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The NZ Open Source Awards 2010 celebrate the acceptance and importance of open source software in mainstream IT.

Wellington, Tuesday 9th November 2010

This evening the NZ Open Source Awards 2010 celebrated and rewarded the best and most innovative in New Zealand’s open source software at a gala event attended by more than 200 people at the Intercontinental Wellington with Mark Cubey, Producer of Saturday Morning with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand, as MC.

Winners included the IRD’s Moodle online learning system, content management system SilverStripe, personal production hub Ponoko, the open source future of education Albany Senior High School and Bronwyn Holloway-Smith’s restoration project Ghosts in the Form of Gifts done in consultation with Te Papa. Amie McCarron won the People’s Choice award for her work on the Alcoholics Anonymous websites, while Tabitha Roder won the Open Source Contributor award and Linux.conf.au organisers Andrew and Suzanne Ruthvern won in the Open Source Advocate category.

The winner of the University of Auckland’s Department of Computer Science Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems, worth $10,000, was announced as Rob O'Callahan for his significant contributions to Mozilla Firefox and open web standards.

The final award of the night, the Catalyst Lifetime Achievement in Open Source Award, was given to University of Auckland Associate Professor of Statistics Dr. Ross Ihaka. Dr. Ihaka is one of the originators of the world-renown ‘R’ programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. In 2008 Dr. Ihaka was the recipient of the Royal Society of New Zealand's Pickering Medal, also for his work on ‘R’.

Judge and respected open source advocate Nathan Torkington (organiser of Kiwi Foo Camp, board member for InternetNZ, SilverStripe, and The Perl Foundation and founder of open.org.nz) said this year’s Awards were notable for the diversity of the winners with open source being put in the hands of school children, taxpayers, crafters and historians. “Gone are the days when open source software existed only for open source developers,” he said.

“The diversity of the awards and winners show that New Zealand is holding its own with international trends. Ponoko and ‘Ghosts in the Form of Gifts’ reflect a change in manufacturing, from mass production to ‘my production’ and the focus on education with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and Albany Senior High School reflects the growing importance and use of open source in education around the world.”

Fellow judge and well-known Kiwiblog creator David Farrar agrees. He said: “For many years in New Zealand the debate has been about whether to use open source software at all. Now the debate is about when and how to use it, and how to get maximum benefits from it.

What New Zealanders have discovered is that open source is not so much about price or availability, but about innovation, about the ability to take what others have done, customise it and then share that with others.”

Torkington adds: “The New Zealand software community is thriving and open source is a booming part of that.”

The NZ Open Source Awards 2010 are sponsored by Platinum sponsors Catalyst IT and InternetNZ, Gold sponsors Red Hat and the New Zealand Open Source Society, and Silver sponsors OSS, Egressive, SilverStripe, Squiz and 3Months.

For more information please contact Daniel Spector of Catalyst IT, the Awards Organiser on 04 803 2380.

The full list of winners and their categories is:

Open Source in Government

IRD’s use of Moodle

Open Source in Education

Albany Senior High School

Open Source Use in Business
Ponoko – the hub of a global personal manufacturing eco-system that brings together creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers to make almost anything

Open Source Use in the Arts

Ghosts in the Form of Gifts – Bronwyn Holloway-Smith for the use of open source technologies and design to recreate some of the lost treasures of the Te Papa collection from photographs and drawings

Open Source Project

SilverStripe – a New Zealand-made CMS that has been downloaded more than 325,000 times globally in less than four years

Open Source Advocate

Linux.conf.au organisers Andrew & Suzanne Ruthvern

Open Source Contributor

Tabitha Roder for One Laptop per Child (OLPC)

People’s Choice
Amie McCarron for the Alcoholics Anonymous NZ websites

The University of Auckland Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems
Rob O'Callahan for his significant contributions to Mozilla Firefox and
open web standards

The Catalyst Lifetime Achievement in Open Source Award
Dr. Ross Ihaka, for the ‘R’ statistical programming and graphics language

 

 

NZ Open Source Awards Finalists Announced

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

The New Zealand Open Source Awards has announced its finalist list. The judges were impressed by the high calibre of candidates and how far many of the companies and projects had come in the past two years. Entries for the ‘Open Source Use in Business’ Award were particularly strong.

