CIQ at SCaLE 23x Trip Report

Southern California Linux Expo | Pasadena, CA

Sunshine, warm weather, and community! SCaLE 23x was everything we had been told to expect, and it delivered. Described by multiple attendees as one of the largest and most important open source gatherings in the US, it brought together a wide range of projects, companies, and contributors under one roof, exactly the kind of event where CIQ belongs.

300+ badge scans at our booth | 2 talks delivered by CIQ | 1 sponsored workshop

Reconnecting

On Thursday before booth setup, Michael attended the keynote for AstriCon. Then on Friday, he attended a few talks in the morning. At this parallel event, he was able to meet in person for the first time and reconnect with members from the Asterisk open source community. The talks on Friday centered around AI and how it is being used with Asterisk, an open source framework for communication applications. By being present and reconnecting, we were able to have further discussions over the following days. We received some of the members at our booth. The Asterisk / FreePBX members had a booth on the expo floor. We were able to interact with the team some more, talking about potentials such as the potential of adding Rocky Linux as a distribution that they support in addition to Debian.

A few individuals from this parallel event attended the workshop that we sponsored. This strengthens our connections into other communities that were holding their events at the same time.

After attending the talks at AstriCon, Michael headed over to Fedora Hatch. He was able to participate in a discussion with the community around Fedora documentation and improvements. Another topic that was covered in the form of a talk was around Atomic Desktops. This was a theme of many talks throughout the event as well, that of bootc and Atomic Desktops.

Connections and community

One of the clearest outcomes of this year's event was the strength of the relationships built on the floor. CIQ team members had productive conversations with representatives from Microsoft, Meta, Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, RESF, AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, RISC-V, OpenSearch, the Linux Professional Institute, and more. Several of those conversations led to concrete follow-ups, including progress on a Board-level initiative around automating cloud image uploads!

We also did our part to be good neighbors on the expo floor. We picked up a couple dozen donuts and shared them with the exhibitors around us, which turned out to be a great icebreaker.

The connections did not stop when the expo floor closed. Community Game Night brought together attendees, families, and kids for food, drinks, and a little friendly competition. There was Laser Tag, people brought their own games, and personally, Michael and Eric were humbled in a brutal couple of rounds of Uno No Mercy. It is exactly the kind of thing that reminds you why open source events are about more than the tech.

Swag demand was strong throughout the day, with hats, t-shirts, and mugs moving quickly, and booth traffic topped 300 badge scans over the course of the event.

Sessions at SCaLE 23x

CIQ was well represented on the program this year, with three sessions covering everything from security to sustainability in tech.

[Sponsored Workshop] Hardening Rocky Linux the Hard Way and the Easy Way with RLC-H Michael Young, Principal Systems Engineer

Hardening a Linux system is straightforward in concept and surprisingly complex in practice. Most teams rely on Ansible playbooks, custom scripts, and manual STIG checklists that are difficult to maintain and prone to drift over time. Michael's workshop took a practical, side-by-side look at the problem: starting from a fresh Rocky Linux install, walking through the manual hardening process, and then showing what RLC Pro Hardened delivers out of the box by design, not by configuration. Attendees of all experience levels were welcome, and the goal was an honest conversation about where the traditional DIY approach holds up and where a purpose-built hardened distribution changes the equation.

[Talk] Secure Boot: Getting to Know Your Frenemy Michael Young, Principal Systems Engineer

Secure Boot has been part of the UEFI spec since 2006, and it has been turned off during Linux installs almost as long. That is changing. As more environments require it and cloud adoption grows, ignoring Secure Boot is no longer an option. Michael's talk made the case for understanding it on its own terms rather than working around it.

[Talk] From Bash to Burnout: Staying Sane in a 24/7 Tech World Eric Hendricks, Technical Product Marketing Manager

Behind every uptime badge is a tired sysadmin. Eric opened up about the realities of burnout in IT and shared simple, practical ways to protect your time, energy, and love for the work you do.

Each session drew 20 to 30 attendees and sparked good conversations afterward, covering everything from product questions about RLC-H to broader discussions about industry challenges and real-world solutions. If you missed any of these sessions, you can find them on our SCaLE 23x YouTube playlist. And if Michael's hardening workshop sparks your curiosity about RLC-H, keep an eye on our YouTube channel for more.

See you at SCaLE 24x

The open source community is where CIQ's roots are, and events like SCaLE are where those relationships grow. We're looking forward to an even stronger presence next year.