The organising committee for Linux.conf.au (LCA) have finalised the program for the conference to be held at the University of Tasmania's Sandy Bay campus from January 19-24.

Co-organiser Ben Powell said the technical committee had whittled down over 200 submissions to 75 presentations and tutorials, and 11 mini-confs.

“It was amazingly hard. Initially when I was looking through the submissions I felt like a kid in a candy store. One thing that really surprised me was the breadth of submissions that were sent in - everything from business oriented ones all the way through to the hardcore technical stuff,” he said.

According to Powell, the presentations will cover typical Linux.conf.au topics like kernel development, hardware hacking, robotics, gaming, Linux in the enterprise, multimedia and topical happenings in the open source world.

“I think we’ve managed to capture most of the stuff going on in the open source community at the moment. If you think of things that are happening that are new and exciting, especially recently, you will probably find a presentation that has been accepted covering that,” he said.

Powell was unable to specify the final lineup of presentations as confirmation is still being sought from accepted presenters. But he did detail the 11 mini-confs that will take place.

“There’s one on open source databases; the Linux Kernel; system administration, virtualization; a Linux Chicks conference; Myth TV; general Linux gaming; mobile devices; multimedia; one called 'Free As In Freedom' which is of course about the philosophy of open source; and there’s one on the business of open source software, which is becoming more and more important for developers to understand the business side of things as large commercial players get involved.”

Three international keynotes are expected to present at LCA, whose topics will cast a broad net over the open source world.

“They are not really hardcore technical talks I suppose. We’ve gone down the path that all of the keynotes are something that everyone would be interested in, whether you are a kernel hacker, a lawyer, involved in community advocacy or anything else that encompasses the open source community,” Powell said.

LCA’s organisers are also adding an artistic flair to the event, bringing in a group of artists that are part of a new wave of communal art in line with FOSS philosophies.

“There is a movement in the art community to go towards a more collaborative approach to producing art, coming away from that sort of modernist view of ‘artist goes into art studio, produces art, displays it publicly, we watch or look and try and work out what it all means’ and to actually engage with the audience. We thought it sounded like a good fit between the two philosophies.”

Powell said around 750 attendees are expected to descend on the Apple Isle for LCA.

More information can be found on the Linux.conf.au Web site.