This year there are 31 finalists across eight categories. SilverStripe, the R Project and the IRD make the finalist list twice, while Tabitha Roder is shortlisted in three categories. The ‘Open Source Use in Business’ and ‘Open Source Project’ Awards were the two most entered categories.

This year’s shortlist reflects the diversity and innovation of open source projects today. Don Christie, Judge and Director of Catalyst IT, which champions the Awards, says: “The popularity of the Business and Project categories reflects the growing foothold open source has in the business world. People are really beginning to see open source not only as a viable alternative to proprietary software, but also as a complementary option to run alongside existing and new software choices.

“This is contrasted by inventive use of open source in the Arts category, which showcases the many possible ways open source software can feed innovation and creativity.”

The Awards are about raising the profile of open source and free software in general and from Thursday 7th October the public can vote for the winner of the ‘People’s Choice’ Award.

The winners of the Awards will be announced at a gala event on Tuesday 9th November in Wellington. Mark Cubey, Producer of Radio New Zealand’s ‘Saturday Morning with Kim Hill’ will be the MC and Jay Daley, CEO of the New Zealand Registry Service, will be a guest speaker.

 

The full list of finalists is:

Open Source in Government

 

Open Source in Education

 

Open Source Use in Business

 

Open Source Use in the Arts

 

Open Source Project

 

Open Source Advocate

 

Open Source Contributor

 

The free and open source story - in New Zealand and around the world - is one that people want to hear. Free and open source technology promises to deliver new opportunities for collaboration and innovation within the New Zealand public and private sectors.

This year's Awards will bring to the fore some of the outstanding work done with free and open source by New Zealanders and for New Zealanders, focusing on achievements over the last two years.

 

New Zealand Open Source Awards 2010 focus on innovation as entry deadline approaches

06 September 2010

Previous Award-winner Radio NZ lists innovation as a leading reason for using free software on its website

Radio NZ won the ‘Open Source in Government’ category at the 2008 New Zealand Open Source Awards. The boost in confidence gained from the Award has helped it to progress its use of free and open source software (FLOSS) to continue its innovation. It now uses FLOSS to run its internet and intranet.

“The free and open source software ecosystem allows certain freedoms, so you can change and adapt software to meet specific and changing needs, which I believe is necessary if you want to innovate,” says Richard Hulse, New Media Manager, Radio NZ.

Awards judge and President of the New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS), Rachel Hamilton-Williams, agrees. “Open source software is competitive on features, performance and price. Having a healthy FLOSS sector reduces barriers to entry for both service providers and customers; it puts more control and options in the hands of the user and provides a fertile ground for innovation.”

Hulse says Radio NZ’s 2008 New Zealand Open Source Award “was an acknowledgement that our approach was mainstream; that it is possible to use free software to run a high-profile, high-traffic site, and to do this alongside other organisations with much larger budgets”.

Nominations for the 2010 New Zealand Open Source Awards close on 20th September, and innovation in FLOSS will be lauded at a gala event in October. Don Christie, Director of Catalyst IT which runs the Awards, says they are “an opportunity to celebrate excellence and innovation in open source software and services”.

For more information, please contact Awards organiser, Daniel Spector on (04) 803 2380 or at Daniel@nzosa.org.nz.




Open Source Awards open for nominations; Judges Announced

16 August 2010

Well-known Kiwiblog creator David Farrar joins judging panel of open source experts. 

Seven open source experts, chosen for their eminence in or championship of open source technology, will form the judging panel of the 2010 Open Source Awards, which will be announced at a gala ceremony in Wellington on Tuesday 9 November.

The panel includes two New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) Presidents, current President Rachel Hamilton-Williams and past President Don Christie; Foo Camp founder & Author Nat Torkington; WebFund Chairman & tohunga rorohiko, Dave Moskovitz; Richard Wyles, Director of Flexible Learning Network/Mahara; and Telecom Mobile Engineer and gadgets and geeks evangelist Amber Craig. Four of the panel are councillors for InternetNZ, while David Farrar is an active supporter of the organisation.

