So, why exactly is the VLC icon a traffic cone? Ha, if you thought the answer was easily forthcoming, you have another thing coming. Ludovic Fauvet will be giving the talk VideoLAN, VLS and its distribution infrastructure on SCALE 13x Sunday at 11:30. He will divulge why during the talk. The SCALE Team interviewed Ludovic and here's what he had to say.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Rich Bowen, who will be giving the Intro to OpenStack talk at 11:30 on SCALE 13x Saturday, plans to give attendees a look at how all the various moving pieces of OpenStack fit together. Rich took a few minutes with the SCALE Team to answer some questions about his presentation.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Max Mether is giving a talk on Sharding Your Data with Spider. No, not with the arachnid, but with the Spider Storage Engine. The SCALE Team caught up with Max and asked him a few questions about his presentation, which is being given on SCALE 13x Saturday at 1:30.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

If you were to ask, "Which topic will be the most controversial at SCALE 13x?" Tarus Balog's "Open Source is Dead - And This May Be a Good Thing" talk would probably be up there on the list. Tarus gives his talk at 11:30 on SCALE 13x Saturday, and the SCALE Team caught up with him to ask him why he feels Open Source has no pulse.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Over the years, Don Marti has never had a shortage of interesting material to present at SCALE. And SCALE 13x is no exception, as Don will regale us with tales of Showing Off Your Software with a Great Demo System, on SCALE 13x Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Rest assured that his presentation will be far more than one minute of setup and 44 minutes of Creative Commons photos, as the SCALE Team interview explains below.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Jenn Greenaway has the unique distinciton of being present for 10 SCALEs -- probably a record for those who are speaking at SCALE 13x. Jenn is speaking on "Building a Better Brain" on Saturday SCALE 13x at 11:30 a.m. The SCALE Team caught up with Jenn and asked her a few questions about her talk.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

SCALE 13x welcomes Stephanie Lockwood-Childs, who will speak on "A Tale of Two Build Systems: Buildroot and OpenEmbedded" on Saturday SCALE 13x at 4:30. The SCALE Team took a few minutes to talk with Stephanie about Linux and Munchkin.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Josh Berkus, another SCALE veteran, brings his wealth of PostgreSQL expertise to SCALE 13x in presenting "Shootout at the AWS Corral" on Sunday SCALE 13x at 3 p.m. The SCALE Team caught up with Josh, who talked about ongoing progress with his benchmarking project and what he plans to report at SCALE and subsequent upcoming FOSS shows.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Alison Chaiken returns to speak at SCALE 13x this year, giving a talk on "systemd for Developers" on SCALE 13x Saturday at 11:30 a.m. The SCALE Team caught up with Alison for a brief interview, which touches on the types of sessions at SCALE as well as beer-soaked Dance Dance Revolution sessions. To find out more, read on.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

Dave Stokes makes another speaking appearance at SCALE this year, giving a talk on "The Proper Care and Feeding of a MySQL Server for Busy Linux Admins" on SCALE 13x Sunday sessions at 3 p.m. The SCALE Team caught up with David and here's what he had to say about his talk, SCALE, and lunchtime at Carl's Jr.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?