Call for papers: OOoCon2007

 

The 2007 OpenOffice.org International Conference will be held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain on 19th-21st September. See the Conference website: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007

The OpenOffice.org Community invites potential speakers to submit proposals for papers. Whether you are a seasoned presenter, or have never stood up in public before, if you have something interesting to share about OpenOffice.org - we want to hear from you.

Your proposal should be submitted before 1 June 2007 in order to guarantee that it will be considered for inclusion in the Conference.

We are soliciting papers from the broad OpenOffice.org community on topics ranging from developing OpenOffice.org to marketing it; from the global politics of the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement to the technical challenges of localization. This conference is meant to be a forum for technical as well as general examinations of OpenOffice.org's place in the expanding world of FOSS.

Covered topics

The conference will be organized into the following streams:

General

• OpenOffice.org 3.0
• Commercializing, integrating, and supporting OpenOffice.org
• Migration methodology
• Marketing
• Branding and artwork
• Funding the project, defining the product, and extending it
• Attracting people (programmers, documentation writers, linguists, support, marketing...)
• The OpenOffice.org Community: Past, Present and Future

Native-Languages

• More than translation: building local language communities
• Tools and techniques for localisations
• The OpenOffice.org Release Process

Public Administration

• Case studies of OpenOffice.org in Government, Local, National, supra-national...
• Government support of OpenOffice.org (and FOSS in general)
• Collaboration of PA in developing, deploying and using OpenOffice.org

Enterprises

• Case studies of OpenOffice.org in private sector (SME - Small to Medium-sized Enterprise)
• Building a successful business around OpenOffice.org (training, migration, support, development of extensions, technical authors...)
• System integration with OpenOffice.org (ODF, UNO, API, extensions)

Development

• The source and how to work with it
• The Roadmap
• Tools for development
• Integration and localization
• UNO and what it can do
• QA, user interface, and development processes
• Macros and installers
• Extensions
• Filters and other topics....

XML & OASIS OpenDocument Format

• OASIS OpenDocument XML format
• Introduction to XML
• Examples of XML technology
• XML: bridge between OpenOffice.org and other tools

How to submit a Proposal

Note. As the OpenOffice.org community consists of members from countries all over the world the talk must be in English.

Please limit your presentation to 50 minutes, including questions.

Submissions must be made via the link on the Conference website. The link will be available on Monday 2nd April and your proposal (abstract) must be submitted before 1st June in order to be considered for inclusion in the Conference.

Types of Session

A presentation is a general discussion of some topic, including (but not limited to) the software, the community, relationships with other software or communities, and political or philosophical issues.

A case study is a specific type of presentation that tells what you did to achieve some result; this is usually a success story, but could include a discussion of what mistakes you made and how you overcame them.

A workshop is a"how-to"session, in which the presenter gives step-by-step instructions for doing some task such as writing macros, setting up a database, or developing a complex spreadsheet. Workshops usually include some audience activities.

A BoF (Birds of a Feather meeting) is an informal gathering of people in a particular group, or interested in a specific topic. Examples include the members of a native-language group, the marketing project, documentation writers, or Macintosh coders.

A panel discussion involves a group of people (usually 3 or 4) led by a moderator. The participants make opening and closing statements on the topic, may discuss the topic among themselves, and may answer questions from the audience (usually submitted in advance).

A lightning talk is a brief presentation on any topic relevant to the conference. It could be an interesting format to give many people the chance to make their point in a series of exactly 5 minute slots.

Travel Subsidy

The template for paper submission includes a section for requesting a travel subsidy. At this point we are not in a position to offer funding for all speakers, and those speakers who do get a subsidy are unlikely to have their full expenses covered. Each request will be considered on the basis of both merit and need, so if you are requesting a subsidy, please give as much information as possible to help us evaluate your request. Please note that someone presenting only a lightning talk is unlikely to receive assistance.

Presentation Materials

An OpenOffice.org Impress template recommended for use for the conference presentations will be published around 1 June 2007. All speakers are required to file a copy of their presentations with the Conference organisers. These presentations will be filed on the Conference website.

Please note that your session may be streamed as a live broadcast and may be recorded and made available for download from the Conference website.

... and keep a watch on http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/ for more information ...

We look forward to receiving your proposals.