Melbourne and Hobart compete for linux.conf.au 2008

Stan Beer
Sunday, 09 July 2006 17:08

Your IT - Home IT

It is a case of a David and Goliath face-off, with Melbourne and Hobart competing for the right to stage for one of Australia's leading open source software technical conferences in 2008.

Linux Australia President Jon Oxer, today announced the two teams bidding for the opportunity to host Free and Open Source Software conference linux.conf.au in 2008.

"The two teams, Melbourne and Hobart, have both submitted extremely professional bids. It's going to be a tough choice between them" said Oxer.

While neither city has hosted the conference in its current form, CALU (Conference of Australian Linux Users), the predecessor to linux.conf.au was originally held in Melbourne. Hobart has never played host to the conference in any incarnation. Melbourne, a city with a population of about 3.7 million dwarfs Hobart, which is by far Australia's smallest state capital with just over 200,000 residents. However, the offbeat character of linux.conf.au may well be more suited to the quaint idiosyncasies of idyllic Hobart rather than the more cosmopolitan Melbourne.

The Hobart team is quietly confident about its bid. "We believe that Hobart's size and history will be a huge draw card for both speakers and conference attendees," said one of the Hobart bid leaders. "Tasmania is experiencing a real growth in use and development of Free and Open Source Software and we want encourage this by hosting the best FOSS conference in the world."

Coordinator of the Melbourne bid, Donna Benjamin, said: "Melbourne is a great city. There's a reason it has won awards for being the world's most liveable city, and we're not shy about hosting world class events like linux.conf.au. This is a great conference, it's fun and informal, whilst being seriously technical. It's also an opportunity for Australian linux developers and users to get together with luminaries from around the planet to share ideas."

Meanwhile the linux.conf.au 2007 Call for Participation has been announced. Entries are requested for a wide range of topics including system administration, kernel development, community advocacy and more. The conference will be held next January at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Visit the http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ linux.conf.au 2007 website to find out more.