OStatic

In a year that's been pretty rough on commercial conferences, community run events like FOSDEM, SCALE, SouthEast LinuxFest, LinuxFest Northwest and this past weekend's Ontario GNU Linux Fest are thriving. Why is that? Community conferences win out for a number of reasons.

Attending conferences is a big part of my job, and over the years I've started to take note of what events are worth attending and which events aren't. By and large, it's the smaller community events that are worth your time and money.

The OSCON (Open Source Convention) conference is quickly approaching, to be held July 20th through 24th in San Jose, California. The schedule and roster of speakers is becoming finalized, and looks to be very interesting this year. Keynote speakers include Google Open Source Program Manager Chris DiBona, and Intel's Imad Sousou. In addition to the sructured, scheduled events at this year's OSCON, there will be an unstructured Unconference. This is an on-the-fly program created by OSCON participants. Here are more details.

How do you manage, grow, and foster active involvement in a community? One way might incorporate planning several events at approximately the same time and venue. This is why you can rest assured that the organizers behind the Community Leadership Summit can help you learn to manage your project's community in the most effective way possible.

Jono Bacon, Ubuntu's community manager, officially announced the unconference (an event so focused on discussion that an open, organic schedule is required) on Sunday. The event itself takes place the 18th and 19th of July in San Jose, California. The summit is mere hours before OSCON 2009 kicks off -- in the very same convention center.