[AUUG-Talk]: an auug 'cts' meeting in sydney

[David Vincent]

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Hello,

I'd like to meet some AUUG members past and present (if there is a  
present) in the greater Sydney area.  I don't have a good idea of  
where those on the Talk list are physically located.

If there are enough of us and we're not too widely dispersed, I think  
we should do some kind of face to face meeting.  I'd like to avoid  
board business and the future of AUUG, and instead see if we can  
concentrate on some 'cool technical stuff' again.

If there are too few responses, that will be evidence in favour of  
some of the views expressed here in Talk.

If there are lots of responses but we then fail to follow through,  
then that should teach us another interesting lesson.

Supposing for the minute that you might be interested...  I'd suggest  
that you think about unusual things that you might be doing in your  
work, school, home, or correctional institution.  It might be best to  
concentrate on things that fall into the 'Unix but not Linux' class,  
and stuff that might be peculiar to Australia or to Sydney.

For instance, in my workplace we use Linux boxes at most developers'  
desks, but...

  - some of us prefer BSD over Linux for the desktop
  - our target hosts run VxWorks or Windows rather than Linux
  - a number of our test hosts run Mac OS X
  - we have a weird build system to support the above, using Perforce  
Jam rather than Make
  - we use the project change manager Aegis, which originated in  
Australia
  - we use Unix and other open source tools to manage a library of  
thousands of bitmap images so as to test the behaviour of printer and  
driver software
  - we still support a few proprietary Unix targets
  - our group is an island of open source users in a company  
otherwise serviced by a fairly conventional Windows-centric MIS  
department

If you felt you could give an informal talk and answer questions on  
something like the above, I'd like to hear from you.

Another thread of activity suggests itself for people who were in  
AUUG, and that is the history of computing in Australia.  There is an  
Australia Computer Museum Society (acms.org.au) and there's been  
least one worker (curator?) at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney who  
has been interested in uncovering little-known stories about  
computing in Australia.  Perhaps some common interest could be found  
to help posterity.


warm regards,

David Vincent

- --

D A Vincent  +61 2 9850-2593  dvincent at toshiba-tap.com
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT  TOSHIBA (AUSTRALIA) PTY. LIMITED
"Every little thing she does is magic."



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