lca2013 – Made by Mikal

OpenStack at linux.conf.au 2013

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 5, 2013
Post category:OpenStack

As some of you might know, I'm the Director for linux.conf.au 2013. I've tried really hard to not use my powers for evil and make the entire conference about OpenStack -- in fact I haven't pulled rank and demanded that specific content be included at all. However, the level of interest in OpenStack has grown so much since LCA 2012 that there is now a significant amount of OpenStack content in the conference without me having to do any of that. I thought I'd take a second to highlight some of the OpenStack content that I think is particularly interesting -- these are the talks I'll be going to if I have the time (which remains to be seen): Monday Cloud Infrastructure, Distributed Storage and High Availability Miniconf: while not specifically about OpenStack, this miniconf is going to be a good warm up for all things IaaS at the conference. Here's a list of the talks for that miniconf:<ul Delivering IaaS with Apache CloudStack - Joe Brockmeier oVirt - Dan Macpherson Aeolus - Dan Macpherson Ops: From bare metal to cloud space - Phil Ingram VMs on VLANs on Bridges on Bonds on many NICs - Kim Hawtin OpenStack Swift…

On conference t-shirts

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 22, 2012
Post category:Conference

Conference t-shirts can't be that hard, right? I certainly don't remember them being difficult when Canberra last hosted linux.conf.au in 2005. I was the person who arranged all the swag for that conference, so I should remember. Yet here I am having spent hours on the phone with vendors, and surrounded with discarded sample t-shirts, size charts and colour swatches. What changed? The difference between now and then is that in the intervening seven years the Australian Linux community has started to make real effort to be more inclusive. We have anti-harassment policies, we encourage new speakers, and we're making real efforts to encourage more women into the community. linux.conf.au 2013 is making real efforts to be as inclusive as possible -- one of the first roles we allocated was a diversity officer, who is someone active in the geek feminism community. We've had serious discussions about how we can make our event as friendly to all groups as possible, and have some interesting things along those lines to announce soon. We're working hard to make the conference a safe environment for everyone, and will have independent delegate advocates available at all social events, as well as during the conference.…

Got Something to Say? The LCA 2013 CFP Opens Soon!

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 22, 2012
Post category:Conference

The call for presentations opens on 1 June, which is only 11 days away! So if you're thinking of speaking at the conference (a presentation, tutorial, or miniconference), now would be a good time to start thinking about what you're going to say. While you're thinking, please spare a thought for our web team, who are bringing up the entire zookeepr instance so that the CFP will work properly. We've been getting heaps of stuff done over the past few months. We've had a "ghosts" meeting (a meeting with former LCA directors), found conference and social venues, and are gearing up for the Call For Presentations. We've signed a contract for the keynote venue, which I think you will all really enjoy. We have also locked in our booking for the lecture theatres, which is now working its way through the ANU process. For social events, we've got a great venue for the penguin dinner, and have shortlisted venues for the speakers' dinner and the professional delegates' networking session. We're taking a bit of extra time here because we want venues that are special, and not just the ones which first came to mind. The ghosts meeting went really well…

Call for papers opens soon

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 4, 2012
Post category:Conference

It's time to start thinking about your talk proposals, because the call for papers is only eight weeks away! For the 2013 conference, the papers committee are going to be focusing on deep technical content, and things we think are going to really matter in the future -- that might range from freedom and privacy, to open source cloud systems, or energy efficient server farms of the future. However, the conference is to a large extent what the speakers make it -- if we receive many excellent submissions on a topic, then its sure to be represented at the conference. The papers committee will be headed by the able combination of Michael Davies and Mary Gardiner, who have done an excellent job in previous years. They're currently working through the details of the call for papers announcement. I am telling you this now because I want speakers to have plenty of time to prepare for the submissions process, as I think that will produce the highest quality of submissions. I also wanted to let you know the organising for linux.conf.au 2013 is progressing well. We're currently in the process of locking in all of our venue arrangements, so we will…

