Group: Manchester/2008-08-11/Minutes

Manchester Free Software Minutes

19:00, Monday 11th August 2008

Attendance: Lucy, Matt, Paul, Simon, and later Ben Webb and Tim
Apologies: Dave

Last Meeting

All present approved the minutes of the last meeting on 14th July.

Announcements

Simon wants to reduce his role, and has been considering stepping down from that of chairman. The initial term of six month is due to end in two months (October).

Speakers

• Contacted:
  • Alan Burlison — Tim
  • Glyn Wintle — Lucy (Glyn has some other talks planned for Manchester and wants to try and arrange around them)
  • Jason Clifford — Dave
  • John Pugh MP — Dave
  • MJ Ray — Dave
  • Steve Durrant — Dave
  • Someone from gNewSense (Brian Brazil) — Dave
  • Someone from Moodle (Helen) — Tim
• Still to contact:
  • Ben Green — Dave
  • Harald Welte — Simon
  • Jono Bacon — Simon
  • Stephen Fry — Tim

Action: Dave to contact Ben Green.
Action: Simon to continue contact with Harald Welte.
Action: Simon to contact Jono Bacon.
Action: Tim to contact Stephen Fry.

Tim suggested someone from DNUK, a GNU/Linux‐based server supplier. Others suggested were John Pinner (Linux Emporium), and Rufus Pollock (Open Knowledge Foundation, on open data issues). There may also be someone in the council.

Action: Tim to contact DNUK.
Action: Lucy to contact John Pinner.
Action: Tim to contact Rufus Pollock.

Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day is less than a month now (20th September), and organising something should be considered urgent. Someone still needs to contact someone at the library for consent to use their systems. Matt will assist Dave with contacting the Central Library by providing relevant information (links, contact names). It was suggested that someone (Dave) go to the library in person and just ask.

Action: Lucy to chase Dave about the library and supplies from SFD.

Promotion

We had no list of places from Dave because of his absence (though the No2ID suggestions are supposed to be online). Suggestions were: No2ID members, Friends of the Earth, Manchester University CompSoc and possibly the Freshers Fair.

Materials we have are the tri-fold leaflet. Lucy also offered to create an A4 poster that would briefly describe the group and list the next three talks.

Action: Lucy to create A4 poster.

The wiki page listing (online) places where events are publicised is up at Manchester/Meetings/Publicity, and Manchester Free Software is now listed as a free software user group on the FSF site.

Next Meeting

The date in the agenda is incorrect: It should be Monday 8th September 2008 19:00 at the Waterhouse. This was was approved.

Agenda items should include: Software Freedom Day, LinuxWorld Expo, Speakers. Tim wanted to bring up the mailing list name and FSUK as an agenda item but said he would bring it up on the mailing list instead.