The Utah Open Source Conference 2008 is a gathering of the best minds of open source in Utah. Providing the resources, concepts and community to help anyone succeed with free and open source software (FOSS). Community is the key to Utah's open source vibrancy and success. With so many successful local user groups (LUGs), Utah has shown its strength as one of the strongest open source technology communities. The concept of by, for and about Utah Open Source really rings true when technology, community, education and business meet at the Utah Open Source Conference 2008.
The main theme of the Utah Open Source Conference 2008 (UTOSC2008) is Howto... While this conference is by, for and about Utah's open source communities, we'd like to help those who aren't as familiar with our community come in and learn what we're about. To do this, we needed a more general focus on a better way of getting the technology to the community and business side, thus the Howto... theme was born.
UTOSC 2008 will consist of four main tracks; community, education, business and technology. These tracks will be available in three levels; Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced as well as Tutorials. These tracks and levels should be pretty self-explanatory and will provide a broader conference experience overall.
Estimated Attendance: 400+
Attendees Registered for UTOSC 2007: 263
Audience Profile: UTOSC 2008 will again focus on community and business leaders, user group communities, system administrators, programmers, hobbyists.
UTOSC 2008 Focus
The goal is growth in the open source community within Utah by creating new groups or growing current groups who discuss or use open source. The focus however, must be expanded to help us accomplish the above goal. Provide an environment where business folks can benefit from the knowledge of how to leverage open source software in their business environment. Educational institutions can learn how to adopt open source into their schools and classrooms. In addition, teachers and administrators can learn about the plethora of available open source educational software.
Family Day
A new focus this year will be to bring family members of the geek and provide them with a broader understanding of the available free and open source tools. This also might provide insight into the minds of those who like to geek out. In addition, those in your office that struggle with the concept of free software or need a little bit of education on that newly adopted open source tool, UTOSC2008 is the place for them.