There are plenty of Linux & Open Source conferences each year for the enthused enthusiast to choose from — LinuxWorld, OSCON, Linux.conf.au to name just a few — but curiously, nothing open to the average user from the bastion of Linux advocacy, the Linux Foundation. That is until now, as the LF has recently announced it will be sponsoring an open-attendance conference of it's own starting next year.

The event — dubbed "LinuxCon" — will premier in September 2009, departing from the foundation's existing events, which have traditionally been by invitation-only. The conference will be held in Portland, Oregon — which interestingly enough just lost OSCON to Silicon Valley — and will offer all the features attendees have come to expect from a convention: keynotes, summits, tutorials and technical sessions as well as a tech showcase. The event is scheduled to occur simultaneously with the 2009 Linux Plumbers Conference, which debuted this year to great success.

The move is consistent with other recent steps by the Foundation to attract and integrate individual users in addition to the large corporate bodies that have traditionally made up its membership. The foundation is holding its first-ever (invitation-only) End-User Collaboration Summit next month, and began accepting individual members earlier this month, offering single users a $49 membership level — a far cry from the minimum $5,000 level for institutional members. The announcement also falls on the heels of comments from Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin on Sun's Solaris operating system, comments which have drawn sharp criticism from Linux users and outside groups alike.