1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Jennifer Cox (Vice-President)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Elena Williams (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
- Harrison Oates (Council)
Apologies
Not Present
Meeting opened at 20:05 AEDT by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill
2. Log of correspondence
- Carrying Open Collaboration into the Year Ahead – Newsletter from OSI
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77030472 (AU$7.98) – RedBubble
- Remittance Advice – RedBubble
- Minutes accuracy 14 January 2026 – From Jack Skinner pointing out that the date on the published minutes were wrong. Neill has responded and corrected the error.
- Upcoming Domain Renewal Notice – Please Do Not Reply – Notification from Digital Pacific re linux.com.au – no action required
- Fw: Re: Linux Australia Council: Welcome! Details to add as a Council Member – details of our new council member Harrison Oates
- [Linux-aus] Electron Workshop spam – email from Russell Coker to Linux Aus list re spam from Electron Workshop
- Linux Australia 2026 Annual Report and Draft AGM Agenda – from council. Notification of the publication of the Annual Report and AGM agenda
- 60 Day Renewal Reminder 2026-03-20 – notification from Digital Pacific re linux.com.au – no action required
- Kathy Reid – apology for AGM and proxy vote authorisation – Joel has responded
- Email spoofing & SPF #2 – from George Moore. Two emails. First notifying us of a problem with our SPF and DMARC settings and the second asking about a bounty.
- Missing MTA-STS Record for Domain linux.org.au – Another email from George Moore. This one about MTA-STS records.
- List of Linux AU AGM attendees – from Wil Brown. List of online attendees of the AGM
- List of Linux AU AGM attendees
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77090059 (AU$6.14) – notification from RedBubble
- Re: Linux Australia Returning Officer 2026 – response from Joel to an email from our returning officer Julien Goodwin [discussion about website?]
- Welcome to the 2026 Linux Australia Council – from Joel to new and returning council members
- Invitation: Linux Aus Council Meeting @ Wed, Jan 28 2026 20:00 AEDT – invitation to council members to our meetings
- linux-aus subscription notification – new subscription to linux-ause from linuxaus.286jf@id.natlec.ch
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77092659 (AU$2.13) – notification from RedBubble
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77100114 (AU$6.23) – notification from RedBubble
- Re: Fwd: Re: LINUX AUSTRALIA INC – Everything Open 2026 conference sponsorship – FIN0271553 – Russell responds to a query from Arjen about ARBNs
- Fwd: .au Licensing Rules Review: join us in-person or online and have your say – from Sae Ra re auDA licensing rules
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77121219 (AU$1.91) – notification from RedBubble
- Social media – congrats to new Council 2026 post now live – notification from Kathy Reid – Joel has responded
- You’ve Made A Sale – 77131668 (AU$2.45) – notification from RedBubble
- PyCon AU 2026 Update for 26 January 2026 – from Jack Skinner
- Community & Educational request for Campfire Sydney, 200+ Teen Coders – from Joshua Yu
- Re: DrupalSouth Community Day 2025 – wrapping up accounts stuff – discussion between Russell and Julia Topliss
- Linux Australia Subcommittee Meetings 2026
- Joomla Subcommittee Report – from Nathan Morrow
- DS monthly report – January 2026 – from Julai Topliss
- The LUV drama – from Russell Coker [in Camera?]
3. Items for discussion
- KiwiPyCon 8:05pm
Minimal report. Just dealing with final finance details. PyNZ elections happening in a month.
- Drupal Subcommittee 8:10pm
Now focusing on Drupal South Wellington.
- Joomla Subcommittee 8:15pm
Subcommittee Name: Joomla Australia
Budget status (if applicable):
Budget for the November 2026 JoomlaDay in Melbourne currently being put together and will be shared at the next monthly meeting.
It will however be based very closely on the 2019 JoomlaDay run in Brisbane, which returned a small surplus.
Key achievements:
– New design completed and approved for Joomla Australia website
– New website currently under construction for launch in February with dedicated JoomlaDay Australia section.
– Membership system now live
Any concerns?
Not at this stage
How can LA assist?
Would certainly appreciate any suggestions around budget and assistance with socials advertising but will have a better idea once we’ve completed a draft budget
- Admin Team 8:20pm
The change freeze for the election is now over. One change had to be made during the change freeze. Will now start with some upgrades and rebuilds that were held over.
Council will need to talk to the admin team about the website.
- PyConAu 8:25pm
Recently:
-
- We held a team lunch + working bee in Sydney. Mostly planning CFP but extensive discussion about communications, volunteering, and driving community & culture at the conference too.
- We’ve had several large and returning sponsors enquire regarding 2026. At least one has indicated they only commit the quarter before – that means June for them.
