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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

First Prize

The prize for the first reportage from my evolve keynote in Sydney goes to Rodney Gedda of Computerworld who, despite the name type mid-article, gets part of the message pretty clear - that the furore over open source here in Australia is missing the real benefits of the open source approach and focussing too much on Linux and price leverage against Microsoft. For those GPL-phile worried by the last sentence, note that I didn't in fact flame the GPL like that; rather, I said that those wishing to use the GPL for commercial open source projects had better use dual licensing otherwise they'll probably run into licensing problems when they try to sell their packaged products.

posted at 8:55 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Evolving in progress

Still in Sydney, where it's raining and cold. I really enjoyed the chance to speak not once but twice here today - once this morning at Evolve, the second to the staff of one of Sun's biggest customers here. I've been discussing the reality of using open source as a development methodology rather than as the verbal token for DIY computing, and the response has been positive and warm so far. I'll be speaking twice again tomorrow - once to students at UTS and then on the closing panel of Evolve. My presentation slides are available [PDF, 3.3Mb] - delegates will find they missed the printed materials (not surprising as I was still working on them at 2am this morning!).

posted at 2:08 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Possum products

I have nearly 1000 photos from last week's trip but a news item in the papers over the weekend caught our attention. My daughter is keen on cute furry creatures so the possum that came onto our deck each night at the start of the week (right), and so was shocked to discover the way they are hated in New Zealand. Having been introduced by homesick Aussies, they are now infesting the place through lack of a predator.

Ever inventive, the kiwis have come up with a solution that totally horrifies my daughter - they use them for fur products, including nipple-warmers and G-strings...

posted at 5:53 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Back online down under

Ten days offline - wow! I've reached Sydney on my 'global tour' and am able to get online reliably again after our family holiday. I'm here to speak at the Evolve conference among other things. I have a huge number of photos from last week and will post a few here - the family flew in to meet me in north Queensland and we stayed at the splendid Hinchinbrook Island Wilderness Lodge which we would unreservedly recommend to anyone wanting to take a real break from it all.

posted at 11:35 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |