Linux Australia addresses burnout syndrome

"One of the first things we've got to sort out is our actual organisational structure, which was a bit of a painful topic last time we spoke," Linux Australia's Jon Oxer told ZDNet Australia last week in the wake of his re-election as the body's president.

Oxer was referring to the organisation's internal debate in 2005 about its future. At the time Oxer said in a public e-mail that Linux Australia was at a dangerous "teenager stage of development" where its voluntary committee had to be refreshed annually as executive members got burnt out by an overload of work.

But in 2006 the Melbourne developer is more optimistic about Linux Australia's future.

"We're moving down the track of separating governance and execution, which is allowing us to do some really cool things," he said.

"One of the things which was really successful last year ... was to create more subcommittees."

"People think 'committees never get anything done'. But the general idea is basically to find people who are already doing cool things in the open source world, or that want to do it but need resources to do it, and do them officially as Linux Australia activities."

"The good thing about taking that approach is that it's really helped relieve a lot of the pressure that was building up," Oxer added.

"By doing it this way it means the committee doesn't have to be hands-on with everything, it's really just a matter of making sure that the organisation as a whole is healthy ... and the people that have got the specific interests can get along with what they do."

Linux Australia will also seek to diversity its funding base in 2006. The body has so far primarily been funded by a modest profit from the annual linux.conf.au conference it runs every year.

"The problem is that means Linux Australia is entirely dependent on linux.conf.au for all of its operational funds," said Oxer.

"I personally don't like the idea of having all our eggs in one basket, so it'd be good to see what alternatives there are to bring us some income."

According to Oxer, the funding drive is not aimed at just "trying to bring in money for money's sake".

"The reason we want to raise funds is so that we can do more things, have more grants dispensed," he said.

Oxer said his body gave out "quite a few" grants to people doing work in areas related to open source.

"For example there were funds given to Teen Challenge in Murray Bridge, which is an organisation that is doing computer competency training for people that are in a difficult situation -- like being long-term unemployed or homeless."

"The thing to do is teach them skills that will make them more employable. And they do all that using open source software."

Linux Australia will also focus more on its public advocacy role in 2006, with a strong presence at trade shows like CeBIT and LinuxWorld, as well as more grassroots efforts like Software Freedom Day.

Outfoxing the competition
Oxer claimed his prediction twelve months ago that the success of the Firefox Web browser would drive takeup of other open source applications in Australia was coming to pass.

"I've seen a lot of people becoming aware of open source because of it," he said.

"It hasn't been a dramatic thing, but I think it's a trend that is definitely there. Talking to people day to day now, a lot of people are now familiar with Firefox even if they don't switch to it as their primary browser."

"So the concept has been presented to them and they're now more open to the idea of the fact that open source software is high quality, and can be a viable alternative to commercial applications, that it's not just a toy system," he concluded.

Linux Australia's new committee will have its first face to face meeting in the next several weeks.