The announcement arriving today from New Zealand is a lot like a birth announcement. It's been nine months in the making, reveals all the vital statistics, and encourages everyone to come and visit. In that spirit, we are pleased to announce the arrival of the conference schedule for the 2010 linux.conf.au.

It was in January, even before the 2009 conference had ended, that our coverage of the 2010 event began. First up was the announcement that, despite the .au, 2010 would see conference participants converge on Wellington, New Zealand, the second visit down the kiwi aisle.

With July came the opportunity to play ones own part, by answering the conference's call for papers, something the Linux and Open Source community did in droves, resulting in over 300 proposals for the "Capital Cabal" to work their way through. By August, organizers had made it though the miniconf submissions, announcing the fourteen sessions participants will have the opportunity to attend.

Now comes the biggest announcement of all, the official conference schedule, covering talks, keynote addresses, and the above-mentioned fourteen miniconfs. As the talks alone run to over sixty-five options, there isn't enough space to list the full list here, but highlights include:

• Jonathan Corbet's The Kernel Report
• Linux Journal's own Glyn Moody offering Thursday morning's keynote address
• Matthew Garrett's Making yourself popular: a guide to social success in (and for) the Linux community
• Angela Byron's Drupal Under the Hood
• Jonathan Oxer's Tux on the Moon: FOSS hardware and software in space
• Andrew Tridgell's Patent defence for free software

Of course, there is much more to be seen, as well as the always-popular Open Day, to be held from 11:00AM - 2:00PM on Saturday and, as the name suggests, is open to the public at no charge. There are also a number of social events, including the notorious Penguin Dinner, perhaps most infamous for being the venue at which developer-in-chief Linus Torvalds personally shaved off HP Linux CTO Bdale Garbee's twenty-seven-year-old beard in exchange for $25,000. (Donated to the Devil Facial Tumor Program, dedicated to saving the iconic Tasmanian Devil from cancer-induced extinction.)

Full details of the week's events are available from the Conference Schedule on the linux.conf.au site. Registration for the conference is expected to open in mid-to-late September.