The SCaLE 24x Call for Presentations is open through November 1, 2026. If you have submitted to SCaLE before, a few things have changed this year. Here is what is different and why.
A simpler, earlier timeline
We opened the CFP two months earlier than last year and collapsed the two-stage deadline into one.
- 1 August 2026 - CFP opens
- 1 November 2026 - Submission deadline
- 1 December 2026 - Acceptance notifications begin
- 1 April 2027 - Conference starts
Last year we ran an early deadline in November and a final deadline in December. In practice, the two-stage approach mostly created confusion about which one actually mattered. This year there is one date: 1 November.
This deadline is critical to allow time for thoughtful reviews and still get acceptance notices out by 1 December so folks have time to confirm travel and budget before the holidays and new year hit.
Everyone who submits gets an answer, including a clear no, although rejections often come later than acceptances. We do not leave proposals hanging.
Topic changes
Developers, Platform Engineering & DevEx replaces the old Developer track with a wider, more modern focus. It now runs from language internals up through the platforms developers work on top of.
Linux Gaming is all new for 2027. We’ve had some great gaming content in years past in other tracks so we’re looking to take it to the next level with dedicated time and space.
Observability has been a core part of running systems leading to increasing overlap between the Observability track and several others. We’re still looking for great proposals on observability topics! We expect many observability-related proposals will be absorbed in Systems and Infrastructure or Cloud Native Days, but please select the topic area that will find the most interested audience.
Open Source AI continues to be a fast moving target. Proposals simply using AI to accomplish a goal should be directed to the topic most relevant to that goal. Still, we expect a large enough volume of submissions on AI models/ecosystems/tooling that submissions will likely be sorted into subtopics such as LLM internals, agentics, AI productivity, and physical or embedded AI when we build the final schedule. Submit to the main Open Source AI topic and we will handle the sorting.
Embedded Linux does not return as a standalone track this year. Embedded work still has a home: hardware and device-level projects fit Applied Science or FOSS@Home, and embedded AI belongs under Open Source AI.
Workshops can now run all day if the topic warrants it, alongside the usual 2-4 hour morning and afternoon sessions. One new requirement: prefix your title with Workshop: so it is unambiguous during review.
Co-located event news
Libre Graphics Day has been a special workshop series in past years. This year it is in the CFP as well. You can expect more great talks and hands-on workshops on open source creative tools for digital art, photography, graphic design, animation, and game making. Maybe you participated in the past and it’s time to share your own Libre Graphics story with the community?
MySQL@SCaLE becomes MySQL & Friends: Distributed Databases@SCaLE. The track is opening up beyond MySQL and its forks to kindred datastores that spread data across multiple nodes.
Open Source in Higher Education is back for a second year in partnership with the Apereo Foundation, open to students, faculty, and campus technology staff alike. The room was packed last year so we’re hoping to expand this year with some additional activities beyond the talk track.
Several co-located events run their own separate CFP processes and will be announced as they open. Watch the CFP page for updates.
Changes to how we handle speakers
A few process items worth knowing before you submit.
The Speaker Agreement and Code of Conduct are now called out explicitly in the CFP and linked from the submission flow. Every speaker agrees to both. Please actually read them.
The WebDev team worked to enhance the CFP tool with often requested confirmation emails. Hopefully you find them useful. If you encounter any bugs please let us know.
Add cfp@socallinuxexpo.org to your contacts now. We send acceptances and rejections from that address, and every year someone misses an acceptance because a corporate mail filter ate it.
Submit
Proposals are due 1 November 2026. Reviews are done by an expert committee and judged on merit.
