Each and every one of us working to produce this conference is doing it without any compensation, following a very open source approach, free as in speech, or beer, depending on the situation.

Why? We <3 open source.

As much as we love free as in speech, it takes money to put on a conference. We have many generous monetary and in-kind sponsors, who have helped make this conference a reality, but we’re always looking for more to help us pay for stuff like food, bandwidth and wireless access, audio-visual equipment rental, badges, conference programs, and other operational details.

If you work at a company that you think should be sponsoring, please forward our sponsorship prospectus to the right people at your office. We’d really appreciate the support.

This is Portland, however, and we know as well as anyone that not everybody works for a big company.

Sponsors come in all sizes, and we welcome any level of support either through PayPal or through TipJoy, which allows you to tweet your support for Open Source Bridge proudly for all your followers to see. Oh, and if it spreads virally, we’re fine with that too.

Interested? Head over to our individual contributions page for details, or click the purple box on the home page.

Of course, we want you all to attend, tell your friends you’re coming and shout it from the rooftops, or at least over Twitter. To that end, we have blog badges, and a Zazzle store with t-shirts, bumper stickers and the all-important coffee mug.

When you register to attend, why not put some bling on your badge and ante up for a Gold Star? Nothing says I’m a rockstar supporter of open source like a gold star. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Finally, we still need volunteers to do operational planning and day-of stuff. Check out this post if you want specifics and if you’re interested, fill out our volunteer form, including any jobs you’d like to do.

Hope to see you all in June.

Photo courtesy of Aaron Hockley on Flickr used with permission, all rights reserved.