Jan V Smith has been working on open source software since 2001. She is based in Melbourne, Australia. Jan is Vice President of Computerbank Victoria. Computerbank takes donated computers and refurbishes them with Ubuntu and open source software and then distributes them to people on low incomes. She has reviewed several open source Python-based text books.

Dave Fregon has been working with Zope since 1999, and open source concepts since 1996, and 'most all of his general work is in this area, recently adding Django to his growing repertoir. Dave has contributed to projects such as the engagemedia.org and axxs.org community hosting services, among many other web-enabling community efforts outside of his commercial work. It keeps him busy when he is not out exploring the bush and rivers of Australia with his dog, Shade.

An active member of the Australian Zope community OzZope, Dave co-wrote a chapter on Zope security with another member Jan Smith, for the book "Zope—Content Management Systems and Beyond" edited by Stephan Richter, released in German.

After working many years as contractor, he joined with others in regional Australia to form a workers collective, NetAxxs.com.au, which provides Python-friendly web hosting and development in Open Source technologies, as well as free servers for community and activist-based hosting.

Patrick Chan has recently survived a bachelor of computer engineering with honors.

He is now an analyst programmer with Australia Post and also volunteers at Computer Bank. Along with Jan Smith, he is working on ComputerbankDB, a Django project that would replace the current inventory system for Computer Bank.

Patrick finds that unlike many other languages (names withheld to protect the guilty), you don't tend to have to pull your hair out if you are programming in Python. In fact, you have to be careful because you might actually find it fun and enjoyable.