For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the convention, contact Sharon Cordesse at scordesse@oreilly.com
Download the OSCON Sponsor/Exhibitor Prospectus
View a complete list of OSCON contacts
Experience OSCON | Who Should Attend | Why Attend | OSCON Kudos | Co-Chairs | Conference Diversity
Once considered a radical upstart, open source has moved from disruption to default. Its methods and culture commoditized the technologies that drove the Internet revolution, and transformed the practice of software development. Collaborative and transparent, open source has become modus operandi, powering the next wave of innovation in cloud, data, and mobile technologies.
OSCON is where all of the pieces come together: developers, innovators, businesspeople, and investors. In the early days, this trailblazing O’Reilly event was focused on changing mainstream business thinking and practices; today OSCON is about how the close partnership between business and the open source community is building the future. That future is everywhere you look.
Now in its 13th year, OSCON is the best place on the planet to prepare for what comes next, from learning new skills to understanding how new and emerging open source technologies are going to impact how we live, work, and do business. In keeping with its O’Reilly heritage, OSCON is a unique gathering of all things open source, where participants find inspiration, confront new challenges, share their expertise, renew bonds to community, make significant connections, and find ways to give back to the open source movement. The event has also become one of the most important venues to unveil ground-breaking open source projects and products.
"For those who have not been to OSCON, it's a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more. OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions."
- Zack Urlocker, InfoWorld
Through hundreds of sessions, tutorials, activities, and events, OSCON 2011 will educate, provoke, and inspire, with:
OSCON welcomes anyone who’s passionate about open source:
O'Reilly is committed to promoting diversity at OSCON 2011, and at all of our events. Read more.
No matter the economic climate, a strong technology foundation is the key for moving your business and projects forward. In just five information-packed days (and nights) OSCON gives you the tools you need to succeed:
It’s hard to explain the sort of impact that a good conference can have on your career and even your life, but we can’t express how much you should go to one in order to gain inspiration, have fun and learn a whole bunch of new stuff you can take back to your workplace. —Martijn Verburg, London Java Community
As Tim says, one never has trouble finding an interesting conversation at OSCON...the content, both hallway and in-session, shined... there are people I literally see only at this event every year, and while remote collaboration is all well and good, it’s nice to have a beer with people every so often. —Stephen O'Grady, tecosystems, RedMonk
For the past few years, we at NYTimes.com have been attending OSCON. It has become the premier conference for us because it offers so many opportunities to engage with fellow developers. We’ve met new friends, given talks, led Birds-of-a-Feather sessions... —Derek Gottfrid, NYTimes.com
Speaking at conferences like linux.conf.au and OSCON is great fun. It's challenging to speak to an audience that's so diverse that it includes both the creator of the Linux kernel and students who just discovered it exists. It's humbling to know that the intelligence and achievement in the audience dwarfs anything I've ever done. —Simon Phipps, Sun
OSCON is a great opportunity for us to really get our geek on and meet with some of the industry's sharpest people. Love the 'Birds of a Feather' sessions. We had a great time at what we consider the best conference we get to attend. —Nick Thuesen, Senior Software Engineer, NYTimes.com
For those who have not been to OSCON, it's a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more. OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions. —Zack Urlocker, InfoWorld
Edd Dumbill
is program chair for Strata and the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. A technologist and writer, he also leads the design and implementation of conference software at O'Reilly. Edd was the editor of XML.com for many years, and program chair for the XML Europe and XTech conferences.
Sarah Novotny
is a founding partner of Blue Gecko. She manages and is a senior administrator in the Open Databases / LAMP practice, which does remote administration and management of databases around the world. Sarah also runs the Seattle meetups for LinuxChix, MySQL, and one focused on open source and general geeky socializing.
O'Reilly Media believes in spreading the knowledge of innovators. We believe that innovation is enhanced by a variety of perspectives, and our goal is to create an inclusive, respectful conference environment that invites participation from people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, and sexual orientation.
We're actively seeking to increase the diversity of our attendees, speakers, and sponsors through our calls for proposals, other open submission processes, and through dialogue with the larger communities we serve.
This is an ongoing process. We are talking to our program chairs, program committees, and various innovators, experts, and organizations about this goal and about ways they can help us achieve it.
Here are some ways you can help us build a more diverse conference experience:
We value diversity in the communities we bring together, and we welcome your contributions to bringing balanced representation of the richness of our collective human experience.
See our Creative Commons version (PDF) of this statement.