1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Neill Cox (Vice-President)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Jonathan Woithe (Secretary)
- Elena Williams (Council) from 21:00
- Harrison Oates (Council)
- Miles Goodhew (Council)
Apologies
- None
Not Present
- None
Meeting opened at 20:04 AEDT (UT+1100) by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Jonathan.
2. Log of correspondence
- [LACTTE] From the Auditor and Russell, 22 Oct 2026: Auditor engagement arrangements
- [LACTTE] From Tom Farley, 22 Oct 2026: Membership form problem. Joel has responded. Tom also foreshadowed a grant application, but the membership form issue is blocking that because he isn’t a member yet.
- [LACTTE] From Yifei Zhan, 23 Oct 2026: Reporting the WordFence block of the login page. This was a side effect of the temporary mitigation put in place for the PHP vulnerabilities which emerged on 21 Oct 2026. Jonathan has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Steven (from Aurum Field), 23 Oct 2026: Grant program eligibility questions. Jonathan has responded. The original email reads like it was sent by someone who is not involved in the Open Source community and is seeking opportunistic funding.
- [LACTTE] From Jack Skinner, 23 Oct 2026: Following up questions raised in the last subcommittee meeting. Jonathan and Joel have responded.
- [LACTTE] From Terry Dawson, 23 Oct 2026: Sending information requested by Russell.
- [LACTTE] From Tom Farley, 24 Oct 2026: Reporting problems submitting a membership application via the website form. The email also included the text of a grant application, although previous correspondence made it clear that applications should be made via the website.
- [LACTTE] From Michael Richardson, 25 Oct 2026: DrupalCon Licence Fee. Russell has arranged payment and responded.
- [LACTTE] From ASIC, 25 Oct 2026: The “Open Source Australia” business name is due for renewal.
- [LACTTE] From Julia Topliss, 25 Oct 2026: Sponsorship transfer request. This was completed.
- [LACTTE] From Julia Topliss, 25 Oct 2026: DrupalSouth updates, election results, planning transition to new committee members.
- [LACTTE] From ASIC, 25 Oct 2026: “Open Source Australia” business name was successfully renewed.
- [LACTTE] From Julia Topliss and Russell Stuart, 25 Oct 2026: Discussion about reconciliation of DrupalSouth Community Day accounts.
- [LACTTE] From Digital Pacific, 25 Oct 2026: Domain renewal order confirmation for linux.org.au.
- [LACTTE] From Digital Pacific, 25 Oct 2026: Domain renewal payment confirmation for linux.org.au.
- [LACTTE] From Dr Darryl Gauld OAM, 26 Oct 2026: Requested a link to the grants program because he couldn’t find it on the website. Joel has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Michael Richardson, 26 Oct 2026: Tidying loose ends from DrupalCon Nara.
- [LACTTE] From Dr Darryl Gauld OAM, 27 Oct 2026: Acknowledging Joel’s email.
- [LACTTE] From Sony Bonag, 27 Oct 2026: Jul-Sep 2026 BAS
- [LACTTE] From Michael Richardson, 28 Oct 2026: DA have confirmed licence fee transaction. DrupalCon Nara is now wrapped.
- [LACTTE] From Margery Tongway, 28-29 Oct 2026: Ongoing DrupalSouth Community Day reconciliation discussion. Russell is handling this.
- [LACTTE] From Jonathan Morel, 29 Oct 2026: Questions about grant funding for open components of potentially closed source platforms. Jonathan has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Justin Chiam, 29 Oct 2026: Affiliation Enquiry from Linux Society UNSW.
- [LACTTE] From Amazon Web Services, 1 Nov 2026: New charges.
- [LACTTE] From Julia Topliss, 1 Nov 2026: Notification of new DrupalSouth Committee.
- [LACTTE] From Si Hobbs, 2 Nov 2026: Confirmation of Westpac ID.
- [LACTTE] From Guoyi Zhang, 2 Nov 2026: Preliminary Willi26 grant report. Jonathan has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Amanda Hogan, 2 Nov 2026: Discussion about PyConAU. Jonathan has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Jonathan Oxer, 2 Nov 2026: Concerns over membership form breakage and delays to membership approvals. Jonathan has responded.
- [LACTTE] From “jayos00001”, 2 Nov 2026: Grant enquiry about funding code developed by AI systems, and licensing questions. Joel has responded. “Jayos00001” followed up on 3 Nov 2026 asking whether a proposed grant application (the nature of which was not overly clear) would be acceptable.
