openSUSE announces location of 2011 conference

Hi all,

Attached is the announcement of the openSUSE conference location and the call 
for paper. This will go live UTC 13:00 which is 15:00 Amsterdam time, 09:00 
Boston and 23:00 Brisbane.

Please do not publish anything before that time!

We'd like to give you some heads up information about the conference besides 
the announcement:

* We will co-locate with the SUSE Labs conference. SUSE Labs is a technical 
conference for SUSE developers with a strong focus on infrastructural 
technology like GCC, samba and the linux kernel. Traditionally, enterprise 
partners and users of SUSE Linux Enterprise participated in the SUSE Labs 
conference. We will invite them to the combined conference this year.

* The location is the 'Zentrifuge Nuernberg'. Find information at the 
following links:
http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Conference_Location_Zentr...
http://www.zentrifuge-nuernberg.de/
Zentrifuge is a place for art and creativity and you can expect us to take 
full advantage of that. We don't have concrete plans yet but count on some 
performances and cool stuff.

* the theme this year is RWXRWXRWX or RWX3. A rather geeky theme showing our 
focus on working together. This year we want to do more workshop- and BOF 
style sessions to get work done! Attached a graphic and a poster can be found 
here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rlihm/5703446814/sizes/l/in/...

Greetings
Jos & the openSUSE marketing team
Time to get ready for the openSUSE Conference 2011

On Sunday the 11th of September it will be that time again: the openSUSE Conference starts. And of
course we want an exciting program. Today, the proposal submission time starts and you have until
July 11th to let us know what you want to discuss at the conference!
The openSUSE Conference

The openSUSE conference is where Free Software people meet. And a meeting of so many developers,
artists, translators, documentation writers and others leads to great things! The latest Free
Software technologies will be showcased, cool projects initiated and great ideas discussed. This
year, the conference will be combined with the SUSE Labs conference. The SUSE Labs conference has
traditionally been about advancing low-level technology like the kernel and surrounding
infrastructure as well as server related, deployment and management tools.

The openSUSE Conference 2011 will happen from Sunday 11th to Wednesday 14th of September in
Nuremberg, Germany. This date shouldn't conflict with too many other conferences yet give us enough
time to prepare. We expect about 500 visitors this year and hence had to find a new location.

A perfect spot was found in a previous industrial complex from AEG named 'Zentrifuge'. This
cultural center might not be the 'usual' space for an IT conference but offers a very creative and
open space, currently used for art and music. Exactly right for the openSUSE Free Software
gathering!
This year: read AND write

Last year, the conference had the motto 'Collaboration Across Borders' and brought together an
international crowd from many communities in one place. This year we'll be shifting our attention a
bit deeper, aiming for hands-on discussions to get work done. Smaller, more focused meetings with a
strong "read-write" attitude are at the core of the openSUSE Conference 2011.

Hence the subtitle of rwx³, commonly known as the UNIX acronym for "Read, Write, Execute" - three
times, for you, your community and the rest of the world!

Does that make sense to you? If so, join us and submit your proposal on what you want to do on the
conference. Focus on activity, try to engage the people into your idea, pull the ideas out of them,
make them get their hands dirty and their brains droopy.

We will accept workshops, brainstorm sessions, design meetings, question and answer sessions, hands
on happenings and every activity where people get into interaction for the openSUSE project and the
distribution of Free Software, Free content or Free culture in general. Ah yes, and we will
probably accept some traditional presentations as well...
About what

The committee is looking for a wide range of talks and sessions from Free Software contributors,
however openSUSE related topics are obviously very important. Some areas we are interested in
include:

    Cloud, virtualization and appliances
    (multi) touch screens, new form factors and architectures like ARM
    OBS, packaging, Studio, KIWI
    Educational software
    Upstream and across project borders collaboration
    upcoming and hot technologies
    Google Summer of Code results
    How to get involved in openSUSE ??? depend on newbie day or not... 

Upstream project collaboration We'd also like to give the local community a chance to join us on
the evening of the first day and we look forward to a few generic 'what is Free Software' and
'Installing openSUSE' type workshops.

To simplify the wide range of activities one could plan, we have created three different sessions
following the Read/Write/Execute theme. For Read-Only there are talks with the traditional slides
and 5-10 minutes Q&A at the end. For Write there are the BOF sessions where discussions can take
place. Finally, in Workshops the Execute bit can be set!

Each session will last 40 minutes but for complicated subjects it is very OK to ask for 2
consecutive or non-consecutive discussion or workshop slots! For more information about the format
and how to give a talk, organize a Discussion/BOF or give a workshop, please refer to our
guidelines for speakers: openSUSE:Conference_Planning_2011_guidelines_for_speakers. Authors are
also advised to consult the openSUSE:Code_of_Conduct before submitting their paper.
how and when

The proposals can be submitted to the following mail address: cfp@opensuse.org

Deadline for the submission is July 11th 2011.


We look forward to your proposals. Have fun!