with Linux users Victoria to to figure out the nuts and bolts of how to make that happen
+so I think for me that is indicative of a broader trend so for instance we're seeing lots of
+independent Linux user groups who started independently come under the fold of Linux Australia
+and I think part of the reason of that is that there's a lot of paperwork and a lot of administrative
+that goes with being a smaller independent incorporated association for instance last year open
+source developers conference open source developers club decided to disincorporate and they become
+a subcommittee of Linux Australia and I think that that is really part of what Linux Australia's
+you know raison d'être was for is to help umbrella these groups help provide that skeleton and
+that infrastructure and take away some of that administrative you know people don't get into
+into Linux and into open hardware and into open software because they love administrative
+here they like coding and they like hacking and they like making so let's try and take some of
+that stuff that is inhibitor away from people yeah instead of 15 groups all doing the same paperwork
+overhead just have one big body that's doing that that overhead yeah it's that foundation
+it's that solid foundation yeah and like one of the interesting subcommittees in the last
+couple of years is the I don't I can't remember what exactly what they call but the video recording
+subcommittee yep so one of one of the things that has become pretty standard for at least LCA
+and picon over the past picon are you over the past four or five years is that the vast majority
+of the talks are recorded to a very high standards and and published later under an open source
+list under under an open source list and it's it's so I see a lot of other video recordings of a
+lot of other conferences and hours are quite good one of the things that we do is actually capture
+the slides that are shown in line so it's not just a camera pointing at the slides we're actually
+getting a screenshot of the slides and that is spliced in with shots of the presenter so you can
+actually read the slides and one of the the difficulties that we've got is that because recording
+technology is sort of moving ahead the the different sorts of cable connectors is is changing so
+some of the some of the hardware that we could use five or six years ago that we could buy off
+the shelf to do all of this fancy recording stuff some of those connectors are just not a thing
+anymore you just can't buy that equipment off the shelf so one of one of their lynx Australian
+members is taking it on himself to produce an open recording board so a printed circuit board that
+takes HDMI in takes two or three HDMI sources in and feeds that out to a camera recording system
+so yeah it's not just clubs and an events but you know there are some real solid
+technical ones there I sort of hope that's the work that Chris has done now on
+I've forgotten the name of it it's it's symposium it's symposium but it's so I think that's
+what it's based on but I think Chris is calling his thing something else like it's yeah it's it's
+um yeah it's a real world it's a real word and then like the S is what with a Z or something
+so they're like that I've forgotten exactly what it is but I hope that the council can find a way
+to sort of keep that up today so I think you've touched on a bit of a problem that we have and
+you know I'd say thank you very open for suggestions on how we can solve this at the moment you
+if you were the CIO or the CTO of a large organisation one of your jobs would be to maintain road maps
+for the various streams of work that your organisation's doing for instance what's your road map
+in your finance software what's your road map in your HR software at the moment we don't have
+a road map for where we want to take LCA your conference infrastructure and I think that's one
+of the gaps we have as an organisation I think sometimes in in the past what we've done is had a
+piecemeal or piece by piece approach to some of that technology and while we've had individual
+successes with point solutions we haven't necessarily considered it as a whole so what are the
+deficits that we have with our conference infrastructure how do we build a technical road map and
+then make a strong investment into into that technology as a whole so for instance if we have a
+gap with our conference software is that more important than a gap with our recording hardware
+or do they need to be do they need to be matured in parallel what are the interdependencies between
+them so if somebody came to me or you know came to the council and said look Kathy we'd like to
+have an LA hackfest for two or three days and one of the outcomes of that is a technical road map
+for where we want to take the organisation this is how we're going to replace member DB and
+this is how we're going to replace the website and this is how it's going to integrate with
+our finance system and that sort of thing I that's something that I would strongly support
+and I can't speak for the whole house and that's something that I would strongly support
+because it's about planning where the organisation's going you know you take the you do the
+work in planning and sometimes the execution work then becomes a lot more streamlined you reduce
+the wasted effort what one of my researchers is just give them in the name of that product it's
+registration but it's with like the final TK taking out so it's registration or something like that
+I am well Chris with his surname would he would have to pick a name that's difficult to pronounce
+and I think sort of I think maybe one of the sort of unannounced goals of Linux Australia
+would better have like a conference in a box solution and certainly a bit of software that can
+take that you run your conference with that users can add accounts to they can book their tickets
+they can book you know dinner tickets or whatever conference specific things are and be able to
+take the credit card information I I suspect that I suspect that Linux Australia would like that
+sort of thing like that that a nice ultimate goal would be to I'd like one of them I wouldn't like
