- luv-main - luv.asn.au

Re: The End of LUV, Inc? An Example of Federalism and Unitary Organisational Structures
by Petros 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

Hi Luv, to be honest I am sometimes surprised about arguments arising from formal/legal matters. I am a club committee member of a ski club (Melbourne Nordic) with an ancient constitution, printed on a typewriter if I remember correctly. A while ago some legal rules changed (don't ask me for the right term, some Corporation Act or so) To satisfy these legal act some changes are advisable so we may change our constitution to be on a safe side if issues arise (e.g. related to liability, insurance etc) There are some model rules, someone made the effort to tweak them that they become our new constitution and we have an AGM about it in a few weeks time. Really, nobody wants to read this. If you are suffering from insomnia I may sent the constitution to you. It is about the aim of the club, how many people it needs to change a light bulb.. (well, if you read this you're not asleep yet;-) It does not change anything substantial - but still there is an uneasiness in some.. what sinister motives could the committee have to change the constitution? There are none - we want to make it easy to keep the club running and not being caught with an outdated constitution if there is an issue and there is a lawyer looking into it (e.g. insurance companies have plenty of them;-) As far as I understand joining LA and running LUV as a regional informal group is suggested to: - Make life easier (one insurance, one committee in the country that has to suffer the legal stuff is enough, one website for the list..) - Everybody gets counted, LA has more weight advocating Open Source if there are xy members more It does not kill the list, the meetings don't change: They are the heart of the LUV, I think. There are small issues e.g. related to sponsoring but I do not see a problem. I don't think there are "evil LA people" pocketing donations earmarked for LUV. I cannot see that the meetings get overrun by evil Sydneysiders hell-bent to ruin them, I don't think the Queenslanders just wait for the mailing lists moving to a LA server to shut them down. Until now I did not care for the legal structure making up LUV at all, and I don't know how many people really want to read constitutions etc. Honestly, why bother? So just go ahead, I think. But if not - I am not that sad either. The legal structure is the last thing I am worried about. Regards Peter

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Application form for membership of LUV
by Chris Samuel 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Hi all, Under the rules of LUV the following form is what must be submitted (and approved by the committee) for you to be a member of LUV and thus eligible to vote in the AGM. See section 4 "4. Membership, entry fees and subscription" for details. The form is quoted from the LUV rules at: http://luv.asn.au/node/8 APPENDIX 1 APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP OF LINUX USERS OF VICTORIA, INC. I, _________________________________________________________________________, of _________________________________________________________________________ desire to become a member of ______________________________________________. In the event of my admission as a member, I agree to be bound by the rules of the Association for the time being in force. ______________________________________________ Signature of Applicant ______________________________________________ Date -- Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC

