[Osia-members] OSIA April update

[Jack Burton]

Afternoon, all.

With five government engagement initiatives in train, a public policy
media campaign well underway and a variety of membership,
member/sponsor engagement and member services initiatives getting
started, it's been another very busy month at OSIA, so please excuse
this update coming out a little later in the month than expected.

With all that going on, naturally there's a fair bit to cover this
month, so please excuse also the length of this update.


** Press releases on CPTPP **

Since the last monthly update OSIA has put out a further three press
releases on CPTPP:

12 Mar: OSIA slams DFAT’s brazen denial of TPP secrecy
See: http://osia.com.au/f/osia_cptpp_pr2c.pdf

19 Mar: CPTPP grants temporary stay of execution / One third of the
worst issues with TPP resolved for the short term
See: http://osia.com.au/f/osia_cptpp_pr3.pdf

29 Mar: OSIA welcomes Senate inquiry into CPTPP / Foreign Affairs,
Defence & Trade References Committee inquiry will provide much needed
perspective
See: http://osia.com.au/f/osia_cptpp_pr4.pdf

More will follow in due course -- in the meantime we've switched into
submission drafting mode.


** JSCOT & Senate submissions on CPTPP **

Yesterday OSIA lodged a submission with the Joint Standing Committee of
Treaties (JSCOT) inquiry into CPTPP. The full text of our submission
will be made available to members after JSCOT approve it for
publication (Parliament requires us to refrain from publishing or
otherwise disclosing it before then).

OSIA will also be lodging a submission with the Senate Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence & Trade, References Committee's
inquiry into CPTPP during the month of May.

OSIA's TPP Committee will begin work on the Senate submission next
week.

Again, any OSIA members with a keen interest in saving Australia from
this zombie treaty and having the time & capacity to help us achieve
that end are urged to volunteer to join the TPP Committee -- to do so,
please contact OSIA Director (public policy) Josh Stewart and/or me
off-list.


** University of Adelaide frees Ludwig **

We are pleased to note that the University of Adelaide freed Ludwig, a
historic 38 year old cross-platform full screen text editor still in
active use & development today (mostly among former VMS users) which
set the gold standard for pattern matching way back in 1979. In mid
March, the university announced that Ludwig is now under the MIT
licence. The source to Ludwig v4 and v5 (both of which are still
maintained) will be released on github in due course.

More details at [1], [2], [3] & [4]. There was also an article in the
Australian the day after the announcement, but that one has since
disappeared behind a paywall.

It is always nice to see world-class Australian software being open
sourced. 

Now that there is a third serious player in the ring, perhaps even FOSS
editor flame wars might become a little friendlier ;)


** OSIA in the news **

In addition to the articles noting our brief comment on the freeing of
Ludwig (see references above), OSIA has been mentioned in seven other
news articles over the last few weeks for our public statements on
CPTPP.

"OSIA slams DFAT's brazen denial of TPP secrecy" was picked up by Mirage
News[5], Aircargo Asia-Pacific[6] and IndyWatch Hobart[since been taken
down].

"CPTPP grants temporary stay of execution" made appearances in
Technology Decisions[7] and Mirage News[8].

"OSIA welcomes Senate inquiry into CPTPP" was picked up by Aircargo
Asia-Pacific[9] and Business Acumen Magazine[10].


** Featured OSIA sponsor **

As mentioned back in December, from time to time we'd like to feature
some of OSIA's sponsors in these updates, with a brief message from the
sponsor, so that members have a better understanding of our sponsors'
businesses. After all, connecting relevant businesses in the industry
to each other is part of what an industry body does.

This month we're featuring another of OSIA's bronze sponsors, Joviam:

    Joviam provides a cloud solution for technically-minded consumers
    and professionals who need a powerful and flexible platform to
    create and run apps and digital services, including
    Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This includes independent developers,
    system administrators and SMBs up to 200 seats (such as engineering
    companies and development houses).

    Joviam, which competes with the likes of Amazon Web Services and
    Microsoft, differentiates itself by bringing enterprise-grade cloud
    computing capabilities to the wider, public cloud market. This is
    made possible by the Infiniband supercomputer technology which
    underpins the platform, enabling performance that is significantly
    faster than other offerings but at a much lower price point.

    Pursuing the aim of making high-performance cloud accessible to a
    wider market, Joviam's IaaS platform is deliberately vendor-agnostic
    -- designed to give users full control and configurability over
    their infrastructure without vendor lock-ins tying workloads to
    cloud-specific features or tooling. Utilizing "infrastructure as
    code" to define environments, users are able to configure, maintain
    and elastically provision their cloud deployments to target specific
    needs and solutions. This is particularly attractive to the
    exploding market of DevOps, such as continuous integration,
    automated testing and highly composable infrastructure.

