Results of Australia’s first large-scale Open Source community census have been released to the public. Produced by Open Source consulting firm Waugh Partners, the Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report gives voice to the business potentials, patterns and concerns of a previously mute sector of the IT industry.

Canonical is preparing an Ubuntu Server blitz at LinuxWorld Expo in August. Alfresco, IBM, Openbravo, Zimbra and others are expected to rally around Ubuntu Server at the conference, The VAR Guy learned during meetings at OSCON. Here’s the scoop, and the implications for Ubuntu partners.

A veteran of Australia's open source industry says that unless government agencies make a fundamental decision to change technologies and then plan their move, the status quo will remain.

In a recent post I wrote called "Linux has no marketing, but what if it did?" I made the point that with Microsoft's Windows 7 OS coming out on October 22nd, there will be a blitz of marketing around it, and noted that there never is any such blitz promoting Linux.

The Open Source Industry of Australia (OSIA) has formally contacted Standards Australia, requesting that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format not be endorsed by the body as an ISO standard.

Pia Waugh is a leading advocate for FLOSS in her home country, Australia, and all over the world. In addition to running a consultancy in partnership with her husband, she is the vice president of Linux Australia, the president of Software Freedom International (sponsor of the annual Software Freedom Day events), and on the board of directors of the OLPC Australia program.

If politicians' attitudes towards Open Source software affects the way you'll vote in tomorrow's Federal election, you may be interested in the results of a survey of the major parties carried out by Open Source Industry Australia.

Back at the Linux Foundation Austin Summit, VIA had announced plans to develop a new open-source initiative in a similar fashion what AMD has been doing. However, in the weeks following that they haven't done much for the open-source community.

Microsoft's Vista is out and Apple's Leopard is poised, but as far as Linux goes, well, hey, it's open source. That means there aren't millions of dollars in the piggy bank for a catchy media blitz. Quite frankly, if its last major revision was in 2003, why would there be? Linux has gotten so efficient that major releases have been repeatedly postponed because of lack of need.