ATTENTION: Due to the situation by COVID-19, the celebration of esLibre 2020 will finally take place completely online. More information here.

Call for papers esLibre 2020

You can find a Spanish version of this text here.

Please forward this call for papers to anyone who might find it interesting.

¡Call for contributions open again, for the online conference! Check the new deadlines.

The esLibre congress is a meeting of people interested in free technologies, focused on sharing knowledge and experience around them. The next edition will be held online, broadcasting from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid) on 18th and 19th September 2020.

In esLibre we try to have an annual congress that recovers and maintains the ideas of the community, in which we can take advantage of the experience of the old glories and the desire of new people. We want to achieve a technical environment, but one that does not forget, and explains, how important it is for technology to be free.

We also want to open the congress to a wider community interested in free culture, perhaps with less focus on technology, but with equal interest in sharing.

Theme

Free software is the main theme of esLibre. It also covers other free technologies (for example, free hardware), and the less technological world of free knowledge. In general, topics directly related to works (software, hardware, cultural works, etc.) that are distributed under free licenses , according to OSI definition of open source or the FSF definition of free software, or that meet the definition of free cultural work are considered to fit perfectly into esLibre.

Although many free software, and free works are distributed commercially, we want to maintain esLibre as a forum that is neutral towards commercial issues. In general, we will not accept papers, workshops or rooms that specifically promote a commercial deal.

Types of contributions

There are different types of contributions that you can propose:

• Lecture. Standard presentation, in a conventional format (approximately 20 minutes) or in a lightning one (approximately 10 minutes). The organization will be able to propose changes in the format of any of the talks, for organizational reasons or due to the content. As an exception, a longer format may be proposed for a talk.
• Room (devroom). Organization of the program of a room, which will run in parallel with other activities of the congress. Normally a room will be organized by and/or for a community, and will usually be specialized in one topic (although it can also be generalist). Just as an example, in 2019 we had the following rooms: Free Software at the University; Privacy, Decentralization and Digital Sovereignty; Perl; Computer Science and Math.
• Workshop. Practical presentation, "hands on". It can be in many formats, from demonstrations that attendees can follow, to introductory sessions to a technology, where attendees can experiment with it.
• Another one. Use your imagination! Propose other formats, we are interested in exploring other ways of sharing knowledge.

In the template to propose each type of contribution you can find more details

Dates and deadlines

• Deadline for proposals for talks, workshops, rooms and others: August 31st
• Deadline for room program: August 31st (room program should be ready by this deadline)
• esLibrecongress: 18th and 19th September

All dates are at 23:59 (Madrid time).

How to propose your contribution

Call for papers is open to everyone. The way to propose a contribution will be through a merge request (pull request) in this repository.

For each type of contribution you have a template in the root folder of the repository. Copy it to the current year's folder, within the corresponding subfolder (talks, rooms, etc.). Use a file name that is not already used, and that reflects the title of your proposal. Fill it in and make a merge request that includes it to propose your activity.

Anyone will be able to see these proposals, and if they want, comment on them. The organization of esLibre will comment and accept (or not) those that seem convenient, according to your idea about the congress. If you propose a contribution, be alert to the comments you may receive, they might include questions and requests for clarification that might be convenient to answer.

If you have problems of any kind, or don't know how to open a merge request, please open an issue in this repository. In order to do this, you'll need to use a GitLab account.

You can also get the corresponding template from the proposals repository (template-talk.md, etc.), fill it in, and send it via email to propuestas@eslib.re, writing as subject the title of the proposal, and in the first line of the message, your GitLab user (so that we can mention you when we open a merge request in your name, so that you can more easily see any comment it may receive).