+three of them yeah exactly and so like in the past zookeeper has been that but you've had to
+you'd have to have someone with a deep knowledge of zookeeper and pylons and some other
+like the python stuff yeah and and the drama has always been that in the in the two or three months
+leading up to the conference there would be a furious amount of work done on zookeeper to fix all
+the bugs yep and then the conference would be run and then everyone would need a break yeah which
+very reasonable and it would mean that every conference would have their own branch in their own
+bug fixes and it would never get merged back into trunk and do you know what they wouldn't have
+a road ban yeah but it's also it's also that that that natural thing of like that whole conference
+things of of just having natural burnout yep and you know everyone has the best intentions of
+rolling all of these bug fixes back in yeah and never having to see it again but over the years
+where I have contributed to zookeeper I have kept on fixing the same bugs over and over and over
+and over again and your time is better spent on other things yeah you know if you're a senior
+person within our community you have 20 years of experience I don't want you fixing the same
+bugs same time over again I want your expertise on a road map you know tell me how we should be
+doing our integrations tell me about enterprise architecture patterns Linux Australia now has
+equity in excess of seven figures when not a small organization anymore and we need to tighten up
+some of our governance and some of our some of the way in which we approach our strategic planning
+so that we're effective you know for the next 15 years yeah yeah yeah and it's it's that sort of thing
+where you actually want to make it easy for people to organize conferences like um
+there's there's probably a fairly small pool of people around Australia who are confident enough
+to take on running a conference I suppose um and I think I think a lot of it is that if you've
+if you've run an LA conference or you have been like a second or third in charge and you've
+sort of seen how it's done and you know the ropes yeah you're probably okay but um like if if
+you were vaguely thinking of running a conference and you just went to LA's website yeah
+there's it's it's not at all obvious that that LA provides you with 80 or 90 percent of what you need
+um so I think you can get on two problems see Clinton and I'd like to tackle them separately
+the first problem that you've hit on is about succession planning and membership
+life cycle so if I take a look at the average age of Linux Australian members and
+involved in our communities that the bell curve has shifted very much towards middle age we don't
+have a lot of students we don't have a lot of younger members within our community um who we
+gather passionate and energetic uh who bring that fire in the belly to us why is that happened
+I think there's a number of reasons for instance we've got some you know very proprietary technology
+being used in colleges and universities you know you've got universities teaching things like
+CCNA they're not necessarily teaching open source and so you have students who are not as
+exposed to open source and don't go on to do open source when they graduate from college and
+university I think Linux Australia has a role to play there in exposing younger people to open
+source I think our student ticketing and student prices are one of the ways in which we do that
+but I think that could be complemented by a formal program for instance a formal program
+about reach to your high school college university what if we fund it you know an open source
+scholarship if you're doing a PhD or a master's in an open source program or you're developing
+open source software let's encourage that and let's you know let's get involved in that space
+to bring people on board at that point in the life cycle so I think there's that piece I think
+the second piece that you touch on is actually a symptom of a deeper problem so at the moment our
+website which was really really well designed and it runs on Drupal and that website hasn't had
+a lot of love and attention over the last few years and so the design in the UX and the the
+content strategy behind that website hasn't kept pace with the activities and functions of the
+organisation we've deliberately made a decision not to tackle the website until we tackle the
+membership platform most of the most of the modern membership platforms go hand in hand they're
+tightly coupled with the web presence the public web presence and it's my intention sorry I don't
+need to send you tutorial but it's my intention that we tackle those two problems together because
+they go hand in hand what we have at the moment are completely separate experiences if your
+public users are a website and you're an authenticated member they're two very separate user
+experiences that's a pro experience we want an integrated experience so that's a problem that
+I'd like to tackle in conjunction with the membership platform yeah visual yeah so I think that's
+probably enough on Linux Australia how have you been enjoying the conference so far I am loving it
+absolutely loving it I think Hobart is an incredible venue I love Tasmania I think the weather has
+just been absolutely gorgeous back in my hometown in Jalong at the 37 degrees today my poor dog
+goes down I've got a message my sister to say you know your soggy wet dog is indoors with the air
+conditioning thank you very much but it's just beautifully temperate easy to get to and I'm
+really looking forward to sampling some of the good food and dining that I he is on offering
+excellent excellent all right is there anything else that you'd like to to cover at all well I
+just like to encourage your listeners to check out Linux.org.au if you have ideas if you know if
+your listeners have faced this sort of problem in their communities and you have ideas
+reach out let us know what your thoughts are okay cheers thank you very much Kathy thank you
+you've been listening to hecka public radio at hecka public radio dot org we are a community podcast
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