The GNOME Lover's Guide to linux.conf.au!

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

The GNOME Lover's Guide to linux.conf.au
========================================

If you haven't registered for linux.conf.au yet, that means you might miss
out on one of the world's best Free Software conferences, and the very first
GNOME.conf.au mini-conference! So, to tempt you further, and to make those
who've already registered salivate even more, here's the GNOME Lover's Guide
to linux.conf.au!


GNOME.conf.au & Miniconfs
-------------------------

Wow, so many miniconfs this year... and I just had to complicate it further
by kicking off GNOME.conf.au, Australia's first get-together for GNOME users
and hackers. It will be a pretty casual mini-conf, with talks and demos from
the likes of Havoc Pennington, Keith Packard and Glynn Foster, lots of time
for hacking and asking us the TOUGH QUESTIONS, and we'll probably do a panel
Q&A thingy at the end. There are some really kickarse miniconfs going on at
the same time though... Audio, Python, Debian, Education, FOSS in Govt. and
the annual IPv6 cry-in. You can even do LPI exams! CRAZY!


Wednesday
---------

In the morning, Keith Packard will be presenting an overview of Cairo
Graphics <http://www.cairographics.org/>. If you haven't already seen the
eye-popping screenshots of Cairo in action, check them out now! Combined
with the other amazing projects going on at freedesktop.org, Cairo will
provide enough eye-candy to get us through to... well, maybe next year's
linux.conf.au! ;-)

In the afternoon, Malcolm Tredinnick will be guiding us through the GNOME
Developer Platform libraries, where they sit in the stack, and how to get
the most out of them. This will be of particular interest to hackers just
getting into GNOME development - in any language!


Thursday
--------

Get on D-BUS! Havoc Pennington will introduce the D-BUS message system, a
freedesktop.org project which is already finding support amongst GNOME, KDE
and even Linux kernel hackers. (Not to be confused with Geoffrey Bennett's
C-BUS talk on Friday...)

Steve Baker will show off GStreamer, the multimedia framework included with
the GNOME Desktop. Find out about GStreamer's cunning pipe-based design, how
easy it is to write plugins, and what's on the radar in GStreamer land. I
was going to make a kitchen sink / right from the source joke here, but it
would make more sense after you go to the talk. ;-)


Friday
------

I will reveal the secrets behind GNOME's success to a crowd of four, as I've
been scheduled at the same time as Damian Conway talking about Perl 6. How
exciting! But thank Tux for small mercies - I'm so glad that this year, I
wasn't scheduled the day after...

The Annual linux.conf.au "Night You're Not Planning To Remember", which for
some reason is called the "IBM Penguin Dinner" this year. Perhaps an air of
respectability is in order or something. Basically, the whole point of the
night is to get everyone pissed as newts so they put up ridiculous amounts
of money in the linux.conf.au speaker-signed t-shirt auction. At least, that
is what happened at lca2001. I don't really remember the others. But I have
this *great* t-shirt that someone has scribbled all over.


Saturday
--------

This is even funnier than making Havoc do modern dance and abstract poetry
at GNOME.conf.au: At 10am, Havoc will be giving a keynote about Open Source
desktop progress, including coverage of freedesktop.org. If you're awake, or
still a bit tipsy, you'll probably enjoy this. Unless of course Havoc is not
awake or tipsy. Then you'll have an opportunity to rest your head.


So that's the highlights for GNOME lovers - but linux.conf.au is such an
eclectic conference, with incredible representation from all over the Free
Software world... No doubt you'll be straining to choose in some slots!

  Programme: http://linux.conf.au/programme.cgi
  
  GNOME.conf.au: http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/2004/gnome.conf.au/

  Register NOW: http://linux.conf.au/register/

See you all there,

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2004: Adelaide, Australia         http://lca2004.linux.org.au/
 
    "GNOME, launched specifically to counter a threat to our freedom, is
       the free software project par excellence." - Richard Stallman