There are two OxLUG events on Monday 19th January (this coming Monday), plus the opportunity to go for a meal with our speaker from Novell:

****************************************** * Thawte web of trust notarization event * * 8pm * * Lamb and Flag * ******************************************

For those who haven't seen it, the Thawte web of trust is an attempt to set up a vaguely PGP-like web of trust, but for S/MIME certificates. It is run by Thawte, but the advantage is that S/MIME is compatible with Outlook, Netscape and Mozilla. They can also be used with recent versions of mutt. More details at:

http://www.thawte.com/html/COMMUNITY/personal/index.html (general overview) http://www.thawte.com/html/COMMUNITY/wot/index.html (web of trust scheme)

There will be several Thawte notaries in attendance, and paperwork will be done there. Therefore you'll need a Thawte account beforehand; get one by going to:

https://www.thawte.com/cgi/enroll/personal/step1.exe

To get notarised, you will need two forms of ID. At least one needs a photo, and at least one needs to carry the 'national identity number' that you gave Thawte when you signed up. You will also need a photocopy of these, one for each notary to keep. This makes for a minimum of 3, but I would strongly recommend more as notarising (and being notarised) by others will boost the number of 'trust points' you are allocated, and can allocate to others.

It is expected that the business can be over in time for those who wish to attend the 8.30 talk, but equally notarization will continue past that point for a short while if you can't make it for 8pm.

******************************************************************** * Matt Asay, Novell * * 8.30pm (note change of time compared to previous announcements) * * Comlab (and afterwards in the Lamb and Flag) * ********************************************************************

Director of Novell's Linux Business Office and Open Source Review Board, Matt is responsible for laying the strategic foundation for Novell's use of open source software.

"I would like to talk a bit about open source, generally, how Novell sees itself fitting into that community, and then turn the time over to the LUG to hammer me with questions."

If you would like to go for a meal with Matt beforehand at about 6.30pm, please email info@oxlug.org in advance. The venue for the meal has not yet been decided.

Locations:

Comlab: http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/about/directions.html (entrance from the door by the car park) Lamb and Flag: http://www.ox.compsoc.net/oxfordguide/?Lamb_And_Flag

Future events:

************************************************************** Sunday 1st February 2004 - Dick Morrell A talk on Linux Device Creation and also consolidation of Linux vendors and the muddled path ahead.

************************************************************** High Availability & Reliability - UKUUG Winter Conference 2004 Weds 25-Thurs 26 Feb 2004 in Bournemouth

A very strong programme this year, featuring a half-day tutorial and 16 speakers (including 6 experts from overseas).

Lars Marowsky-Bree (SUSE Labs, Germany) Alan Robertson (IBM Linux Technology Centre, USA)

Matt Asay (Novell, USA); David Axmark (MySQL, Sweden); Mark Baker & Matthew Grove - Grid Monitoring; Matthew Bloch - User Mode Linux; Peter Breuer (Madrid) - NetRAID; Tim Chown - IPv6; Julian Field - MailScanner; Tony Finch (Cambridge); Niall Mansfield - Combatting Sobig worms; Stephen Mayo (HP); Richard Moore (IBM); Philipp Reisner - DRBD; Steve Whitehouse - Cluster Filesystems

For full details, see: http://www.ukuug.org/events/winter2004/

************************************************************** FOSDEM: Sat 21 - Sun 22 Feb, Brussels.

Featuring Tim O'Reilly, Hans Reiser, Jonathan Corbet, Jon 'Maddog' Hall. Watch the programme unfold at http://www.fosdem.org/ Free (donation requested). Always great fun.

Mailing list for co-ordinating travel & accommodation options from the UK: http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/fosdem **************************************************************