    For more information, see http://www.joviam.com/


** Membership update **

In the coming weeks, OSIA Director (membership) Paul Moore will be
calling all members to find out more about each of your businesses and
to discuss what OSIA can do for you now and in future.

Please give Paul a little of your time -- it is important for OSIA's
future that we build a better picture of our members, what their
organisations are out to achieve and where best to focus our own member
services initiatives moving forward.


** OGNAP/OGPAU update **

In late March, OSIA Chairman Mark Phillips attended a DTA briefing in
Melbourne on the Open Government National Access Plan (OGNAP) & Open
Government Partnership Australia (OGPAU). OSIA has since made some
preliminary comments[0] on the initiative and will be lodging one or
more formal submissions with DTA in due course, the drafting of which
will be led by Mark.

Any member interested in contributing to OSIA's work in relation to this
initiative should contact Mark off-list.


** Commonwealth ICT procurement framework **

On 3 April, DTA released its new ICT procurement framework and called
for industry feedback -- see
https://www.dta.gov.au/ict-procurement-update/ict-procurement-framework-open-for-feedback/

This initiative is part of the implementation of the outcomes of the
PM&C / DTA ICT Procurement Task Force, with which OSIA was involved
during the final quarter of 2016.

OSIA Director Alexar Pendashteh is leading the drafting of OSIA's
response to the current framework, which is due in a few days' time.

Any member interested in getting involved should contact Alexar
off-list.


** Copyright modernisation project **

On 19 March, the Department of Communications & the Arts released a
consultation paper for their copyright modernisation project, covering
flexible exceptions, contracting out & orphan works.

This project is part of the implementation of some of the
recommendations of the Productivity Commission's 2015/16 Inquiry into
Intellectual Property Arrangements, which OSIA was heavily involved in
contributing to at all four stages.

I will be leading the drafting of OSIA's submission on the DCA
consultation paper, which is due in June.

Any member interested in contributing to the analysis and drafting of
text for this submission should contact me off-list.


** Board meetings **

OSIA's board met (in Queensland) on Sat 24 Mar. It was a briefer but no
less productive meeting, with another 4 substantive resolutions passed
and 19 new actions delegated. The meeting was followed by a workshop on
member services & engagement, after which we adjourned to discover the
joys of Brisbane's finest whiskey bar.

As noted last month, the board will meet once each month for the rest
of the year, with two out of every 3 board meetings being held in
person. 

The schedule of board & general meetings for the remainder of 2018 is:

Tue 24 Apr teleconference
Sat 19 May Melbourne, Vic.
Sat 16 Jun Sydney, NSW
Mon 16 Jul teleconference
Sat 11 Aug Ballarat, Vic.
Sat 09 Sep Campbelltown, SA
Mon 08 Oct teleconference
Sat 03 Nov Melbourne, Vic.
Fri 30 Nov (evening) 2018 AGM (venue tba)
Sat 01 Dec board strategic planning day (same city as AGM)
Sun 02 Dec first board meeting of new term (same city as AGM)

We are making these dates public well ahead of time so that any members
who want to may meet informally with OSIA's directors around the the
dates listed in the towns listed. To do so, just contact either OSIA
Chairman Mark Phillips or me off-list well in advance of the meeting.

In the meantime, as always OSIA members are encouraged to bring any
pertinent matters (and indeed your views on them) to the attention of
the board, either on this list or by contacting any of us directly. The
OSIA email addresses of all board members are available here:
http://osia.com.au/drupal7/corporate-documents/osia-board-members


Reference for the "OGNAP/OGPAU update" item:

[0] https://ogpau.pmc.gov.au/public-sector-integrity#comment-507


References for the "University of Adelaide frees Ludwig" item:

[1] https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news98662.html
[2]
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/a-38-year-old-coding-tool-has-been-released-to-the-public-487014
[3]
https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/634667/adelaide-uni-open-sources-venerable-ludwig-editor/
[4] https://phys.org/news/2018-03-year-old-code-writing-tool.html


References for the "OSIA in the news" item:

[5]
https://www.miragenews.com/osia-slams-dfat-039-s-brazen-denial-of-tpp-secrecy/
[6]
http://www.airtraveller.com.au/aircargo/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15338:dfat-criticised-for-cptpp-secrecy-denial&catid=85&Itemid=435
[7]
https://www.technologydecisions.com.au/content/it-management/news/open-software-industry-hails-tpp-suspensions-1194481005
[8] https://www.miragenews.com/cptpp-grants-temporary-stay-of-execution/
[9]
http://www.impactpub.com.au/aircargo/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15399:osia-welcomes-cptpp-inquiry-call&catid=85&Itemid=435
[10]
https://www.businessacumen.biz/news/3009-osia-welcomes-senate-inquiry-into-cptpp