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An alternative motion for consideration by LUV
by Daniel Jitnah 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Alternative motion to the LUV disincorporation motion. Following my previous post, and as promised here is a proposed alternative motion which I believe can bring long term benefit to LUV Members, and the Linux and Open Source Community in Australia. Motion: 1. LUV reaffirms the role of Linux Australia (LA) as the national peak body for all matters regarding Linux. 2. LUV, via its Committee, will explore ways to form a formal and durable affiliation or other form of relationship with Linux Australia that 2.1 recognises a future role for each organisation in their own right 2.2 aims to bring efficiencies in each others operations 2.3 aims to better coordinate joint actions towards the promotion of Linux 3. To facilitate this relationship, LUV will invite a representative of LA onto its Committee, and should LA accept this invitation, LUV undertakes to amend its constitution as necessary at the earliest opportunity so that a position for a LA representative is guaranteed on the Committee as Ordinary Member, for the duration of the period of affiliation or other form of relationship. The above motion is motivated by the debate on the proposed disincorporation of LUV motion that is intended to be put to a Members vote on 3 September. It is an alternative motion which in my opinion can bring long term benefits to LUV, LA and the Linux and FOSS community in Australia. This motion can bring all the positives aimed for in the disincorporation motion, without any of the negatives, while keeping LUV intact and safeguarding all the gains made over the years of existence. 1. above, is a self explicit statement of recognition of the role of LA. 2. is the core of the motion and aims at building a better relationship between LUV and LA with a view to delivering better outcomes to the Linux community 3. While this clause is not necessary, it however affirms the good faith that LUV places in making the relationship with LA work. There are benefits for BOTH LUV and LA if such a relationship can be built and sustained . Examples are: Efficiencies gains can be made for example in shared hosting and system administration arrangements. LA can gain more influence in the Linux and FOSS related activities in Victoria. By having a representative on LA on the LUV Committee, exchange of information and coordination between the 2 organisations is significantly improved. By encouraging jointly organised activities, LA gets better exposure in Victoria. Events can be labelled and promoted as being jointly organised by LUV and LA. This arrangement maintains access to Sponsorship and funding mechanism, such as the Victorian Gov. Multimedia funding or other sources which are only available to Victorian based entities, for activities organised by LUV. One other major advantage is that this arrangement does not lead to the situation where LA is burdened by its need to continuously administer and support a LUV-Subcommittee. Should LA’s agenda change, it has a lot more scope to reorganise itself without affecting the Sub-committee. It also offers a clear exit strategy whereby if a time is reached when this relation is deemed to have lost relevance or not be appropriate anymore, it is a simple matter for LUV to disaffiliate amicably, and each organisation parting their own way in their own directions. A sub-committee arrangement does not allow this. >From LA and LUV perspectives it provides both with a opportunity to demonstrate that they are able to enter and sustain a mature and effective partnership between 2 organisations. This may form a basis for other organisations wishing to form similar relationships with LA and LUV. Possible candidates could include for example other LUGS, OSIA (Open Source Industry Australia), Free Software Melbourne, New Zealand conterparts. Each organisation would be able to enter into a relationships that best suit their circumstances. The Insurance issue. (This is in response to a post on the mailing list) The issue at stake here is that of Volunteer Insurance cover. Volunteer Insurance provides cover for Volunteers if the are injured while involved as a Volunteer in an event organised by the organisation. There is evidently an issue of Volunteer management associated, whereby if properly managed, the risks can be greatly minimised. It should be noted that in all probability the insurance cover would apply when the Volunteer is injured if acting upon instructions given to him/her by LUV. To give an example, I would imagine, for example if a volunteer is asked to supervise a doorway at the back of a room where a speaker is giving a talk. And that volunteer wishing to better see the speaker climbs on a chair and falls down and breaks his/her ankle during the fall, its is not clear that the volunteer insurance cover will apply. But if the volunteer is assaulted by say an aggressive or intoxicated visitor, then it likely would apply. Its has also to be noted that Personal Liability insurance cover is usually provided by other mechanisms and that is distinct to Volunteer insurance. How can Volunteer Insurance Cover be provided. In entering into a formal relationship with LA, it will be aimed to make it part of the relationship that, when appropriate, the Volunteer Insurance from LA can indeed be made available by for example formally declaring the event as being a joint LA - LUV event, and whereby one of the contribution from LA would be to extend the insurance cover. Or as part of LA’s contribution, Volunteer management becomes the sole responsibility of LA. Infact this has already taken place in the past. During the Software Freedom Day event of 2010 held at the State Library of Victoria, LA’s volunteer insurance was made available to cover the volunteers. Affiliation relationships While an affiliation relationship is the one I am advocating in preference, I am however open to other forms, that saveguards LUV’s status as an independent entity. Affiliations are proven successful model of relationships. They exists in the sporting world for example, where by clubs are affiliated to a peak body representing their sport. They allow each organisation to focus on what they do best and allow for better coordinated actions to take place amongst them. I hope I have helped you decide on your vote. Cheers Daniel

