[LINK] Alston backflips

[Nick Smith]

Linkers

There is SISA (Supporters of Interoperable Systems in Australia) whose
membership includes Sun and Fujitsu. (SISA itself is a member of the ADA). 

They don't seem to be terribly active these days but they were certainly
active a couple of years ago battling the Business Software Alliance over
the issue of decompilation (SISA wanted and got an exception in the
Copyright Act allowing the reverse engineering of computer programs for the
purposes of interoperability, error correction and security).

It's not the quite the same thing as a Linux lobbyist however...

Nick
--
=========================================================
Nick Smith
Executive Officer  ::  Australian Digital Alliance  
Copyright Advisor  ::  Australian Libraries Copyright Committee
PO Box E202   \\   Kingston ACT 2604
Ph: 02 6262 1273   \\   Fax: 02 6273 2545
Email: nsmith@nla.gov.au   \\   Web: www.digital.org.au
=========================================================

> ----------
> From: 	Danny Yee[SMTP:danny@anatomy.usyd.edu.au]
> Sent: 	Monday, 22 January 2001 16:22
> To: 	hartr@redhat.com
> Cc: 	Link discussion group
> Subject: 	Re: [LINK] Alston backflips
> 
> >    Mr Howard next Monday will reveal the entire innovation package,
> >    representing the Coalition Government's most serious attempt to boost
> >    the science and information technology sectors.
>  
> hartr@redhat.com wrote:
> > I wonder if the words 'open source' will even appear once in this.
> > 
> > Not only does Australia have a significant amount of expertise and good
> > standing in this area, but it is also an area in which Australia could
> > actually develop some significant commercial clout throughout the
> > Asia-Pacific region (and even further afield).
> > 
> > However, despite the huge emphasis that organisations such as Intel and
> > IBM are placing on open source, I rather suspect that this is not even
> > on their radar screens...let alone something that is part of an
> > "innovation" package!
> 
> Does Red Hat have lobbiests in Canberra?  Is there any kind of free
> software (or open source) lobby group in Australia?
> 
> We (and I include myself) need to stop complaining about lack of
> government attention for free software and start lobbying more
> effectively.
> 
> Danny.
>