AUUG President's Newsletter - v1n2, 23-mar-2006

[David Purdue]

*** 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:

* A prize of $1,000
* A framed certificate
* A one year membership of AUUG
* The winner's name inscribed on a permanent awards board, displayed
  in the AUUG office and at the main conference.
* An invitation to present the work at the AUUG Annual Conference,
  including travel and accommodation. 

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

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



*** 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://new.auug.org.au/events_store/auug2006/cfp2

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://new.auug.org.au/events_store/auug2006/



*** The AUUG Portal - Feature Of The Month

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:

* Returning Officer and Assistant Returning Officer - we need two people
  to count the votes in the upcoming election. Since they have to be
  together when counting takes place, we'd like a joint application from
  two people who can be in the same place in May when the counting takes
  place. These people need to be financial AUUG members.

* Portal Content Editors - individuals willing to take on an area of
  the portal, find content for that area and publish it. 

* Portal Content Migrators - individuals willing to work on moving
  content from the old AUUG web site to the new. 

* AUUGN Editor - someone who can gather content from the portal or
  from other locations, and format it into a set of html pages that we can
  publish on the AUUGN DVD distribution. 

Regards,

David Purdue
President
AUUG Inc.