Farrar says, “I think we take for granted the many great open source developments made by Kiwis, and the Awards play a significant role in recognising those achievements and promoting the overall profile of open source software.

“I'm a big believer in choice, and specifically informed choice. Too many people make software decisions based on their familiarity with relatively few products and solutions. Raising the profile of open source software helps consumers make more informed decisions.”

This year the Open Source Awards will focus on projects and developments of the last two years, and two new categories have been launched to reflect the trends visible in open source communities in New Zealand. With eight categories in total, the two new awards are: ‘Open Source Use in The Arts’ and ‘Open Source People's Choice Award’.

Awards judge and Director of Catalyst IT, the Awards organiser, Don Christie says, "We wanted to keep the awards current, and there has been a surge in the use of open source and free software and tools in an array of arts in the last two years."

“It’s also important that the Awards mirror the philosophy of open source software, so we chose to launch a ‘People's Choice Award’ this year where the whole open source community, and anyone else who is interested, can vote for people and projects they think are worthy to form a shortlist for the judges.”

Nominations are now open and will close on September 15 2010. Entrants can be nominated or nominate themselves at www.nzosa.org.nz.

More about the judges:
David Farrar: founder and writer of KiwiBlog; dedicated participant and supporter of InternetNZ
Rachel Hamilton-Williams: current President of the NZOSS 
(New Zealand Open Source Society); General Manager of Katipo
Nat Torkington: Kiwi Foo Camp organiser; board member for InternetNZ, Silverstripe, and The Perl Foundation; founder of open.org.nz.
Richard Wyles: Director, Flexible Learning Network/Mahara; InternetNZ Councillor
Dave Moskovitz: Chairman of WebFund; serial entrepreneur; angel investor; InternetNZ Councillor; tohunga rorohiko; computational linguist; and hacker (in its original sense)
Amber Craig: Senior Mobile Engineer for Telecom with Solutions Plus!; Wellington GeekGirl Dinner organiser; gadgets and geeks evangelist; Electronics in Crafts organiser
Don Christie: Director of Catalyst; Past President of NZOSS (New Zealand Open Source Society); InternetNZ Councillor

About the New Zealand Open Source Awards
The New Zealand Open Source Awards are run by open source IT house Catalyst IT. The New Zealand Open Source Awards 2010 recognise and promote the contributions of New Zealanders to free and open source projects, to free and open source philosophy and the exemplary use of free and open source software by New Zealand organisations. The 2008 New Zealand Open Source Awards were a resounding success with over 130 nominations, 32 finalists and 10 category winners. The Awards gala attracted over 200 of New Zealand's leading business people, government representatives, creatives and open source community contributors and advocates.



About free and open source technology

Free and open source technology are two separate but related things. Free software is software that carries no licensing fees or charges for use. Open source software is when the software writers leave the code used to create programmes accessible to others so that the programme can be improved, changed and added to by any programmer. It is changing the way people and organisations collaborate and innovate to achieve common goals. For New Zealand, free and open source technology not only represents an opportunity to contribute and be recognised on the world stage, but also to deliver real competitive advantages to the business sector, show leadership in government and the public sector, and provide more effective tools for organisations public and private as they meet the challenges of the 21st century.


For more information, please contact Daniel Spector (04) 803 2380
Daniel@nzosa.org.nz

Open Source Awards open for nominations

15 July 2010

The 2010 New Zealand Open Source Awards are now open for nominations. This year's Awards will focus particularly on achievements over the last two years.

Two new categories are being included this year: Open Source Use in The Arts, and the People's Choice Award for Open Source.

The 2010 Awards have already attracted sponsorship from Silverstripe, Open Systems Specialists, the New Zealand Open Source Society and Awards organiser Catalyst IT.

"There were so many strong nominations for the 2008 event," said panel chair Don Christie, "that we are keen to hear back from projects that have moved forward in the last years, as well as new initiatives using free and open source solutions."

Responses to the 2008 Awards were overwhelmingly positive, with over 130 nominations received, 32 finalists and 10 category winners.

For more information contact Daniel Spector:
Daniel@nzosa.org.nz or (04) 803 2380