I was disappointed by OSCON’s move to San Jose starting this year. Their official justification was nonsense — basically, O’Reilly expects infinite growth forever, and thinks that bigger is better.
As a happy northwestern transplant, I wish O’Reilly lots of luck with infinite growth in this economy. And with San Jose’s higher costs of everything, concrete everywhere, more traffic everywhere, poorer air quality, and general suckitude. Personally, I’d rather have my arms gnawed off by mutant radioactive weasels than be in San Jose.
Well. Into the vacuum comes Open Source Bridge, a result of Portland geek natives taking matters into their own hands and creating an OSS conference to replace OSCON. It’s being held June 17 – 19 at the Oregon Convention Center. They already have 13 talk proposals.
I’m rooting for Open Source Bridge. I’ve signed up to be a volunteer, and I’ve registered this morning. Have you, and will you?
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Updated 2/26/09: Replaced a very coarse adjective with one less so.
Updated 2/26/09: They just opened registration, and I updated this accordingly.
Seek Nuance 
Thanks for your support of Open Source Bridge. We’re very excited to be creating an opportunity for open source geeks to come back to Portland this summer.