CFP

Southern California Linux Expo 2023 (SCALE 20x)

We are proud to announce the 20th Annual Southern California Linux Expo – SCALE 20X – to be held on March 9-12, 2023 at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California, near Los Angeles.

We invite you to share your work on FOSS programs and open hardware projects with the rest of the community, as well as exchange ideas with some leading experts in these fields. Details about previous presentations and activities at SCALE can be found at http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/19x

SCALE 20X is seeking talk proposals for these tracks:

Aerospace

Share practical experiences in use of open source in open source tools, practices, or development in the aerospace industry.

Cloud Native

Everything about the new cloud stacks encompassing containers, orchestration, protocols, tools, techniques, and security. Technologies include Kubernetes, Docker, OpenStack, Istio, gRPC, Nomad, Etcd, cgroups, Prometheus, Tekton, Kubevirt, WASM, serverless, containerized desktops, and many others.  The Cloud Native track runs Saturday and Sunday at SCALE; for Thursday/Friday, see the Kubernetes Community Day.

Developer

A broad range of topics related to application development.

Embedded

Topics related to Open Source Embedded hardware & software. Possible topic areas include but are not limited to: IoT, Drones, Connectivity, Sensors, Automotive, Networking equipment, FPGAs etc.

General

A wide range of topics related to Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) and open hardware. 

Home Automation / Prosumer / IoT

This track focuses on the use of open source technologies outside of a professional context. Put another way, this track seeks to discover how professional technology consumers use their skills in their leisure time. Talks in this track should focus on projects involving hardware and software that are used at home or as part of a hobby.  Examples might include automation of home theater or security systems, bespoke parental controls, racing cars or drones, 3D printers and more.

Kernel / Low Level Systems

Development in the kernel and related areas. Talks should cover the kernel in some way and can include, but is not limited to: developer experience, new features, improvements, building blocks for userspace, etc.

Observability

Practitioner lead sessions on how observability capabilities have helped transform your engineering team, organization or customer experiences. While open source tooling focused sessions are of interest, we are more focused on how observability implementations, concepts and frameworks have improved your organization and culture. Tooling sessions should focus on open source approaches.  

Open Data

This track will focus on the use of Open Data, data sets that are freely, readily, and easily available to the public. Talks in this track will seek to answer such questions as: What can be done with Open Data? What are the societal implications of Open Data? What are some interesting questions that can be answered through the use of Open Data in science, government, education, or other fields? What are some specific techniques to manipulate these data sets?

Open Government

This track will focus on open source projects that provide more transparency in governmental functions. Talks in this track can be made by either those who work in government or by private citizens performing their own analyses on publicly available datasets.

Open Medical

This track will focus on the presentation of open source medical devices or innovations. Talks in this track should focus on how the innovation can be crafted, as well as on the ethical delivery of the innovation to populations in need while maintaining high quality standards.

Security

Covering all topics in the realm of open source security. These include security research, innovative security designs, cool tools, topical issues, "How to's", cost effective open source security solutions and everything in between.

Systems and Infrastructure

This track focuses on management and configuration techniques for systems and infrastructure at scale. Talks in this track may discuss useful tools and techniques, share stories and experiences, or educate the audience on trends emerging in open source operating systems and networking technologies.

HAM Radio and Linux

Sessions focused on Linux-based applications for amateur radio.

Co-Located Events

SCALE20X will also include several Co-Located Events for which you can also submit proposals. These events have a separate selection process.

DevOpsDayLA

A track focused on collaboration across organizational silos such as Dev and Ops.

Kubernetes Community Day

Thursday and Friday will include Kubernetes Community Day LA.  Co-presented with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, this two-day event includes workshops, sessions, and deep dives around Cloud Natve technologies – anything and everything related to Kubernetes and containers.  Whether you are an app developer, DevOps practitioner, container hacker, or infrastructure owner, this track is for you!

MySQL

Sessions focused on scaling, tuning, operating and devloping for MySQL and it's ecosystem of forks and derivatives.

Next Generation (SCaLE Kids)

Next Generation gives the Free and Open Source community youth leaders of tomorrow and users of today the opportunity to spotlight their talents and ideas. This track is open to potential speakers who want to educate and encourage the next generation youth on open source projects they can get involved in today. With hands-on activities and talks, there is something for every attendee. 

Open Source Career Day

Career development talks and workshops. Looking for content on leveraging Open Source contributions for employment, elements of a strong Open Source resume, breaking into IT, re-careering from other fields, overcoming interviewing and negotiating challenges, and best practices for hiring and leading engineering teams.

PgDay@SCaLE (PostgreSQL)

PgDay@SCaLE, the PostgreSQL track, will include PostgreSQL-related topics for all levels of experience: quick tutorials, overviews of new features, discussions of the mysteries of PostgreSQL internals - if you're using PostgreSQL, we want to hear about it! We're especially fond of how-tos and case studies. Be sure to tag your submission 'Postgres' if you'd like your talk considered for this track.

UpSCaLE (lightning talks)

UpSCALE is a set of lightning talks held at SCaLE, in the style of Ignite presentations. Speakers will get 5 minutes to enlighten the audience. Slides will auto-advance while chosen speakers deliver their message, a brief story of open source deliciousness.

Workshops

We expect to host several 2-4 hour hands on sessions that provide attendees with practical experience implementing and using open technologies. If you have an idea for a workshop you’d like to host feel free to submit it as a proposal.

How to Submit a Proposal

If you are a registered speaker from a previous SCALE event, you can re-use your account from the previous SCALE submission and you don’t need to sign up for a new account (and you can skip the next two paragraphs).

  • For first-time submitters, visit the link and create an account or login to your existing account to register the speaker by entering various details in the form such as name, affiliation, bio, email address of the speaker. Please ensure that the personal biography is not more than 1000 characters; focus on relevant experience to your proposal topic and write from the third-person perspective. Note that the contact email-address is the one that will be used to confirm the account creation and speaker registration.

  • Once registration is complete, an email will be automatically sent to the email address to set the password for subsequent access.

  • To submit a talk, please go to the link labeled Submit a presentation: Enter the title for the talk, the intended audience and the proposed track for this talk. Then provide a brief description of the main points to be presented. Provide additional details in the space provided. Also, include the names of all speakers that will present this session. Each speaker must be registered with the system before they can be entered in the ”speaker” field.

  • Once the talk has been submitted, further edits to the submission can be made, if necessary, up to the CFP closing date by logging into the account with the credentials provided during registration. Be sure to include an email for the primary contact for the presentation. Important information will be sent to that address.

  • For submitting multiple talks for the same speaker, the step above may be repeated; note that you don’t need to register the speaker again.

  • Please notify us if the presentation will require a special technical set-up. The setup provided will include:

  1. microphone

  2. overhead projector

  3. a laptop running Linux with a postscript viewer as well as LibreOffice (You may use your own laptop if you prefer.)

Presentations will be allotted a time slot of about 45 minutes (except workshops and upSCaLE talks). Please ensure that presentations are done in open non-proprietary format. In case you run into any problems during the submission process, for help, please email info@socallinuxexpo.org. Proposal abstracts are reviewed by an expert committee and evaluated solely on merit. Given the number of high quality submissions received every year, we request that submission dates be strictly honored in order to provide the committee enough time to choose the best set of proposals. 

Important Dates

  • 18 Sep, 2022: CFP Opens

  • 2 Dec, 2022: Deadline for abstracts/proposals submissions

  • 9 Mar, 2023: Conference starts