- We’ve (finally) contracted + invoiced our first sponsor after negotiations, with a second contract pending signatures.
- Blind Bird tickets continue to sell regularly (especially thanks to promotion at EO last week). Expecting to sell out ahead of the 31 March deadline.
Some big upcoming milestones:
-
- CFP will launch 1 February and run through to 29 March, with new and returning formats.
- We’ve accepted up to 6 specialist tracks (up from regularly 3-4 tracks). Partly enabled due to venue and schedule flexibility. Tracks are tentative, subject to securing sufficient quality talk submissions and committing a second track organiser to each track. Tracks in 2026 will be:
- Cybersecurity
- Data & AI
- Developer Relations
- Education
- Platform Engineering
- Research Software Engineering
- We’re hosting talk writing workshops in Sydney, Brisbane and 2x online. Tentative interest from CBR, and we’re keen to run in PER + MEL. Ultimately we’re hoping for 7x 60min workshops in 7 weeks to actively promote and support to first time speakers and new audiences. Workshops will be open sourced ‘workshop in a box’ with a ‘train the trainer’ model based on Sae Ra Germaine’s initial work for EO’s previous CFPs.
- We’re in the midst of finalising plans to bring back our academic publishing pilot from 2024; with a light-er-weight process and outcome. We’re hoping this unlocks academics and researchers to submit, publish and then pay for tickets.
- Please expect approximately 8 weeks of impassioned “Hello council please promote our CFP early and often” =D
Discussion items proposed for Wednesdays council meeting:
-
- For Russell: We’ve been early-invoiced for our venue deposits in May, June and July. There’s a chance we’ll be able to pay from our own proceeds for some of these! We’d prefer to pay from our account regardless though and will request based on cashflow in the week/s ahead of 26 May.
- For Council: How are we best placed to liaise with LA communication for amplifying CFP? Direct to Kathy or via other means? While we intend to have always-on social, we’ll have a few choice priority posts we’d love amplified if we can coordinate.
- WordPress 8:30pm
WordPress Sydney continues online meetups in 2026, while looking for a physical venue.
WordPress Sunshine Coast continues to meetup in person in 2026.
All other meetups are paused while looking for new volunteer leaders.
There was minimal interest in the call for creating a WordCamp Brisbane 2026 org team. Unlikely to go ahead this year. May consider interest for 2027.
- Everything Open 8:35pm
The conference was run. It was successful.
The budget position seems to be good. There were around 275 attendees. The final budget report will be supplied at the next meeting.
- Flounder 8:35pm
No noteworthy change since the last report. Matrix rooms are going well and have lots of interesting discussions. In December we didn’t have interest in video meetings due to all the holiday stuff and we decided to wait until after EO2026 to try and arrange more, I have just started the discussion for that.
-
- LUV 8:35pm
Alexar: Townhalls in East Gippsland in February
Did an install fest after EO.
Aiming to do an in person meeting every quarter. With a topic and speaker.
Looking to cover Linux and Games and Linux and AI topics
Will hold a LUV BBQ on Saturday 31 January
4. Items for noting
- Community & Educational request for Campfire Sydney, 200+ Teen Coders – from Joshua Yu
Asking if Linux Australia would like to be involved in this event. We would need more information, particularly how they are open source related.
Can we find anyone to assist as volunteers at this event?
- We need to update the website and clean up our mailing lists
In particular the information about elections and the AGM is out of date
5. Other business
- Formal vote on the budget for the upcoming year
The budget should be uncontroversial, but the suggested face to face meeting is not currently included.
The face to face would probably cost around $1,000 per person.
There are definitely funds available to pay for a face to face, and they can be very productive. Someone will need to prepare a program.
Motion: That we accept the budget as presented at the AGM with the addition of $12,000 for an LA council face to face meeting.
Proposed by: Joel Addison
Seconded by: Elena Williams
Motion passed.
- Grants Program
Jonathan will announce the opening of the grants program on both the linux-aus and sponsorship mailing lists soon.
The first step is to draft the announcement.
This year’s grant program will close on 15 Nov 2026. The program will open as soon as we can agree on the announcement text.
- Should LA still be using X as a social media platform?
Motion: That Linux Australia suspends its X account and removes all references to it from our website and other documents.
Moved: Joel Addison
Seconded by: Everyone!
Motion passed unanimously
6. In camera
One item was discussed in camera
7. Action items
- secretary@linux.org.au Contact Joshua Yu to request more information on the Campfire Sydney event
7.1 Completed Items
7.2 Carried Forward
Meeting closed at 21:28
Next meeting is scheduled for 2026-02-11
