Open Source Bridge is accepting proposals for our June 2012 event in Portland, Oregon. Open Source Bridge is a volunteer-run conference for those working with open source technologies. It will take place June 26–29, 2012 in downtown Portland with five tracks connecting people across projects, languages, and experience to explore how we do our work and why we participate in open source. We will be accepting proposals through March 30, 2012. Speaking at Open Source Bridge is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and enthusiasm.
What are we interested in?
In order to create a conference that promotes cross-pollination as well as providing space for detailed discussion, we’ve split the tracks into the following five areas:
Cooking
How do you write the script, configure the utility, debug the code, make it work? What are your best recipes?
From the beginner to the advanced level, we’re looking for tips, tutorials, best practices, and collaborative development sessions. Share what you know about your favorite tools, programming languages, and development techniques. Example topics from the past include “Data Science in the Open” and “Hands-on Virtualization with Ganeti.”
Chemistry
What makes this work? Take the technology apart and teach us about its components.
Explore how our technology works on the lowest levels, and what that can teach us about optimal use. Tell us your analysis and profiling techniques, how implementation affects function, and what a kernel is made of. Example topics from the past include “OSWALD: Lessons from and for the Open Hardware Movement” and “Doing NoSQL with SQL.”
Business
How do you build a successful open source business?
Share what you know about building and growing a business in the f/oss world. From choosing a software license, to open source-friendly business plans, to making the sales pitch and connecting with customers, open source businesses have their own sets of concerns. Example topics from the past include “Learn Tech Management in 45 Minutes” and “The Independent Software Developer.”
Culture
What makes open source work? What else does the open source ethic lead us to do?
Open source ideas affect things beyond our software, from group organization to creative projects to how we share knowledge. Organizations from the personal to the governmental are influenced by this movement. Even inside open source, we wonder what it can teach us about our groups’ structures, and inclusiveness versus exclusivity. Tell us how open source can inform the entire world. Example topics from the past include “‘Why did you do that?’ You’re more automated than you think” and “Seven Habits Of Highly Obnoxious Trolls.”
Hacks
How did you pull that off?
Hacks are clever. They break the rules. They force the available material into doing what you need or want. Some hacks are illegal, and some just make you proud and/or embarrassed that it worked. Sometimes a hack is the only way. Show the world how you make your hardware and software obey your every whim. Example topics from the past include “Control Emacs with Your Beard: the All-Singing All-Dancing Intro to Hacking the Kinect” and “Location-Based Hacks – How to Automate Your Life with SMS and GPS.”
Presentation formats
Presentations can fit either a short- or long-form slot. Short-form presentations will receive a 45 minute session, and long-form will have 1 hour and 45 minutes. Pick the format that best fits the scope and style of your presentation. Short-form could be a set of lightning talks, a one-or-more person presentation, a panel, or something else covering specific, concise material.
Tagging
We also encourage you to tag your proposal with any relevant subject tags. This will make it easier for people interested in certain subjects to find your presentation.
Open Submission Viewing
In order to encourage open discussion during the submissions period, all proposals will be publicly viewable on the site. We’ve included a comment field you can use to send a private note to the presenters with your thoughts. All proposals also have a unique identifier (like a course number) you can use to tag your blog posts or other online content with discussion and related materials. Later we’ll use this ID to connect the conference sessions with content from around the web.
Speaker Compensation
Open Source Bridge wants to encourage speakers and we will happily waive your registration fee if your proposal is selected. If not, we’ll give you a special discount code so you can get a ticket for $200 — that’s $25 off the early-bird rate.
While we would love to cover speaker travel costs, we simply cannot afford to do so. As an all-volunteer run event where sponsorships and registration just cover the basic expenses of the event, we ask speakers to bear the expense of travel to help keep the event affordable to as many open source citizens as possible.
What we can do is help you make your trip to Portland as economical as possible. Keep checking our blog and attendee wiki for information on lodging, home-stays and room-shares. We are also working on securing lodging discounts and other incentives to help you keep costs down.
About the conference
Open Source Bridge is a four-day open source developers conference, dedicated to bringing a variety of open source citizens together for learning and mentoring. Through the event — and the activities that precede and follow it — we intend to build a broader and more cohesive open source community, continue to champion the open source culture, strengthen our local open source connections, and continue to showcase Portland, Oregon as the de facto hub of open source culture.
Overview
Our primary objective will be to explore what it means to be a engaged open source citizen.
Our conference structure is language-agnostic by design, in hopes of facilitating broader community growth by focusing on open source development as a discipline. In so doing, the conference will encourage and foster cross-pollination and widespread knowledge sharing, regardless of each developer’s chosen area(s) of expertise.
We will also be providing opportunities to connect open source with local business, education, and community service projects. The conference proceedings will be recorded to share with all Open Source developers, attending or not.
Introducing Open Source Bridge, the only conference designed to strengthen the bonds of the open source community by focusing on the culture of open source.
