Linux.conf.au


linux.conf.au is Australasia's regional Linux and Open Source conference. It is a roaming conference, held in a different Australian or New Zealand city every year, coordinated by Linux Australia and organised by local volunteers.
The conference is a non-profit event, with any surplus funds being used to seed the following year's conference and to support the Australian Linux and open source communities. The name is the conference's URL, using the uncommon second-level domain.conf.au.

Conference history

In 1999, Linux kernel hacker Rusty Russell organised the Conference of Australian Linux Users in Melbourne. The first conference held under the linux.conf.au name was held two years later in
Sydney. The conference is generally held in a different Australian city each time; although from 2006 onward, New Zealand cities have also been hosts.
EventDateVenue and host cityKeynote SpeakersResources
Jul 9 – Jul 11 1999Monash University
Melbourne
Victoria
Jon 'maddog' Hall
Jan 17 – Jan 20 2001University of New South Wales
Sydney
New South Wales
Alan Cox,
David Miller,
Andrew Tridgell
Feb 6 – Feb 9 2002University of Queensland
Brisbane
Queensland
Andrew Tridgell,
Jeremy Allison,
Michi Henning,
Theodore Tso
Jan 20 – Jan 25 2003University of Western Australia
Perth
Western Australia
Rusty Russell,
Bdale Garbee,
Andrew Tridgell
Jan 12 – Jan 17 2004University of Adelaide
Adelaide
South Australia
Bdale Garbee,
Jon 'maddog' Hall,
Havoc Pennington
Apr 18Apr 23 2005Australian National University
Canberra
Australian Capital Territory
Andrew Tridgell,
Andrew Morton,
Eben Moglen
Jan 23 – Jan 28 2006University of Otago
Dunedin
New Zealand
Mark Shuttleworth,
Damian Conway,
David Miller
Jan 15 – Jan 20 2007University of New South Wales
Sydney
New South Wales
Kathy Sierra,
Andrew S. Tanenbaum,
Chris Blizzard
Jan 28 – Feb 2 2008University of Melbourne
Melbourne
Victoria
Anthony Baxter,
Bruce Schneier,
Stormy Peters
Jan 19 – Jan 24 2009University of Tasmania
Hobart
Tasmania
Tom Limoncelli,
Angela Beesley,
Simon Phipps
Jan 18 – Jan 23 2010Wellington Convention Centre
Wellington
New Zealand
Benjamin Mako Hill,
Gabriella Coleman,
Nathan Torkington,
Glyn Moody
Jan 24 – Jan 29 2011Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane
Queensland
Mark Pesce,
Eric Allman,
Geoff Huston,
Vinton Cerf
Jan 16 – Jan 21 2012University of Ballarat,
Ballarat
Victoria
Karen Sandler,
Bruce Perens,
Paul Fenwick,
Jacob Appelbaum
Jan 28 – Feb 2 2013Australian National University
Canberra
Australian Capital Territory
Andrew Huang,
Radia Perlman,
Bdale Garbee,
Tim Berners-Lee
Jan 6 – Jan 10 2014University of Western Australia
Perth
Western Australia
Suelette Dreyfus,
Kate Chapman,
Matthew Garrett,
Jonathan Oxer
Jan 12 – Jan 16 2015University of Auckland
Auckland
New Zealand
Bob Young,
Linus Torvalds,
Eben Moglen
Feb 1 – Feb 5 2016Deakin University
Geelong
Victoria
Genevieve Bell,
Catarina Mota,
Jono Bacon,
George Fong
Jan 16 – Jan 20 2017Wrest Point Convention Centre
Hobart
Tasmania
Robert M. "r0ml" Lefkowitz,
Nadia Eghbal,
Pia Waugh,
Dan Callahan
Jan 22Jan 26 2018University of Technology Sydney
Sydney
New South Wales
Karen Sandler,
Jess Frazelle,
Matthew H. Todd,
Hugh Blemings
Jan 21 – Jan 25 2019University of Canterbury
Christchurch
New Zealand
Rory Aronson CEO FarmBot,
Dana Lewis OpenAPS,
Shannon Morse,
Rusty Russell
Jan 13 – Jan 17 2020Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre
Gold Coast
Queensland
Dr Sean Brady,
Donna Benjamin,
A/Prof Vanessa Teague,
Lizzie O’Shea
linux.conf.au 2021Jan 2021Virtual event
linux.conf.au 2022Jan 2022 Canberra
Australian Capital Territory

Highlights from past conferences include:
Since 2002, a key feature of the conference are the associated "miniconfs". These are half – 2 days streamed gatherings run before the main conference. They have their own programme, but are open for any conference attendee to participate in.
The first event to have a miniconf was in 2002, with the Debian Miniconf, organised by James Bromberger. This was based upon the idea that DebConf 1 in Bordeaux was a "mini-conf" of the French Libre Software Meeting. The concept grew in 2004, with the Open-Source in Government miniconf, EducationaLinux, Debian Miniconf and GNOME.conf.au. In 2010 the Arduino Miniconf was introduced by Jonathan Oxer, the author of Practical Arduino.
Miniconfs have included those devoted to computer programming, education, security, multimedia, arduino and system administration.