Outstanding talks to take centre stage at linux.conf.au 2012

Submitted on 2012-01-11 15:58

Ballarat, 11 January 2012

With only four days to go until the opening of Ballarat's linux.conf.au 2012, the conference is quickly becoming the talk of the town. Naturally it is the talks themselves that make the conference and 2012 gives delegates more chances to see more talks!

As Conference Director Josh Stewart explained, Delegates are sure to be impressed with the array and calibre of Speakers.

"We're really fortunate this year to be able to bring so many renowned community luminaries to Ballarat to share their experience and knowledge with delegates."

Tuesday will see Co-Founder of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and creator of the Open Source Definition, Bruce Perens, given the first conference keynote. Other highlights from Tuesday include Jonathan Corbet's now-traditional kernel report, presentations on optimising web performance by Lenz Gschwendtner and even a talk on high altitude ballooning by Joel Stanley and Mark Jessop. Laura Thomson and her colleagues from Mozilla will also present on migrating enormous volumes of data.

Australia's favourite mad scientist, Perl developer Paul Fenwick, will keynote Wednesday's line up. He will be followed by, among others, Alice Boxhall and Silvia Pfeiffer presenting on developing accessible web applications, a shell tutorial by University of New South Wales computer scientist Peter Chubb and a talk on mentoring in free and open source (FOSS) communities by Open Source Outreach Manager for Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab, Leslie Hawthorn. Linux Australia's Annual General Meeting (AGM) will also be held as part of Wednesday's schedule.

On Thursday, open source luminary, ex-Software Freedom Law Centre counsel and current Executive Director of the GNOME project, Karen Sandler will keynote. Other highlights from Thursday's programme include a presentation on the Android open accessory development kit from open hardware guru Jon Oxer, talks on copyright and ending software patents by Ben Powell and Ben Sturmfels. Founders of the Ada Initiative - a group dedicated to furthering the representation of women in open technology and culture - Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner will also present around women in open source.

Thursday night's Penguin dinner will also play host to an as yet unannounced mystery speaker!

Significant interest surrounds Friday's keynote speaker, Jacob Appelbaum (better known as @ioerror on Twitter). Widely noted for his interest in computer security and stance against censorship, Jacob was one of the team behind exposing vulnerabilities in hardware after physical shutdown - the so called 'cold boot' attack.

Part of the final day of the conference, Friday 20th January, has been dedicated to showcasing 'best of' talks. A common lament of linux.conf.au delegates from years past has been the disappointment in missing 'the presentation' that everyone is talking about. The Best-Of slots allow for these amazing talks to be experienced by as many delegates as possible (or even experienced again for those who were blown away the first time around).

linux.conf.au will be held 16th-20th January 2012 in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Registrations are still open, but places are now limited.

• Web: http://lcaunderthestars.org.au
• Twitter and Identi.ca: @linuxconfau
• Registrations: http://linux.conf.au/register/prices
• Tentative schedule: http://linux.conf.au/programme/schedule