When O'Reily decided to move OSCON, the famed annual open source conference, from Portland to San Jose this year, I was upset like many other folks and resigned myself to simply missing out on the chance to mingle with, and learn from, the best in the open source community. Others, however, decided to do something about the gap left in Portland's conference schedule and organized Open Source Bridge. According to the conference organizers,
Open Source Bridge is a completely volunteer-run conference for open source citizens held June 17-19 in Portland, Oregon. Focused on developers working with open source technologies, the event features five tracks connecting people across projects, languages, and backgrounds to explore how those developers approach their work, and why they 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.
Hats off to the organizing team; they have worked tirelessly to put together the event, and by the looks of the schedule, the end result promises to be amazing. On a personal note, I decided this was a good opportunity to cut my conference presentation chops and submitted a session on Drupal. I realized I needed a specific angle, and settled on the topic Drupal, What is it Good For, and was honored to have the talk accepted. My experience in building a wide range of sites, along with the many hours I've spent evaluating requirements for projects, gives me a decent foundation for the topic, although I also plan on doing plenty of homework in preparing the talk. If anyone who stumbles across this has any suggestions, they are very welcome!
Update: Here are the slides from my presentation: