The SCALE team proudly sponsored 2 events for in Software Freedom Day this year:

First Stu and Gareth went on air with KPFK’s Digital Village to chat about open-source, free software, and Software Freedom Day. You can find recordings online: part 1 and part 2.

Then on Saturday, we sponsored a SCLUG event at the Simi Valley Library. About 40 people wandered in to check out demos of free / open-source software, and learn about alternatives to the proprietary software they currently use. Some brought in systems for Linux installations; while others took home Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or OSS Win CDs. All in all we are happy with the results, and think it was a success.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time this weekend! We look forward to taking part in SFD 2008.

On another note we’ll be closing out the weekend with another SCALE IRC chat at 7pm on Sunday. Please join us on #scale-chat on irc.oftc.net

SCALE will again be at the Westin LAX hotel. SCALE has reserved more of the hotel resources for SCALE 6X which will help address some of the seminar crowding issues that arose during S5X (success is a nice problem to have).

Over the last two SCALEs, the Expo has expanded to included specialized conferences on the Friday prior to SCALE. The Expo will “expand upon the expansion” for SCALE 6x:

• The Women in Open Source conference will return for its second year;
• The health care conference, now known as DOHCS - Demonstrating Open Source Health Care Systems, returns for a second time. Last year DOHCS was a single track. For SCALE 6X, DOHCS splits into two tracks, a technical track and a business track.
• And newly added for SCALE 6X is a Friday conference on education, “Open Source in Education” which focuses on opportunities for Open Source in the field of education .

If you have any experience in any of the above-mentioned areas, please consider sharing it with the Open Source community at SCALE: the calls for papers for SCALE and for the Friday conferences can be found here: http://socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/conference-info/calls-for-papers/

All of the calls are now open for submittals. For SCALE 4X and 5X the speaker slots filled rapidly; we anticipate the same for SCALE 6X. So if you’re considering speaking, don’t delay submitting your proposal. Submittal info for each conference can be found on their respective CFP pages.

If your organization or company is considering a booth on the SCALE Expo floor, be advised that we no more booths than last year, and last year they went quickly. If you want to ensure that you have a booth reserved, apply for one NOW. If you’re a commercial entity, apply at: sponsorship@socallinuxexpo.org . If you’re a non-profit, complete the applicaton form at http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/documents/scale6x_dotORG_application.pdf and send it to gareth@socallinuxexpo.org

The second SCALE IRC chat will be September 16th, at 7:00 pm PST. It will be held in the #scale-chat channel of OFTC (irc.oftc.net). If you have questions or comments about SCALE, feel free to join us.

SCALE 6X looks to be even better than S5X; mark your calendar - be in Los Angeles February 8th-10th, 2008!

As you may have noticed we recently announced the Second Annual “Demonstrating Open Source Health Care Solutions” (DOHCS) conference, which will be held at SCALE 6x on February 8, 2008. DOHCS (pronounced “docs”) was chosen as the new name for the Open Source Health Care Summit, as we felt it we needed a name that:

1. Demonstrated the growing maturity around open source health care solutions.
2. Could be easily (how do you pronounce OSHCS?)
3. Had an acronym that clearly identified with healthcare.

We felt the new name met all of these requirements.

At the same time we are proud to announce that the event will be expanding to offer two tracks. The first track is geared towards implementation specifics and technical topics, while the second track will cover business reasons for using open source. This has generated a lot of excitement here at SCALE, as we will now be able to cater to both owners/doctors/business managers at healthcare institutions, as well as provide Health industry IT staff the technical they knowledge they need in order to succeed with open-source solutions.

We look forward to seeing you at this years DOHCS conference!