Nominations for the 2000 Beanies

We've had a fair amount of nominations for the Slashdot 2000 Beanie Awards, but we'd love to get more, so head over to the nomination booth. For those who missed our initial release, Andover and Slashdot will be giving away $100,000 to deserving Open Source people and projects at LinuxWorld. Nominations end this Friday, with voting starting on Monday. Check out initial story for more details, or the discussion boards for the conversation.

Comments

People, please read the category list

[Kurt Gray]

I'm going to abuse my Karma here and point out some things that people seem to be overlooking judging from various comments being posted:

1. You don't have to nominate just Linux projects. Even the "Kernel Module" category could mean a BSD module. None of the categories explicately say "Linux" so if you feel your favorite project is being overlooked then post an argument for it in the nomination forums so others will be persuaded to vote with you.

2. Please read the category list before suggesting that mod_perl be named "Most Deserving of $2000" because you will notice there is a category called "Best Apache Module". I see some nomination ideas being posted in entirely the wrong category.

3. Don't be afraid to nominate a charity or anyone outside of the computer realm for "Most Deserving of $2000". It's wide open to suggestions. Post your suggestions in the approprate forum where others can follow your lead. Be creative.

Linux DVD

[FreeUser]

My vote for "most improved open source projec" is for Linux DVD.

The entire project has gone from being a pipe dream to allowing one to play movies under Linux, whether or not they've been encrypted with css, in an amazingly short time, both in software and with some hardware (e.g. DXR2, Matrox G400).

Furthermore, DVD playback is a feature that is very important if Linux is to ever be a serious desktop contender against Windows (which I believe it to be -- we use it on our desktops at work and at home). The project still has allot of work ahead of it to allow my grandmother to play DVDs under Linux without being a UNIX guru, but its strides to date have been very remarkable.

Finally, the project is under ongoing attack by legal thugs at the behest of the DVD Forum in much the same way DeCSS is (the author of css-auth, the utility which allows Livid's Linux DVD utilities to play back encrypted movies, was forced to hand off the project to someone else after being threatened with legal action in the UK). In a "bang for buck" analysis I like the return to the Open Source community, especially the Linux and FreeBSD communities, from a donation to this project deserves consideration:

Help with legal defense of developers when required

Hardware for developers to work on (new DVD players, decoder cards, etc.)

While not the only deserving project by any means, DVD playback is an important one, and IMHO worthy of consideration.

NOTE: I am not affiliated with Livid in any way, except as an enthusiastic user who enjoys watching DVD's on his Linux box. I guess that would make me a "consumer"/"beta-tester" for the project, at most.

X11 of course!

[jstepka]

We all know it, XFree86

XFree86 is a freely redistributable implementation of the X Window System that runs on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems (and OS/2). The XFree86 Project has traditionally focused on Intel x86-based platforms (which is where the `86' in our name comes from), but our current release also supports other platforms. One of our current goals is to increase the range of platforms that XFree86 runs on.

This project does, and continues to be everything we need. With out these programmers *nix would be sitting in the dust of Microsoft. Version 4.0 is the most anticipated version yet; I know I'm salavating over the next release!

Re:resentment

[Foogle]

I'm actually going to agree with you on this one: Somewhere along the line this "community" became more about competition than it did about sharing. And isn't that what it's supposed to be? Sharing code and working together together to make a better system?

Slashdot exemplifies this competitive spirit. People post just to get more Karma (there's even a HowTo out there) and almost every thread turns into a pissing contest. It's silly, and the Anti-Microsoft attitude just makes it worse. People here hate Microsoft and literally act like this whole Open Source Movement is just about beating MS. And if they're not talking about beating NT in server sales, they're starting a flame-war about KDE/Gnome. It blows my mind that there could ever be competition in an open source community... I think some people are just plain missing the point.

This whole place is getting out of hand...

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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."