Registration Materials

Call for Papers
in PDF Format

XFree86 Technical Conference

November 8-9, 2001
Oakland Convention Center, Oakland, California, USA
(Co-located with the 5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference)

Conference Organizers
Program Chair
Keith Packard, SuSE

Program Committee
Stuart Anderson, Metro Link, Inc.
David Dawes, VA Linux Systems
Jim Gettys, Compaq
Kurt Granroth, SuSE
Federico Mena Quintero, Ximian
Owen Taylor, Redhat
Cristian Tibirna, KDE

Overview
For the first time, the XFree86 development community will come together in Oakland for a technical conference centered on the X Window System. With the rapid pace of desktop application development for open source operating systems, the XFree86 Technical Conference will provide a forum to learn about exciting new advances in many areas -- from video drivers to application development and everything in between. If you are a developer building applications and systems using XFree86, the XFree86 Technical Conference is one event you'll want to be sure to attend.

This year, the XFree86 Technical Conference will run concurrently with the 5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference in Oakland, California. The Conference combines technical talks, Birds-of-a-feather sessions, tutorials, and working groups providing opportunities for attendees at every level.

Technical Sessions, November 8, 2001
A full day of technical sessions feature refereed talks by people working in every area of the user interface. Talks can win valuable cash and prizes. Papers can be published in the Proceedings provided to conference attendees in print and on CD-ROM. Refereed talks present problems, technologies and solutions in all areas of XFree86 development, deployment and use.

The XFree86 Technical Conference seeks talks on topics relating to the X Window System at all levels; the base window system, toolkits, user environments, and applications build using these technologies. Topics of interest include:

• User interface design
• New graphics techniques
• Application development tools
• Inter application communication
• Desktop environments
• Multimedia

Selection will be based on the quality of the submission and whether the work will be of interest to the wider XFree86 community. Please see the detailed author guidelines on the Web site, including sample proposals.

Best Presentation Awards
The USENIX Association will award cash prizes at the conference for the best presentation and the best presentation by a student.

Financial Assistance
Some financial assistance is available for speaker travel and accommodation in cases of need. All speakers will receive free admission to both the XFree86 Technical Conference and the 5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference.

How To Submit
Submissions should be a one or two page abstract describing the work and results. They should demonstrate that:

• The work is of interest to the XFree86 community
• The work is of significant technical merit
• The work relates to an active project
• Enough progress has been made to provide useful information

Proposals must be received by July 13, 2001 (This is an extension from July 3). Proposals should be submitted electronically in ASCII format via this Web form OR email to the program chair at conference@xfree86.org.

Include appropriate references to establish that you are familiar with related work, and where possible, provide detailed data to establish that you have a working implementation or measurement tool. Submissions will be judged on the quality of the written submission, and whether or not the work advances the state-of-the-art of XFree86. Talks of a business development or marketing nature are not appropriate for submittal.

Proposals submitted to the XFree86 Technical Conference should contain new work, not previously presented at other conferences. Likewise, accepted talks shouldn't be presented at other conferences afterwards without new art. All submissions should be considered 'open source' and as such non-disclosure agreements and other limits will be dismissed or the submissions rejected.

Speakers will be notified by July 23, 2001. All accepted submissions are encouraged to produce a final paper for the proceedings by the September 14, 2001 deadline. These papers need not be polished, but they should describe work that has been completed as of the time of their submission. The purpose of your paper is to let readers and attendees know what you are doing. Members of the program committee are available to help shepherd authors through the writing process prior to final acceptance for publication in the proceedings.

The final paper, if submitted, must be provided for publication in the conference proceedings and electronic files for the conference Web site. Final papers are limited to 12 pages, including diagrams, figures, and appendices. It is understood that the state of the art advances at a rapid pace. Presentations should, where possible, take into account changes after the publications due date.

Please see the detailed author guidelines, including sample extended abstracts and final papers. To discuss potential submissions and for inquiries regarding the content of the conference program, contact the program chair at: conference@xfree86.org

Tutorials, November 7, 2001
The XFree86 Technical Conference offers full and half-day tutorials on a range of topics related to XFree86 development, deployment, and use.

To provide the best possible tutorial offerings, we continually solicit proposals for new tutorials. If you are interested in presenting a tutorial, please send email to: tutorials@xfree86.org.

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions
Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (BoFs) are very informal gatherings organized by attendees for attendees interested in a particular topic. BoFs are held in the evenings and may be scheduled in advance by sending email to bofs@xfree86.org or at the conference.

Working Groups
Working group sessions bring participants in active research and development projects together for face-to-face meetings. We are particularily interested in seeing working groups established to foster interoperability and innovation. Working group sessions can be scheduled any time immediately preceding or during the conference. Sessions should be scheduled in advance by sending email to the conference chair at: conference@xfree86.org. We will also make efforts to accomodate working group sessions not scheduled ahead of time, either as extended BoFs or spontaneous meetings.

Registration Materials
Complete program and registration information will be available in August 2001 at the conference Web site. The information will be in both html and a printable PDF file.