The
Ottawa Linux Symposium (
OLS) is a
hardcore technical conference held annually in the capital of
Canada,
Ottawa. Targetted at
kernel hackers and other
hackers working on
GNU/Linux infrastructure, the conference draws about 500 people to
Ottawa each year.
Organized by Andrew Hutton, the conference is in its 5th year of bringing together the core of
Linux development. There is no
showroom floor, and the
commercial presence is at a minimum. This is strictly a by
hackers for
hackers conference,
papers are presented in three or four rooms, with a
salon area full of
terminals for
socializing and
email.
Additionally, there are usually a number of
birds of a feather sessions (
BOFs) held, since many
hackers who work on various
subsystems are generally present, allowing for
face to face discussion, as opposed to the normal conversation on the
mailing list. Also, beginning in
2002, a number of
tutorials have been run on topics like configuring
FreeS/WAN and
compilers.
All in all, it is a very well rounded experience, held over four days in
July (except
2002's was in June). Papers presented range on topics from the
kernel, to
hardware, to
glibc, to
userspace things like
X,
KDE, and
GNOME. There is truly something for everyone interested in
Linux
References:
Being present at the event
http://www.linuxsymposium.org/ --- OLS website