- [LACTTE] From Matthew Campbell, 2 Nov 2026: Enquiry about seeking developer assistance and information about open source licences. Joel has responded.
- [LACTTE] From Nathan Morrow, 4 Nov 2026: Joomla Australia update for meeting.
3. Subcommittee reviews
Drupal Subcommittee 8:05 pm – Julia Topliss
Most of the new committee was in attendance tonight. Joel welcomed them.
Russell to sort out a Stripe account for DS Gold Coast 2027.
Russell raised some audit-related points which will be followed up.
Joel thanked Julia and Marge for their work over the last few years.
Everything Open 8:25pm – Fraser
Registrations are down on where the team would like to be. More announcements are coming though, so hopefully this will push registrations along.
The CFP closed strongly: 3x submissions received. Acceptances were sent last week with the sending of rejections now in progress. Two thirds of acceptances have been confirmed. The program will be released once acceptances are almost complete.
Social media engagement will be picking up. There is a dedicated person to look after this.
Sponsorships: 83k committed, 43k paid. Additional discussions are in progress.
Five keynotes are locked in. Most are from Australia/NZ. Costs of these are in hand.
DDD is coming up in a few weeks. EO’s sponsorship of this event will give visibility. Discount codes will be made available to DDD attendees.
Dinner and catering is on track.
A quote has been sought for AV recording. It will be evaluated in line with sponsorship levels achieved. Since this was not in the approved budget the quote cannot be accepted until it is reviewed by the LA council.
There is a possibility of running a raffle. Fraser will clarify the requirements under Queensland law. It is not expected to be a problem.
Admin Team 8:25 pm
The past week has been mainly all about security patching. An unusually large number needed dealing with in a short period of time.
Updates are in progress for the LA website. To provide protection while an updated host was prepared, the site was moved behind a proxy with most form activity blocked. Breakages were expected, but this was considered better than a site compromise. It has since been discovered that the membership application form and the grant form have been broken by this. Further work has not been possible due to work commitments. It is expected that time will be available to resume the work at the end of this week or the start of next week. The form functionality will possibly be fixed by the end of next week.
The admin team budget is still to be reviewed. There was a tentative plan to scope some new hardware purchases, but this will not happen now due to the outrageous prices.
Joomla Subcommittee 8:35 pm – Nathan Morrow
Budget status (if applicable):
No budget updates this month.
Key achievements:
Have started reviewing the conference set up again this month and importantly have identified a new venue which will either be considerably cheaper or even free with an in-kind venue sponsorship, which would alleviate a few budgetary concerns. Expected timing is October 2027.
Any concerns?
Not at this stage
How can LA assist?
Nothing at the moment.
WordPress 8:40 pm – Wil Brown
No report.
Flounder 8:40 pm – Russell Coker, Yifei Zhan
No report.
4. Items for discussion
Services used by DrupalSouth that LA could pay for
Julia has requested the following service payments be covered by Linux Australia:
- Google Apps
- Bitwarden
- Domain Name registration
- Xero account
- MailChimp
These payments have previously been paid by DrupalSouth committee members.
These look reasonable. If DrupalSouth can put this into a steering committee budget, LA can then work with Julia and Si to make this happen. Joel will follow up to get the process started.
Affiliation enquiry from Linux Society UNSW
JC emailed Council on 29 Oct 2026 to ask about possible options for affiliation with LA.
The concept is worth pursuing. Joel will follow up to determine some more details about what they have in mind.
Proof of business address for Wise
The relevant documentation has been obtained. However, as of 25 Oct 2026, Russell can no longer see the “proof of business address” request on the Wise website. Russell has asked Jack if he can still see it. This issue is likely on hold until it becomes visible for Russell.
PyCon AU
There are people interested in running a future PyCon AU. Council will discuss this further with interested parties to determine a course of action.
Non-functional forms on the website
Since the functionality of the membership and grant application forms will only be restored by late next week, a note should be added to both to let people know this. Jonathan will see to this.
5. Items for noting
New DrupalSouth committee
Julia Topliss has notified Linux Australia of DrupalSouth’s new committee:
- Chair: Vladimir Roukakov
- Secretary: Quinn Hart
- Treasurer: Si Hobbs
- Conference coordinate: Karl Hepworth
- Committee member: Suchi Garg
6. Other business
- None.
7. In camera
Two items were discussed in camera.
Meeting closed at 21:35 UT+11:00
Next meeting is scheduled for 2026-11-18 at 20:00 AEDT (UT+1100)
