List your LUG or Regional Meetings On Fossevents.org

When it comes to getting a good turnout at a FOSS event, half the battle is getting yourself noticed above behemoth get-togethers like OSCON and SCALE. Sponsors like O'Reilly and IBM have little trouble getting press about their upcoming events but LUGs and regional conferences have a tougher time.

The team at the Peer-Directed Projects Center (best known for its work running the freenode IRC network) feels your pain. They've launched a new site called fossevents.org to help smaller events keep from getting lost in the din, and prevent I-wish-I'd-known-about-this-sooner syndrome in community members who find out about local conferences a little too late to attend.

Fossevents.org is a searchable listing of Free and Open Source Software events going on all over the world. Naturally, you'll find information about annual conferences like OSDC and FOSSDEM, but you'll also discover lesser-known sessions like FrOSCon in Sankt Augustin, Germany next month and coming up this December in Albuquerque, NM. Getting your event on the calendar is as easy as filling out a quick online form.

PDPC board member Christel Dahlskjaer says, "[W]e love going to various events across the globe and meeting the people we normally only bump into online -- for us that's a wonderful experience...In seeking feedback, we've learnt that people would like to see us do a little bit more for them, just some small bits to complement what we already offer."

This is a fantastic idea and one that's been a long time coming. There's nothing more frustrating for an open source community member than a missed opportunity to attend a local conference. It's equally as frustrating for event organizers who struggle to get the word out about upcoming workshops or installfests. Fossevents.org will go a long way toward increasing attendance at all the worthwhile regional events popping up all over.