One Week: Three FOSS Expos

The week after next the FOSS world will be brimming with opportunities to find out more about what’s going on in three separate shows around the country. If you are within a day’s drive of any of them — or if you are not adverse to flying — making it to one of them would be well worth the effort.

In the South, there’s All Things Open, which is being held midweek — Oct. 22-23 — in Raleigh, N.C. ATO is a conference exploring open source, open tech and the open web in the enterprise. Featuring 90 speakers and 100 sessions, ATO brings a lot of heavy hitters to the Research Triangle area. The price for admission might be considered steep by regular Linux show denizens — ranging from $25 for the Women in Tech/OS panel presentation to $229 for a two-day pass. Those who wish to check out the menu of options can go to the ATO registration page.

Up in the Midwest, Ohio LinuxFest 2014 takes place on Oct. 24-26 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. FOSS Force’s Ken Starks joins Red Hat’s Ruth Suehle and Jon ‘maddog’ Hall in keynoting the event. With nearly 50 sessions spanning the weekend, admission ranges from the basic registration of free, or $5 if you do not register in advance — shame on you! — and goes up an extra $5 for the Saturday after-party and $60 for a dinner with the keynoters. The Ohio LinuxFest Institute registration gives you access to the full conference as well as professional Free and Open Source Software training for $350.

Recently on social media, OLF reported that the hotel group blocks are booked at both hotels. This means, of course, that there are a lot of people going to the fest, and the show’s organizers are working on room deals with other hotels in the area. With Columbus being a big place, this doesn’t mean all the hotel rooms in town are taken, and you should keep an eye on the site for upcoming hotel deals for OLF going forward.

On the West Coast, way up in the Pacific Northwest, the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference — otherwise known as SeaGL (pronounced “seagull”) — opens its doors to FOSS-ficionados on Oct. 24-25 at Seattle Central College.

According to the site, SeaGL is a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source software/hardware: “Our goal for SeaGL is to produce an event which is as enjoyable and informative for those who spend their days maintaining hundreds of servers as it is for a student who has only just started exploring technology options.”

Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy, who will be racking up the frequent flyer miles since she’s speaking at ATO as well, will be giving the keynote at SeaGL. Other speakers include Deb Nicholson, Gareth Greenaway, Emily Dunham, Benjamin Mako Hill and yours truly.

The cost to attend SeaGL is free, though you’re welcome to make a donation. Thanks to the Linux Expo of Southern California, Inc. — our friends that bring you SCALE in Los Angeles every February –- you can donate to SeaGL in Bitcoin as well.

On the surface, one might think that three FOSS-related conferences on the same weekend would spread resources a bit thin. However, I have another theory to try out: that FOSS is now large enough to handle multiple conferences in different parts of the country at the same time. The attendance results of these shows will be the proverbial proof in the rhetorical pudding.