I’ve blogged a few different times about linux.conf.au, or LCA. If you’ve read the posts you’ll have a general understanding of what LCA is and how it’s a little bit awesome.

Before I started doing public speaking, LCA was heralded as the conference; if you got accepted to speak at LCA, it meant that you were awesome, at the pinacle of your field, and doing something that was interesting and worth the time on stage. But even just attending is incredible. It’s five days of talks, miniconferences, events, people, places and wonderful learning and engaging experiences that is a wonderful gathering of people and ideas.

Linux.conf.au is on again in 2017, and this time it’s in beautiful Tasmania. The Call for Papers is now open, and this year it has a very specific focus: the Future of Open Source.

THE FUTURE OF YOUR PROJECT

linux.conf.au is well-known for deeply technical talks, and lca2017 will be no exception. Our attendees want to be the first to know about new and upcoming developments in the tools they already use every day, and they want to know about new open source technology that they’ll be using daily in two years time.

OPENNESS FOR EVERYONE

Many of the techniques that have made Open Source so successful in the software and hardware world are now being applied to fields as disparate as science, data, government, and the law. We want to know how Open Thinking will help to shape your field in the future, and more importantly, we want to know how the rest of the world can help shape the future of Open Source.

THREATS FROM THE FUTURE

It’s easy to think that Open Source has won, but for every success we achieve, a new challenge pops up. Are we missing opportunities in desktop and mobile computing? Why is the world suddenly running away from open and federated communications? Why don’t the new generation of developers care about licensing? Let’s talk about how Software Freedom and Open Source can better meet the needs of our users and developers for years to come.

WHATEVER YOU WANT!

It’s hard for us to predict the future, but we know that you should be a part of it. If you think you have something to say about Free and Open Source Software, then we want to hear from you, even if it doesn’t fit any of the categories above.

You should submit a talk for this conference. If you need help with your abstract, there’s plenty of lovely would be more than happy to help brainstorm ideas, myself included. Ping me on twitter, or ask using the conference hashtag #lca2017