The So Cal Linux Expo has filled all available speaker slots for not only the SCALE 6X main conference, but also all three Friday specialty conferences. Over the Friday and Saturday of SCALE there are 36 speaker slots. The SCALE committee received over 75 submittals for the main conference, which were gradually weeded down to those that the committee felt most matched SCALE’s goals. Information on the selected session topics is available on the SCALE website: http://www.socallinuxexpo.org

The Friday sessions on healthcare, education, and women in Open Source also received more than enough submittals to fill all four speaker tracks (healthcare has expanded to two tracks this year, technical and business). Those tracks will be published soon.

This year SCALE has added two keynote sessions, one Saturday and one Sunday. The selection of the keynote speakers is underway.

There are only about a half-dozen booths left on the show floor. If your organization is contemplating attending, don’t wait any longer to request floor space at SCALE6X. If you’re a commercial entity, apply at: sponsorship@socallinuxexpo.org. If you’re a non-profit, apply to g@socallinuxexpo.org

There are evening slots available for ad hoc BOF meetings (Birds Of a Feather). If your group would like to meet at SCALE, contact g@socallinuxexpo.org with the following info: Contact Name, Group hosting the BoF, and the subject/topic for the BoF, to reserve a room.

Registration for SCALE 6X is open. Register now at http://socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/registration/ for SCALE in Los Angeles February 8th-10th, 2008!

As part of the group that puts on the SoCal Linux Expo every year, it’s been fun to watch it grow; it’s become more well-known, which draws more people and more publicity, which makes it more well-known, which.. well you know - the so-called vicious circle. Or perhaps more like the popular phrase (at least in Open Source software circles) “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

For the early Expos when we weren’t well known, it was a strain getting people to submit proposals for talks. At SCALE 1x, which was one day with two speaker tracks, we had 11 speakers and one speaker panel, and it was tough filling those twelve time slots.

Contrast that with SCALE 6x, which will be held next February. It is now a two-day event, with 4 speaker tracks, each with 5 time slots. We have a total of 36 speaker slots, plus two keynote speeches. In spite of having expanded our speaker requirements by seven times, the SCALE Chairs have spent the last two nights evaluating over 75 proposals that were submitted for those slots! And we’re not done evaluating them yet! It’ll probably take another IRC session to get through all of them.

Most were very high quality. A few were rejected for being too commercial (a classic SCALE no-no); a few were rejected because they didn’t seem to fit with our mission.

So - Open Source Software is more popular now, regional Open Source shows are more popular, and SCALE’s gotten a reputation for being a quality show. It’s very rewarding.

Every year, Gareth and I go on the Digital Village show on KPFK to talk about Open Source software (and to pimp SCALE). We’ve even gotten one of the hosts to start playing with Ubuntu. We’ve set the date for this year’s show: January 26th.

Ilan and I are supposed to be on a session of LUGRadio, but they have yet to set a date. As soon as they do, I’ll post it here and on the scale-announce mailing list. They’re a wacko bunch of Limeys. I enjoy listening to their podcasts immensely.

- Orv -

SCALE Publicity Chair