It seems stickers are a gas

Post author:mikal
Post published:March 16, 2012
Post category:Conference

It seems that stickers are a gas -- they expand to occupy available space. We thought we'd ordered heaps of extra stickers to promote LCA 2013, but now we find ourselves running low. That's not a huge problem, but I do wonder if they are getting used or are just in the bottom of people's sock drawers. So here's the plan -- if you've got a LCA 2013 sticker and have stuck it somewhere, why not tweet a picture of it with the #lca2013 hashtag? If you don't use twitter, blog it or whatever and let us know at contact@lca2013.linux.org.au. The best picture will get a prize. I don't know what yet, because I just totally made this up. Perhaps a t-shirt. Perhaps a pet goat.

Announcement video

Post author:mikal
Post published:February 1, 2012
Post category:Conference

I imagine that most people saw this at the conference closing. However, for completeness and because I feel that if we're going to put videos of other speakers online then I should suffer the same fate, here is the LCA 2013 announcement from Ballarat:

Are you in a LUG? Do you want some promotional materials for LCA 2013?

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 26, 2012
Post category:Conference

Canberra was announced as the host for LCA 2013 at the close of LCA 2012. As part of that closing, we handed out postcards and laptop stickers to delegates. However, we deliberately had extra printed on the theory that groups like LUGs, university computer societies and so forth would be interested in having promotional materials for their groups. For those of you not lucky enough to attend the excellent LCA2012, the stickers looked like this: And the postcards look like this: All credit for the excellent art should go to the very capable Jenny Cox. So, if you're interested in having some stuff to hand out at your next LUG or computer society meeting, please drop us a line at contact@lca2013.linux.org.au. Don't forget to include the name of the group and a mailing address.

linux.conf.au Returns to Canberra in 2013

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 22, 2012
Post category:Conference

I am incredibly pleased to announce that linux.conf.au 2013 will be hosted by Canberra, Australia between 28 January 2013 to 2 February 2013. As the director for 2013 I have been blessed with a simply incredible team who has done fantastic work during the bid process, and I am confident that we will pull off a fantastic event. 2013 is Canberra's centenary year, so I think its appropriate to have a conference with a bit of a party atmosphere. We're working hard already on making 2013 a conference to remember. For those who were unable to see the announcement at the conference, you might find the following interesting: Call for papers: June 2012 Early bird registrations open: October 2012 Conference: 28 January 2013 to 2 February 2013 linux.conf.au is one of the foremost open source conferences in the world, and is considered the most prestigious in the southern hemisphere. Many of the team that brought you linux.conf.au 2005 are coming back to help with the 2013 effort, and we're cognizant of the extremely high standard left by previous conferences, especially the astounding job that Josh's 2012 team did. The web site for the conference http://lca2013.linux.org.au is already live, and we'll…

Canberra’s LCA2013 bid

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 15, 2011
Post category:Conference

I'm really proud of the hard work that all of the Canberra 2013 team has done in preparing our bid for LCA 2013. I just sent off the emails making our bid formal. Here's what I said on the linux-aus mailing list: Hello. I am pleased to present Canberra's bid for linux.conf.au 2013. It is traditional to produce a PDF document for distribution to the linux-aus mailing list. Instead, we have produced a small web site covering the same information that would normally be in such a document. It is our hope that this will be a more dynamic and accessible document than a static PDF. This website will form the basis for our conference site if Canberra is selected. The website is located at http://lca2013.clug.org.au. Sincerely, Michael Still Canberra 2013 bid lead

Canberra officially expresses interest in hosting LCA in 2013

Post author:mikal
Post published:February 9, 2011
Post category:Conference

For those playing along at home, you will have noticed that there is a pretty keen group of people in Canberra who intend to bid for LCA 2013. Linux Australia has now called for formal expressions of interest, and I just sent ours in. I wont repost it here, but instead will suggest you checkout the thread in the mailman archive. [btags:]