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Re: [luv-announce] Reminder: LUV AGM (3 Sept) and proxies and deadline
by Rohan McLeod 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Les Kitchen wrote: > > Proxy form follows below. You can copy'n'paste it into your email. > > -- All the best, Les Kitchen (as LUV Secretary). > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > APPENDIX 3 > > FORM OF APPOINTMENT OF PROXY > > I, > _________________________________________________________________________, > > of > _________________________________________________________________________ > > being a member of > > Linux Users of Victoria, Inc. > > appoint > ____________________________________________________________________ > > of > _________________________________________________________________________ Les; I am another who can't make it to "1st Tue meetings due to a clash with the Existentialist Society; so; 1/ is the proxy form asking for my address at the first line commencing "of" ? ; 2/ if for example I was using Lev as my proxy, what should go at the second line commencing "of" ? thanks Rohan McLeod

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Proxy submission and acknowledgement
by Les Kitchen 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Hi LUV members, 1. As you certainly know, you can still lodge proxies until 7pm tonight. 2. For the proxies I've received so far, I've been sending individual confirmations to the members. I figured it would be comforting to get acknowledgement that your proxy had been received, and hadn't disappeared into the aether. I mention this because I probably won't have time to do this for any proxies I receive from here on in. So if you send your proxy now, you probably won't get any explicit acknowledgement before the AGM. It'll be open-loop. -- Smiles, Les (as LUV Sec.)

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cheap server for backups
by James Harper 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

In the past I've been using HP servers with 3rd party components (disks/memory) as these are often well overpriced for the same components with a HP logo on them. The latest round of servers appear to be adopting some technologies from printers and complaining when non-HP components are installed. I need a tower with similar build quality to a HP that comes with all the caddies etc that is known to run Linux well (it will be a Bacula server). Any suggestions? Thanks James

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Re: [luv-ctte] Some questions about proxies, etc.
by Daniel Jitnah 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

On Mon, 2013-09-02 at 00:15 +1000, Les Kitchen wrote: Hi Les, > > Oh, about your (Daniel's) LA-linkup resolution: I was going to > post to luv-main, but I'm too tired to start a new mail message, > so I'll just dump my thoughts here. I like the spirit of your > motion, but I'm just worried that it's not debugged yet, and we > won't be able to even do a proper code walk-through before > Tuesday. > > For example, how is the LA rep on the LUV committee chosen? By > LUV? Or by LA? In this proposal, all the details are of course the subject of discussion between interested parties and Member contribution will be welcome. The actual agreement if we get there will be agreed to by LA and LUV. Consistent with the spirit, I will suggest that the LA rep will be appointed by LA and up to them how they decide who that person may be. > > Even though I've been particular about getting the proxies right > (maybe overly so), in general I think the more things are left > to informal good sense the better. Codifying can be brittle. > > As I understand it, we already have at least one LA member on > the LUV committee. (Right, Russell?) And all this has reminded > me that I really should get around to joining LA myself. Well I am a Member of LA myself!! And I dont claim to represent LA on the Ctte. Russell was "elected" the Ctte in his own right, not as a representative of LA. I mean by a representative, someone authorised by the LA Council to speak on its behalf and report back to it. The LA rep position will be guaranteed irrespective of the outcome of the LUV Ctte election. Of course it's entirely possible for a future the LUV Ctte to think all this is crap, but then LA will be entitled to renege on any agreement that may been in place. > > I guess what I'm saying is that almost all we might want to do > in collaborating with LA we can do organically, without setting > up a lot of formal machinery. Absolutely agree here. The formality is only in a one time agreement, but how that plays itself out on a day to day basis can be as formal or informal as we like. > > Anyway, must sleep... > Already slept!! haha. Cheers Daniel. > -- Smiles, Les. > _______________________________________________ > luv-ctte mailing list > luv-ctte(a)luv.asn.au > http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-ctte

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checking for stack corruption
by James Harper 01 Sep '13

