openSUSE Summit 2013: Registration Opened!

It has already been a year since the first iteration of the openSUSE Summit held in Orlando Florida. Our guests and organizers agreed that tying this community event at the end of SUSEcon is a very good idea and it was set to be repeated in 2013 as well. If you live in the Northern part of the U.S.A. then you know that November can be very cold, therefore, our organizers decided to go back to Florida this year and have everyone warm up to the never-ending summer in the peach state. Our event website is up and running and registrations are open!

Website up, Registration Open, Sessions Requests Started

The openSUSE Summit 2013 conference website is up on summit.opensuse.org and we’re looking forward almost as much to your visit there as a real life appearance at the event. Registration is open and so is our call for papers: you can shoot in your sessions proposals! Once you are part of the summit roaster your talks and presentation will be added to our tracking system in order to generate a schedule.

Please be aware that the schedule is set by our organizers and if your presentation is scheduled for a time when it is not convenient to you, email the organization and we will be sure to rearrange the time. Registration for sessions and sessions will end October 4th, 2013.

Access and Summit Sessions

Getting access to the conference and sessions costs $50.00 for Professional and $200.00 for Company Supporters. Tickets will be available soon. There are SUSE-branded backpacks as gifts for those in attendance.

Our sessions can be split into three main categories. First we have long talks or presentations lasting about 50 minutes, short talks running for about 30 minutes and then workshops lasting between 2-4 hours, depending on how lengthy the subject covered is.

Finding an appropriate subject for a session at the summit can be difficult. However, there are a few things that can get you thinking in what is important to share. For example, you may have recently participated in the organization of a Linux conference and would like to share what you learned from that experience. You could also be more technical and share the latest changes in coding for Ruby’s new version, etc. There are many subjects you can share on and it can very from very technical to something as simple as showing how to reach out and form a community around openSUSE. See our conference speaker guidelines for some more tips and information.

A great base to build upon

Last year’s conference was a huge success. Our organization team worked hard and produced more than a few hits with the rest of our community. There was Hawaiian dancing, pool dives, food and lots of sessions discussing the world of openSUSE. Sessions varied from musical software to workshops explaining how to contribute code to the openSUSE distribution. Most presenters were already active in our community, but we’re an open bunch (hence the name!) and if you are not formally part of the Geekos you can still contribute to the project. If you want to get involved check out this page!

openSUSE Summit in 2013

The openSUSE community has already started working with the organization of SUSECon to make the openSUSE Summit happen. The Summit team recently held a meeting in which assignments and many other important considerations were discussed. One of them is getting people involved with the summit. Our team would like to invite those interested in showing what they know and like about openSUSE and Linux in general to participate in our sessions.

The openSUSE summit is flexible and, at the same time, focused on the important subjects that surround our community. Our themes for sessions can easily expand from openSUSE-centric subjects to others that include the rest of the Linux world. We are looking for sessions covering openSUSE technology, the openSUSE community, as well as sessions covering FOSS projects that may not immediately be related to openSUSE.

Travel Support Program

Our travel support program is also ready to take in requests from our team members. It is important to note that although there are resources to help our members travel to the summit, these are not unlimited. They require that travel support program users keep receipts for later reimbursements. Additionally, the Travel Support Team will have 2 calls for support requests. Keep them in your calendar. The dates are

First call, from September 27 through October 3. Results will be available on October 8.

Second call, From October 11 through October 17. Results will be available on October 22.

There will also be a waiting list in case your request did not make it to one of the 2 calls. 

Participation Welcome!

Remember that those who collaborate with sessions for our summit are considered awesomely cool. Your badge will thus say that you are a presenter and your entry into the summit will be waived. You will additionally be hugged by more than one member of our community and might become green! Moreover, joining the organization team for the summit is also very much appreciated. Please check out our website and find out the many ways to participate. You could even sponsor our conference since there are various opportunities available. All that does not mean we don’t love and hug our visitors: every single one of you is risking having an incredibly good time!

See you in Florida!