Conrad Parker

Open Source involvement

I have continuously participated in Open Source communities since 1999, in particular with community groups in Australia. Open Source communities are generally meritocracies, so I have always kept a technical focus to my involvement.

Summary

I have been involved with the following open source communities: linux.conf.au, SLUG, AUUG, W3, WHATWG, IETF, Annodex, Xiph.Org, linux-audio-dev, Haskell, Java.

I have presented at the following Open Source technical conferences:

as well as many local User Group meetings (SLUG, Debsig, slugamusig etc.).

Technical

This section outlines the larger projects I have been involved in. I have also worked on many smaller projects, and regularly presented these at User Group meetings (SLUG, Debsig, slugamusig etc.).

Linux, Systems

I presented the work of my engineering thesis on Linux kernel virtualisation ("Linux on the L4 Microkernel") at the Conference for Australian Linux Users, CALU 1999, the first Australian conference to focus on Linux.

Multimedia

Later in 1999 I started writing a sound editor called Sweep, which I first presented at Linux World New York and OSDEM (Brussels) 2001. In 2002 I did some contract work for Pixar Animation Studios, adding features to Sweep that are useful in animation production. I presented that and subsequent Sweep work at various conferences including linux.conf.au 2003 (Perth), LinuxTag 2003 (Karlsruhe, Germany) and UKUUG 2003 (Edinburgh).

Video Search

In 2001, with Dr. Silvia Pfeiffer at CSIRO, I started work on a set of open specifications and open source software for hyperlinked video and audio on the Internet, called Annodex. As well as publishing open source code and research papers, that project involved liasing with open standards bodies IETF and W3C, including a presentation to the IETF AVT working group at IETF 59 (Seoul, 2004). I presented the open source component of that work in an Open Source track at ACM Multimedia 2005 (New York). Since 2005 I have served as the vice-president of the Annodex Association, which oversees the development and promotes the adoption of Annodex. It works closely with groups of similar interest including Xiph.Org (on Ogg Vorbis audio and Ogg Theora video codecs), W3C/WHAT-WG (on specification of the HTML5

Networked Application Development

In 1995 I developed a web-based tipping competition for the Australian Rugby League, the most popular league in Australia. This was used in subsequent years, and also re-sold to individual clubs.

Later in 1995-1996 I worked for Fujitsu Australia Limited on internet commerce systems. These were early web-based publishing and result-tracking systems for the professional sports industry, for which I designed and implemented secure data distribution services.

As part of my Annodex work, I have developed Apache modules, IRC annotation bots, and various web applications for video hosting and search. These include Annodex Validator, a service for validating Annodex media files, and CMMLWiki, a video content-management and video blogging system which supports OpenSearch.

Java

In 1996 I wrote a Java applet demo of Boids, an artificial life simulation. Boids. It was quite popular and was used in theater and art festivals in the USA and Brazil, as well as by a few university lecturers around the world. My discussion of that code was used as the basis for a chapter of the O'Reilly book "Killer Game Programming in Java", published in May 2005.

Haskell

My current technical interest is in the Haskell programming language. My open source contributions include HOgg, an Ogg bitstream library, and various contributions to XML and Web libraries. I regularly particpate in #haskell on IRC and on the Haskell wiki.

Community

Between 1996 and 1999 I maintained web sites about Linux PR and Linux banners.

While studying at UNSW I was elected president of the computing society, and organised many "Linux parties" -- all night coding sessions. Quite nerdy.

I was elected president of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG) in 1999-2001. We organized regular Linux installfests and topical workshops.

I led the team for linux.conf.au, held in Sydney in January 2001. I liased with the speakers for that conference, many of whom I have kept in touch with ever since. I MC'd the dinner of around 300 people, introduced speakers and auctioned a tshirt signed by them with proceeds to the Free Software Foundation.

I was elected to the board of the Australian Unix Users Group (AUUG) in 2001-2002. My role on the AUUG board was specifically to liase with the Open Source community.

In 2004 I was part of a small team that met with a delegation from the Chinese government to discuss the open source industry in Australia. A report about that is here.

I organized miniconferences on the topic of Linux Audio and Digital Arts at each annual linux.conf.au between 2004 and 2006. In 2007 we subsumed these into Foundations of Open Media Software (FOMS), a developer focused multimedia workshop preceding linux.conf.au. I have served on the organising committee for FOMS 2007 and 2008.

I spoke at Software Freedom Day in Sydney in 2006 about "Freedom of Automation".

I have served on the paper review committee for linux.conf.au 2007 and 2008.