Ubuntu Live 2008 In Portland Oregon Cancelled

Those of you who were planning a little trip to Portland, Oregon in July for the Ubuntu Live conference will be a little disappointed to learn that it has been cancelled.

Organisers of the conference contacted speakers earlier in the week and informed them of the cancellation and the Ubuntu Live website was updated shortly after.

If you’ve already taken care of your travel arrangements, don’t despair because all is not lost. For the second year running (and it’s only the second time it’s been held), Ubuntu Live was scheduled to take place at the same time and in the same place as the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON). O’Reilly Open Source is in it’s 9th year and this year will see the conference take place in Oregon for the fifth consecutive year.

Boasting 750 visitors last year, the Ubuntu Live attendance list was a little more modest than that of OSCON (its website invites us to join 2,500 open source developers, hackers, experts, IT managers, and users). Ubuntu Live is co-presented by Canonical and O’Reilly Conferences so it could be that they just decided to capitalise on visitors by amalgamating the two.

Reasons for the cancellation of this year’s conference have yet to be clarified by Ubuntu (other than saying it will better suit those wishing to attend OSCON), however we do know that many of the speakers will be incorporated into OSCON, although the whos and wheres of which speakers to be included have yet to be announced.

We received a statement from Canonical saying as much and their website encouraged attendees to keep an eye on things at www.ubuntu.com for updates on Ubuntu at the OSCON event.

"We have decided to replace this year’s Ubuntu Live conference — which was scheduled for July 21-22 in Portland, OR — with added content at the OSCON event, scheduled July 21-25 in the same location, as well as with several regional events in North America and Europe (more to come later). We believe this new structure will better suit people travelling to Oregon for OSCON anyway and also those who could not see us there at that time. All registered attendees, speakers and press have been contacted by O’Reilly with details of refunds or equivalent offers."

This year’s OSCON will, for the first time, include a one-day event called Open Mobile Exchange, which dedicated to "exploring the nexus of where mobile meets business, technology, the Web, and open source".

Ubuntu Live 2008
OSCON 2008
Open Mobile Exchange