The Triple Crown of Linux conferences — if there is one — is surely the Linux Symposium, the Linux Kongress, and linux.conf.au. It was just a month ago that we passed on the message to LinuxJournal.com readers that the time to get their name on the Kongress program was nigh, and now it is time to do the same for the southernmost jewel in the crown.

Last year's linux.conf.au was a sight to behold. Linux Journal's Jes Hall was on the scene, reporting all the conference happenings to LinuxJournal.com readers, from preflight to highlights. The undisputed event to beat all events was a quite surprising turn of charitable events culminating with Developer-in-Chief Linus Torvalds shaving the beard off Bdale Garbee's face in exchange for a grand total of $32,500 — to save the iconic Tasmanian Devil from extinction. The cause continued even after the conference's close, with the 2.6.29 kernel cycle adopting Tuz, the conference's Devil-cum-Penguin mascot, to raise awareness of their plight.

Despite the .au moniker, this year's conference will be held in Wellington, New Zealand, the second time it has visited the kiwi isles. Conference organizers, on announcing the 2010 destination, said that the conference has grown to be more than an Australian Linux event, calling Wellington "an excellent location" to assemble in. Linux Australia President Stewart Smith at the time: "The Wellington team is dedicated, understands linux,conf.au and has a real passion to show us something really special in 2010."

At the heart of "something really special" are the presentations attendees will, well, attend. As with most Linux conferences, the selection of speakers follows an open call for papers, inviting those in the community to share their expertise. linux.conf.au organizers point out that the conference is not just about Linux, but about Open Source — a stroke of "double-departure," it seems, expanding the linux. and the .au to focus on the conf. Andrew Ruthven, director of the 2010 conference, commented: "We're proud of hosting LCA2010 in Wellington, New Zealand and look forward to seeing an exciting array of presentation and tutorial submissions, that not only educate our delegates but also challenge and motivate them."

Proposals, which must be submitted via the conference's online system, are encouraged to include the following (some, like a title and speaker information, are obligatory) [verbatim]:

• The title of your paper
• The type of paper: Presentation (45 minutes), or Tutorial (short - 1 hour and 45 minutes or long - 3 hours and 30 minutes)
• An abstract summarising your paper, up to 500 words
• Any special technical requirements
• The target audience: Business, Community, Developer or User
• The name of the project your paper relates to, including its URL
• A short video about your paper, the project it relates to and/or yourself
• Any additional files, including images, slides, etc
• Whether accommodation and/or travel assistance is required
• Information about you, including your name, phone number, homepage, biography and relevant experience
• Whether materials relating to your paper can be released under a Creative Commons ShareALike License

Additional guidelines, information about review and selection, and even a nice flowchart for deciding whether to propose can be found on the conference's paper information page. The call opened Monday (June 29) and will end on July 24 at the close of business, New Zealand time. (For those west of the Prime Meridian, that will likely be the middle of the night on July 23.) Inquiries are welcome at papers@lca2010.org.nz.

More information about the conference, which runs from January 18, 2010 - January 22, 2010, is available from the conference website.