Call For Proposals (CFP)

OpenSSF Community Days bring together a vibrant community from across the Security and Open Source ecosystems to share ideas and progress on capabilities that make it easier to sustainably secure the development, maintenance, and consumption of the software on which we all depend. These events, held regionally and co-located with Open Source Summits, offer an opportunity to engage with the brightest minds in security for a day of collaboration and innovation in software security best practices. As a home for tools, standards, and education, OpenSSF provides attendees the opportunity to explore these resources, share their experiences, and contribute to a safer, more secure digital world.

Please be aware that the Linux Foundation uses Sessionize for CFP submissions. Sessionize is a cloud-based event content management software designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. If you need guidance, please review how to submit your session for an event to see step-by-step instructions and helpful screenshots.

For OpenSSF Community Day Europe, we are adding conference sessions on Software Supply Chain Offensive Research and Ecosystem Defense (SCORED), in cooperation with ACM.

We invite academia, industry, and governmental entities to submit original research papers or security-in-practice talks concerning the security of software supply chains from both technical and policy perspectives.

Reminder: This is a community conference — so no product and/or vendor sales pitches.

• AI and ML in Security
• Regulatory Compliance
• Enhancing Security Tools
• Cyber Resilience
• Securing the Software Supply Chain
• Case studies and real-world experiences
• OSS Signatures and Verification
• Implementation Success Stories

Including, but not limited to:

• AI Supply Chain
• Reproducible Builds
• Privacy-enhancing technologies in the context of supply chain security
• Datasets and benchmarking (e.g, SBOM datasets, datasets for ML models)

View the full list of topic areas HERE.

• 5-minute Presentations
• 10-minute Presentations
• 15-minute Presentations
• 20-minute Presentations
• 25-minute Panel Presentation

Submissions in SCORED 2026 fall under two tracks: research papers and security-in-practice talks:

• Research papers: a) Original research on a software supply chain security topic, b) Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) of software supply chain security.
  • For the submission, the main content of the paper should fit into no more than 8 pages; references and appendices do not count towards this page limit. For final (accepted) version of papers, the total page count (including references and appendices) must fit into 10 pages.
  • Submissions in the research paper track must be a PDF file in double-column ACM format (see https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template, with a simpler version at https://github.com/acmccs/format). Note that reviewers are not required to read the appendices or any supplementary material. Authors should not change the font or the margins of the ACM format.
  • Accepted papers will be published by the ACM Press and/or the ACM Digital Library. A shepherd may be assigned to ensure the quality of the proceedings version of the submission. Each accepted submission must be presented at SCORED by a registered author.
• Security-in-practice talks: Focus is on presenting experiences and perspectives from industry, open-source, NGOs, or policymakers/law. Talks may discuss key challenges in risk management or adoption, recommend opportunities to address as a research topic, or project demos.
  • Submissions in the SIP talk track propose a 20-min one or two-speaker talk on a specific workshop topic. Submissions must include two parts: (1) an Abstract that provides a detailed and focused summary of the proposed talk (max 300 words), and (2) a “Relevance and Benefits to the Ecosystem” section that describes how the content of your presentation will help better the ecosystem or anything you wish to share with the program committee (max 500 words). These two sections must not exceed 2 pages, including any supplementary materials, figures, tables, and references.
  • Final versions of SIP talk abstracts must use the provided template to be included in the proceedings.
• Submissions accompanied by non-disclosure agreement forms will not be considered. Submissions that do not follow the required format may be rejected without review.

• All speakers are required to adhere to our Code of Conduct. We also highly recommend that speakers take our online Inclusive Speaker Orientation Course.
• Panel submissions must include the names of all participants in the initial submission to be considered. In addition, The Linux Foundation does not accept submissions with all-male panels in an effort to increase equity & inclusion.
• Complimentary Passes For Speakers – One complimentary pass for the event will be provided for the accepted speaker(s) per submission.
• Avoid sales or marketing pitches and discussing unlicensed or potentially closed-source technologies when preparing your proposal; these talks are almost always rejected due to the fact that they take away from the integrity of our events, and are rarely well-received by conference attendees.
• Reviewers must be able to confidently assess a speaker’s subject-matter expertise from the proposal. Submissions that rely heavily on AI-generated or templated content often lack the specificity needed to evaluate technical depth and may be harder to advance. Please ensure your proposal clearly reflects your own experience and understanding of the topic you intend to present.
• All accepted speakers are required to submit their slides before the event.

While it is not our intention to provide you with strict instructions on how to prepare your proposal, we hope you will take a moment to review the following guidelines that we have put together to help you prepare the best submission possible. To get started, here are three things that you should consider before submitting your proposal:

1. What are you hoping to get from your presentation?
2. What do you expect the audience to gain from your presentation?
3. How will your presentation help better the ecosystem?

There are plenty of ways to give a presentation about projects and technologies without focusing on company-specific efforts. Remember the things to consider that we mentioned above when writing your proposal and think of ways to make it interesting for attendees while still letting you share your experiences, educate the community about an issue, or generate interest in a project.

How to Give a Great Talk

We want to ensure submitters receive resources to help put together a great submission and, if accepted, give the best presentation possible. To help do this, we recommend viewing seasoned speaker Dawn Foster’s in-depth session titled Overcoming Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker!.

Have More Questions? First Time Submitting? Don’t Feel Intimidated

Linux Foundation events are an excellent way to get to know the community and share your ideas and the work you are doing, and we strongly encourage first-time speakers to submit talks for our events. If you aren’t sure about your abstract, reach out to us, and we will be more than happy to work with you on your proposal.

The Linux Foundation and its project communities are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for participants at all of our events. We encourage all submitters to review our complete Code of Conduct.

For questions about the CFP process, please contact [email protected].