The Linux Exposition of Southern California is proud to announce the 7th Annual Southern California Linux Expo scheduled for February 20-22, 2009 at the Westin Hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport. Wide spread acceptance and encouragement from the user community has established SCALE as a premiere Linux/Open Source conference in the
Southern California region.

This year, we are proud to announce the addition of two specialized tracks in addition to the three existing tracks that we have every year. These specialized tracks are going to be (i) beginners' track (ii) developers' track.

In the past few years, we have found that a large percentage of our attendees is comprised of beginning Linux users; some who are still unsure about what lies ahead if they migrate to Linux/Open Source Software (OSS). We are dedicating a complete track to better inform such users of the benefits of moving to Linux/OSS and potentially assist them in making their transition easier. We are calling this track the Beginner's Track.

The other core constituency of our attendees over the last few years have been the people who use Linux/OSS regularly and are interested in enhancing their understand- ing of its inner workings. We have decided to dedicate a separate track for those power users and are calling it the Developer's Track.

Continuing our efforts to promote and educate the public about open source, we invite you to share your work on Free/Open Source projects with the rest of the community as well as exchange ideas with some leading experts in these fields. Details about previous editions of SCALE can be found at http://www.socallinuxexpo.com/scale7x/past_events/.

We have listed some topics of interest below, with the caveat that depending on the talk content any of the topics mentioned below
could fit into any of the program tracks, including beginners and developers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Core Operating System Issues (Developer Track)

• Kernel Internals and Enhancements
• Unix variants: Tools and Appliances
• Operating Systems for Embedded Platforms
• Virtualization
• System Administration: Low-level Details
• In-depth Programming/Scripting with Open Source Languages

Open Source for Beginners (Beginner's Track)

• Desktop Operating Systems
• Security and Trouble Shooting
• Linux/Unix/Windows Inter-operability
• Linux Shells
• Open Source Deployments and Experiences
• Samba/Windows sharing
• Open Source Productivity Applications
• Transitioning from Windows
• Basic scripting/automation
• User system administration issues

Miscellaneous Open Source Topics

• Tools for Multimedia and Gaming
• Tools for Profiling and Performance Optimization
• LAMP architectures/development
• Open Source Customizations for data centers
• Open Source solutions for cloud computing and web services
• Open Source Animation Tools
• Open Source and Web 2.0
• Open Source Database Platforms
• System Administration: An Expert's View
• Open Source Licensing
• Government Policies with Open Source
• Open Source Promotion and Adoption: Current State

The proposals should be submitted as a 1-page extended abstract comprising:

(i) Title for the talk

(ii) Name, affiliation, bio, a passport size picture, and contact email address of the presenter. Please ensure that the personal biography is not more than 1000 characters; focus on relevant experience to your proposal topic and write from the third-person perspective.

(iii) What will be covered? A list or a brief description of the main points to be presented should be submitted.

(iv) Please indicate if the talk will be suitable for the beginners track, developers track or the general tracks. This will aid the SCALE committee during the review process.

(v) Please notify us if the presentation will require a special technical set-up. The setup provided will include:

(a) microphone
(b) overhead projector (resolution 1024 x 768)
(c) a laptop running Linux with a pdf viewer as well as OpenOffice

Submission formats in txt and pdf will be accepted. Presentations will be allotted a time slot of about 45 minutes. Please ensure that presentations must be done in open non-proprietary format. All proposals are to be sent to cfp_submittals@socallinuxexpo.org.

Important Dates

4 August, 2008: CFP Opens

30 Nov, 2008: Deadline for abstracts/proposals submissions

20 Dec, 2008: Last date for notification of acceptance

20 Feb, 2009: Conference starts