I’ve been a bit of a distro-hopper over the last year, but as I started interviewing at Novell earlier this year I started using openSUSE so I could pretend to know what I was talking about if it came up during the interview process.

I’ve been really happy with openSUSE – each distro has their quirks but there’s a number of things (especially the openSUSE Build Service!) it does well.

I’ve also enjoyed lurking in the openSUSE GNOME community. When I’ve been stuck with something I’ve gotten quick answers and they’ve been very welcoming. (Well, except Vincent – he took one look at what I did to my laptop at the Marketing hackfest and ran away. Ok, that’s not true, he fixed it as he usually does).

One of the cool things the openSUSE community is doing is organizing the second annual openSUSE conference later this year from October 21st – 23rd in Nuremberg, Germany.

The theme is “Collaboration Across Borders” and this goes beyond just openSUSE – one of the tracks being tentatively planned is called “Cross Pollination” and the goal is to have multiple distributions and upstream projects under one roof. There will be open discussions and meetings, presentations and maybe even some hacking together. (For those of you hoping for a cagematch fight, sorry!)

Potential topics could include anything from accessibility to how to handle zealots in your community to what holds a project back to brainstorming about how closed competition might do better and how our projects can improve.

If this sounds like something you may be interested in presenting at – no matter what distribution you may use or support – distributions and upstream projects welcome! – email cfp@opensuse.org to propose a talk.

Thanks to FunkyPenguin aka awafaa for passing this along.