01 Sep '13

I have a program that keeps crashing. gdb is next to useless as it gives a "generic error" enumerating threads most of the time, and even when it doesn't none of the backtraces make any sense (mostly 0's and random values). It's a heisenbug so the fault cannot be reproduced under valgrind. Is there any way I can do a reasonableness test on the stack from C/C++? At a minimum I think all I would need to do is get the return address and check that is within a certain range and not null's etc. Thanks James

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Tracking broadband usage
by Colin Fee 31 Aug '13

31 Aug '13

I want to track/monitor/log our home broadband usage, specifically I want to track where the quota is being used e.g. sites, services. I can get usage meters from our ISP (Internode) but these only show an aggregate of how much we've used. I've looked at tools like bandwidthd and cacti and have installed bandwidth to see what it can show me. Is there anything I can install onto my linux server that watch and log what we use when? -- Colin Fee tfeccles(a)gmail.com

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Why I will vote *AGAINST* the dis-incorporation of LUV motion and why I also ask You to do the same.
by Daniel Jitnah 30 Aug '13

30 Aug '13

Why I will vote *AGAINST* the dis-incorporation of LUV motion and why I also ask You to do the same. On 3 September, the LUV AGM will be held. Its Members will be asked to cast their vote on undoubtedly the most important motion ever brought before them in the history of LUV. This motion will ask them to vote on a resolution to: "Dis-incorporate LUV as an incorporated body in the State of Victoria, and as a consequence the activities currently undertaken by LUV will be carried out by a Sub-Committee of Linux Australia (LA)". While the actual wording of the motion may vary, in essence the above is what Members will be asked to vote on. I have decided to vote *AGAINST* this motion, and I ask you to emphatically reject it as well. I explain further below why I believe it should be voted *AGAINST*. Furthermore, I believe that rather than just me voting against, I am also considering moving an alternative motion at the earliest opportunity that could bring substantial gain to all, and that address the reasons advanced in support of the proposed dissolution motion AND at the same time lead to a range of longer term benefits to LUV and LA , and potentially the wider Linux and Open Source Community in Australia. ************ Note that for LUV Members to even get an opportunity to consider and vote on the alternative motion that I am considering, there is no option but to vote *AGAINST* the disincorporation motion, if the latter is presented before my proposed motion. ************ It appears that some of you feel that there is an air of "fait accompli" floating about on the mailing lists about the disincorporation motion. I may respond directly and specifically to this issue in a separate post later, as there are matters which may be considered as important associated to this, and that LUV Members might wish to be made aware of. I am still making up my mind on whether in my capacity of LUV Vice-President it is incumbent upon me to bring these to your attention. It is very far from the truth that this is a "done deal"! I believe that the proposed LUV disincorporaton motion must get an *AGAINST* vote because: 1. It achieves nothing at all and in the long term potentially can cause adverse consequences on Linux and Open Source Community in Victoria and elsewhere. 2. It is bad for LUV Members. 3. Worse, it is bad for LUV as an incorporated body 4. And worse still it is most probably bad for LA in the longer term! Please consider, what you are being asked to vote on: "... disincorporation of LUV, Inc., and to convert Linux Users of Victoria as a subcommittee of Linux Australia, Inc.In the event of winding up, the assets of the association must be disposed in accordance to the provisions of the Act." My understanding is that this move is supposed to: (1). relieve members of the LUV Committee of having to deal with administrative duties and thereby allowing them to concentrate on tasks and activities that are more directly beneficial to LUV Members. (2). bring efficiencies in resource usage and eliminate duplication of some tasks. (3). possibly bring improved access to LA funds for activities and improved financial situation. (4). somehow be good because Victorian Members on the LA Council will be able to be more involved. (1). above, presumes that the Committee members believe that they are burdened by duties that is affecting their ability to carry out activities more directly beneficial to Members. It is even implied that time spent attending to administrative tasks constitute misused time, and that the Committee Member's effort would better redirected to more 'Linuxy' activities. However in the 4 years that I have been a member of the LUV Committee, including 2 years as Vice President, I cannot recall single moment where any action has failed due to any Committee