June 24th will see the NZOSS elect a new President. The AGM will be held
across the country with venues in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
connected by Internet Conference. Vik Olliver and Don Christie will be
running for President. Both candidates are very well respected in the
open source community.
The new President will be challenged by several projects such as ongoing
patent opposition against Microsoft's XML Word Processing patent,
lobbying against DRM restrictions in law, supporting open source in
education and promoting open source events.
Don Christie:
Don is a founder and director Catalyst IT Limited, a New
Zealand based software development company. Catalyst specialise in
providing open source software solutions to the education sector,
corporates and government agencies in New Zealand and round the world.
He has lived and worked in three continents. He has specific interest
in technology that empowers and enables grass roots organisations and
business to extend their potential. He is also a member of the NZ
Institute of International Affairs.
Don says that "I would not be putting myself forward for this role if I
were not convinced that the NZOSS has already achieved a great deal and
has an important role to play in the future. FOSS is much more than a
philosophy, it runs the heart of communications and IT round the world.
It is used by start-ups round the world who attract billions of dollars
of investment every year. It is core to the livelihood of hundreds of
thousands of developers and companies that employ them. The philosophy
of FOSS has now extended to many walks of life, from publishing to
architecture through the use of Creative Commons type licences. This is
in many sense purely an issue of history repeating itself as we once
again discover the value of community over the individual."
He is keen to start attracting businesses to become members of the NZOSS
and expand its reach beyond the current membership base. He believes
that many businesses do not realise just how much they need to protect
the systems they have built or run from predatory attacks. He is keen to
carry that message through to this audience. He comments that "I see no
reason why most of the IT businesses in New Zealand would not have an
affiliation with the NZOSS at one level or another."
Vik Olliver:
Vik Olliver is a software developer from Waitakere. Born in the UK, he
emigrated to NZ in 1994 with his wife Suz and daughters Kate & Tamara.
He has worked on projects ranging from implantable heart monitors to
launching satellites, and from urban self-sufficiency to hydroponics in
moonrock. He has also done enough journalism to get the shakes if he
doesn't write articles occasionally.
Vik is a staunch supporter of Open Source, Open Standards and an Open
society. He has persuaded companies and retailers to pick up the Open
Source banner, represented New Zealand as a regional delegate at
LinuxConf Australia, and took part in the reviewing of OSS guidelines
for the NZ government. He looks forward to embracing the innovation that
Open Source is bringing to us at an ever accelerating rate.
