Australian Open Source Winners Announced

ilovestuff writes "The winners of the annual Australian Unix and Open Systems User Group's open source awards were announced in Sydney last night. Winners included Andrew Tridgell, Rusty Russell, Kimberley Shelt and Martin Pool."

Kudos to OSUG! And Congratulations to Martin!!!

[Mr. Darl McBride]

Yes, that [c2.com] Martin Pool! What isn't mentioned in the article or the writeup is what a sea change this occasion represents. Martin's been passed up for awards and work both, largely because of his outspokenness about alternate lifestyles. If you think things are tough in the US, you can't imagine what life's like in Australia, where there's no such thing as a "hate crime" or enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. For the OSUG award committee to recognize Martin's vast accomplishments is a risk to future funding for the awards, and a potential press nightmare. Let's hope that global recognition and endorsement of the awards offsets any difficulties resulting from this positive step for Australia.

You can do your part by writing the OSUG award committee through the club secretary and, in your own words, letting them know you approve of all of the nominees. Kimberly is a new surprise as well, but Martin was entirely unexpected. I'm writing to the award committee myself, as well as to Martin Pool and his now far-away life partner, Robert Crawford, now VP of Software Development at the Bridge Agency [bridgeagency.com].

Re:Kudos to OSUG! And Congratulations to Martin!!!

[Mr. Darl McBride]

I mostly agree with you. I think that the hate crime category is mostly a tool to raise the awareness of the problem, and it has a lot of value there. I'm not sure I've heard of anyone actually being prosecuted more harshly for the crime falling in the hate crime category, but it's good that it's at least brought into the court discussion at a time where the perpetrator is receptive to discussions about his future.

Still, I wish I could leverage this to turn that $3 billion into $5 billion. Do you think IBM

Re:Kudos to OSUG! And Congratulations to Martin!!!

[Magic Thread]

there's no such thing as a "hate crime" or enforcement of anti-discrimination laws

Uh, aren't those two things mutually exclusive? Calling some crimes "hate crimes" == discrimination.