Member being unable to put in the time and effort toward achieving that action because he or she was forced to attend to another administrative task of LUV instead. There is no evidence or even any indication, that Committee Members actions are being held back by administrative burden. There is no reason to believe that if a Committee Member did not have to attend to an administrative task, that Member would have been attending to a 'Linuxy' task instead. Lets remember that LUV Committee Members are volunteers. They bring in skills and values to LUV of their own accord. In my view to even suggest that they are misusing or wasting their time is bordering on insult! I utterly reject the idea that the time, effort and diligence put into his duties by Wen Lin as Treasurer of LUV in the last few years was misused time on his part! And that applies to every other Committee Member who have devoted their time and effort in the past. To me this is *their* contribution to LUV in the manner that they see *they can best serve* the organisation. And I am grateful to everyone of them, and will never attempt to diminish the value of their contribution. I therefore cannot contemplate voting for a motion that devalues their efforts by suggesting that it was misused time. (2). above. address what is essentially an internal organisational issue. There are many ways to address this and disincorporation is certainly NOT the only option! In the last 4 years, the Committee has never had to consider this issue at any length, if ever at all. Its not an issue impeding LUV activities. To suggest that LUV has a problem here that can only be resolved by a disincorporaton is extremely misguided. However I agree that attempting to improve efficiency is a worthy task. This is one of the reasons that I am considering an alternative motion, that can bring improved efficiency while preserving LUV intact as incorporated body and with all the gains that it has made over the time of its existence so far. (3). above, is probably the *most misguided* belief here!!. In fact it puts the resulting LUV-Subcommittee under LA in a substantially much worse situation financially, worse still this Subcommittee is left with NO financial situation at all!! All its assets are transferred to LA!! It has nothing in its own right - ZERO! What's left is a "reassurance" that it will be able to access an amount of money. Who in their right mind will give away their house fully owned by them, to a third party, on the reassurance that they will be able to live in the house, when there is absolutely NO reason why they should leave their house in the first place?? It has been suggested that the LUV-Subcommittee will be able to access more of LA's fund compared to LUV. Indeed one of the funding stream available to LUV at present is the Linux Australia Grant Scheme, the purpose of which is to assist organisations and individuals undetake 'linuxy' or 'fossy' activities and projects. The fact is a Subcommittee of LA cannot access this fund!! It does not meet the criteria to even apply for the fund! *And rightly* so, or else there would be a direct conflict of interest for LA to approve money to itself (as a Subcommittee) from a fund intended to help other organisations and individuals. But currently LUV has full entitlement to this fund. It has in the past received money from it, and indeed as a LUG it probably is in a better position to qualify for this money than other organisations or individual. The LUV-Subcommittee will be disqualified from accessing this fund. (see http://linux.org.au/projects/grants) This leaves the LUV Subcommittee having to rely on internal operating expenses of LA to fund all activities it may wish to carry out, and dependent on the budget policies of the latter. Indeed that is how it should be, as a subcommittee it becomes entirely dependent on operating expenses of its mother organisation to fund its activities. This also means it will have to compete with other Sub-Committees, and allocated funds only at the discretion of the Council as it sees fit. It can only spend funds as the LA Council may allow it to do so. It has no autonomy on its own right, but only reassurances of such. Which brings me to another VERY important consideration! The LA council is only elected for one year. (btw only a few months left for this council to run its course) There is absolutely ZERO guarantee that a future Council will want to honour any "reassurrances" given by the current one. A future Council has every right to have a completely different set of priorities and agenda where it considers that the current subcommittee structure does not meet its aims. It may not consider that the activities carried by a LUV-subcommittee are of any value towards it achieving its mission. It can decide to implement policies at odds with a LUV-Subcommittee. Even worse, it can even be elected on a platform whereby it will review the existing sub-committee structure and replace it with another one, where a LUV-subcommittee may have a very diminished or even no role at all to play. I cannot