[boston-lisp-organizers] Boston Lisp + Open Source Bridge

[Reid Beels]

Hello!

I'm one of the organizers of Open Source Bridge, a new open source  
developers’ conference being held June 17–19, 2009 in Portland,  
Oregon. We’re aiming to connect people across projects, languages and  
experience and would love to have members of the Boston Lisp community  
involved as speakers and participants. Details about the conference  
are included below.

Bridge isn’t a typical conference. It’s entirely volunteer-run, by  
developers, for developers. Session tracks are technology agnostic,  
based instead around shared community experiences and focused on  
similarities between projects, not differences. Plus, we’ll be running  
a 24-hour hacker lounge for code sprints, bug bashes, bouncing ideas,  
starting new projects or just mingling.

We’d be delighted it if you could mention Open Source Bridge at your  
user group meetings, post this email to your mailing list, and get us  
in touch with others in your community interested in participating.

We just extended our call for proposals through April 10th, which is  
fast approaching, so please pass this information on as soon as  
possible.

We don’t expect something for nothing, so we’re giving all of your  
user group members a discounted registration rate of $150. That’s $25  
off the Early Bird rate, and $100 off our regular registration. User  
groups are very important to the chairs of our conference — that’s how  
they both got started in the open source community.

We’re also offering a free conference pass to give away to a member of  
your group. If you’re interested in more ways to promote the  
conference, let us know!

Thank You!
Reid Beels
Open Source Bridge

reid at opensourcebridge.org
http://opensourcebridge.org/

CONFERENCE PASS RAFFLE INFORMATION:

You get one free conference pass to raffle off to a member of your  
group!

We’ve found the most successful raffles tend to follow these conditions:

1) Let all of your members know about the conference, dates, and URL: http://opensourcebridge.org/
2) Allow anyone in the group to sign up for the raffle.
3) Draw the winner at random, preferably at a public meeting.

When you have selected a winner, email  
usergroups at opensourcebridge.org, CC the winner, and we’ll register  
them for you.

DETAILS TO SHARE WITH YOUR GROUP’S MEMBERS:

Open Source Bridge
http://opensourcebridge.org

Open Source Bridge is a new conference for developers working with  
open source technologies. It will take place June 17-19 in Portland,  
OR, with five tracks connecting people across projects, languages and  
experience to explore how we do our work and why we participate in  
open source. The conference structure is designed to provide  
developers with an opportunity to learn from people they might not  
connect with at other events.

Open Source Bridge is run entirely by volunteers who believe in the  
need for an open source conference that focuses on the culture of  
being an open source citizen, regardless of where in the stack you  
choose to code. All proceeds from conference registration and  
sponsorship go directly to the costs of the conference.

Our sessions and events will share in-depth knowledge about using,  
creating and contributing to open source as citizens of a greater  
community. You’ll find relevant information whether you write web apps  
for the cloud, tinker with operating system internals, create  
hardware, run a startup, or blog about technology.

We're still seeking proposals — and just extended the deadline to  
April 10th — so submit yours before time runs out.

Some examples of our proposals so far: Brian Aker on Drizzle, a reboot  
of MySQL designed “for the cloud”; Linux Kernel hacker Greg K-H about  
how Linux manages development; Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki,  
about what’s next in collaboration; Amber Case, an anthropologist  
living in both the physical and virtual worlds, about Cyborg  
Citizenship. (You can view all current proposals at http://opensourcebridge.org/proposals/)

In addition to regular conference sessions, we will hold an  
unconference day for free-form sessions, and host a 24-hour dedicated  
“hacker lounge” at the top of the Portland Hilton. In addition to  
hosting the hacker lounge, the Hilton has offered Open Source Bridge  
attendees steeply discounted room rates, starting at $139/night.

The city of Portland is a great place to visit. It has a thriving  
technical community, a love of all things open source and offers many  
attractions for visiting geeks, including Powell’s technical books,  
dozens of local brewpubs, and large greenspaces like Forest Park—all  
accessible by mass transit.

Visit http://opensourcebridge.org/ to learn more about the conference,  
see our session proposals, and register to attend.

Thanks!

PS: Interested in taking advantage of the user group discount code  
that will allow user group members to register for $150? Enter  
“osb4228” when you register to receive the discount.