openSUSE at LinuxFest Northwest 2017

LinuxFest Northwest 2017, coming up the first weekend in May, promises to continue its tradition of providing a unique, active, fun experience for open-source enthusiasts at all experience levels. openSUSE continues its long-term sponsorship of the event, and we are looking forward to having a lot of fun! Submit your session proposals by March 1, 2017!

LinuxFest Northwest, if you’re not familiar, is one of the largest community-centric conferences in the USA, and a free+libre event (no attendance fees and registration is optional) promoting open source, open hardware, and community involvement. Now in its 16th year, with an audience rapidly approaching 2,000 people, the event continues to grow, attract a broader audience, and redefine the experience of a weekend conference. With a Linux Game Den, a Robotics Lab, a Job Fair (new this year), community mini-summits, as well as the expo hall and 8 - 10 parallel tracks of sessions, LFNW is a week of conference stuffed into a weekend.

[caption id=”attachment_20320” align=”aligncenter” width=”300”] left to right: Peter Linnell, Bryan Lunduke, Jon Hall (with the SUSE Chameleon), James Mason, Michael Miller at LinuxFest Northwest 2014[/caption]

openSUSE has been a fixture at LFNW for years; I fondly recall my first LFNW, when ‘Reverend’ Ted Haeger demonstrated “compiz” on a tricked out SUSE laptop… I’ve been hooked on the event since; volunteering with (and for the last few years - organizing) the openSUSE presence there. Over the years, we’ve had an all-star group come out and represent SUSE & openSUSE at LFNW:

• Richard Brown, chairman of the openSUSE board and SUSE QA Technical Lead, who opined “Linuxfest Northwest is such a civilized, enjoyable conference you would be forgiven for mistaking it as Canadian”;

• Bryan Lunduke, openSUSE board member and SUSE cheerleader-at-large responded “LinuxFest NW embodies the best of what it means to be a red-blooded American in a tech conference: donuts, burgers, robots, and Free Software”;

• Ross Brunson, Certification Architect at SUSE , ran a SUSE certification course for free last year;

• Michael Miller, President - Strategy, Alliances & Marketing at SUSE, and Bellingham resident;

• Alan Clark, Linux Foundation board member;

They are assisted by a dedicated group of local volunteers: openSUSE users looking to give back to the community that supports their technical pursuits.

[caption id=”attachment_20326” align=”aligncenter” width=”300”] openSUSE community volunteers like Caleb (left), an avid Steam gamer, and Adrian (right), a Python and Postgres consultant, represent the technical diversity in our community.[/caption]

LFNW’s Call for Papers is still open, until March 1, so it’s not too late to submit a talk, and join the openSUSE community at LFNW. For the first time, the event has a theme: “The Mechanics of Freedom”; inviting talks on AI and IoT, but sessions are welcome on a variety of topics. There’s room for everyone here, and the event is always looking for good ‘beginner’ content as well as technical deep dives, so whether you’d like to explain the mechanics of live kernel patching, or walk people through their first editing session in Gimp, your proposal is welcome. When you submit your proposal, please drop me a line as well, so I can help coordinate our group presence!

[caption id=”attachment_19953” align=”aligncenter” width=”300”] The SUSE Chameleon got a lot of love during last year’s “Geeko selfie” contest.[/caption]

I’m looking forward to welcoming a new group of community members and open source enthusiasts to the world of openSUSE and sending them off to a bunch of great openSUSE sessions. I hope to see you May 6 & 7, 2017, in beautiful Bellingham, WA, USA, where I know I’ll be having a lot of fun!