over emphasise that these are genuine risks be it big or small. This brings me to the sponsorship issue, while the LA Council may give reassurances (fwiw!) that the LUV-Subcommittee will still be able to receive sponsorship as it currently does, what it cannot do is guarantee that the Sponsors will see the same incentive for them to give sponsorship to a Subcommittee of LA, as it currently does to LUV - It is a completely different proposition to give money to a Subcommittee with no legal rights of its own, as it is to give money to a body incorporated under State laws (of Vic)! If instead the Sponsor decides to give the money straight to LA, then the LUV subcommittee has NO reason to claim any right to this money, and it is entirely up to LA how they spend it. Morever there are sources of sponsorship which will likely become out of reach to a sub-committee of LA. LUV in the past has received money from the Victorian Government through Multi- Media Victoria. (eg past Software Freedom Day events) It is hardly conceivable that the Victorian Government would consider giving any sponsorship to a body incorporated in the state of NSW, which LA is. It cannot even give money to a sub-committee, and will have to be to the mother organisation, if it ever did. (4). the view that it will somehow be better because Victorian Members of the LA Council will be able to be more involved, is also fundamentally misguided. I refer to a post to the list by Lev Lafayette where he elaborates on the difference between between a Unitary and Federated organisation. In a Unitary organisation, which LA is, Council members have NO requirement to "look after their constituent" so to say. In fact acting in a way that explicitly benefit a group of people based on the fact that they are regionally closer to them may well be viewed as inappropriate and constitute a conflict of interest. What would one think if the current President of LA who is a Tasmanian took a decision or acted in a way that specifically benefited Tasmanians at the expense of others? I doubt that this would be viewed with favour. Furthermore, there is nothing now that prevents the Victorian members of the LA Council to be more involved in LUV. This is matter for them on how they are able to organise their time. Kathy Reid, the current LA Secretary is already involved in the Geelong Chapter of LUV. A disincorporation of LUV will unlikely change anything in Kathy's ability to attend to Victorian matters. What I have set in the paragraphs above invalidates all the 4 claims proposed in favour of the disincorporation motion. This motion bad for LA. This motion may well lead to a situation detrimental to LA. It creates a precedence (actually it adds to one already created earlier), whereby LUGs or other friendly organisation have their activities taken over by LA Sub-committees. Imagine a situation where all similar organisations from left, right and centre become LA Subcommittees, we end up with LA heavily burdened by the need to support and administer the activities of many Sub-committees! It is highly likely that there will be conflicts arising between the needs of these sub-committees. I cannot see how this can be good for LA or the LUV-Subcommittee. This is why I said at the start, this motion achieves nothing, because we end up in a situation where the LUV-subcommittee can be caughtup in administrative burden higher up the organisation hierarchy, with potentially worse effects on LUV activities than the "supposed admin burden" placed upon its Committee Members now! In fact the LUV-Subcommittee is left at the mercy of a larger administration. Furthermore as alluded to by Les Kitchen in one of his post on the list, it also creates a single point of failure in the Linux Open Source Community, a single centre of decision making or power, whereby a single mistake or poor decision by LA can lead to adverse effects on all of the Linux and Open Source Community in Australia. I realise we are not there, but a disincorporation and convertion to a LA Subcommittee constitute a step in that direction. Thats BAD, very BAD If its bad for LA, how can it be good for a Subcommittee of LA? In fact there is one way that this motion, if passed can bring tangible gains to LA. This is whereby LA, after absorbing LUV, acquiring its assets (ie very modest bank balance), possibly gaining access to LUV's current sponsorship moneys, actually or/and subsequently dissolves the LUV-Subcommittee!! I simply cannot in all justice support the motion of disincorporation of LUV and have explained the main reasons for my decision to vote *AGAINST*. If any of the above resonates with your views, I believe you also will be to also be reject this motion. I hope I have helped you form your opinion on whats being proposed. ..... And I still have not said anything yet about the motion under consideration my me! That will come in a subsequent post. Cheers Daniel. PS: it was a long read, but I don't know if making it shorter would have given this matter the justice it deserves.

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