Alive and Kicking Coding Competition Rules


ekianjo

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神戸市、日本 (Japan)
Welcome to the Pandora Alive and Kicking Coding Competition.

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EDIT: updated Dec 11th, 2013

EDIT: updated Dec 16th, 2013 : added guideline 7 and 8 to clarify some additional points in 2 categories.

EDIT: updated Dec 18th to reflect when voting is expected to occur and when winners will be announced. Clarified that judges (only in case of ties) cannot participate in the competition as well. 

EDIT: updated Dec 26th with the details about the prizes!

EDIT: updated Feb 10th with info about the donation pot. 

EDIT: updated Feb 11th with deadline extension of one day.

 

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The competition will end on February 16th, 11:59pm, UST.

Voting will take place from February 17th to March 2nd, 11:59pm, UST. 

Winners in each category will be announced in the week of March 3rd (unless there are ties, in which case it may take a little more time). 

All entries will have to be uploaded to our FTP Server, packaged as ZIP-Archive or PND-File.
The entries should be included in a way that makes it as easily as possible for the user to play it (PNDs).
We like to encourage OpenSource entries - but you can also participate if you don't want to release your sourcecode.

There are various categories each with its own prizes - you can enter as many entries you like in any of the categories.

The categories are:

* "New Pandora Use" Application
This can be any application you think might be useful for the Pandora community. It has to achieve something NEW that is not currently feasible or easily achievable on the Pandora, or bring an update to an existing application with truly significant new features (you may decide to apply in "Significant Improvement" category then). It can be a port, or an original creation, as long as it meets the stated objective.

* Significant Improvement of Existing Application
You have an existing application or port ? This special category will reward those who do extra efforts to further push the boundaries of the application -> how to make it more useful ? Easier to use ? Better fit with the Pandora Screen ? Adding C4A support ? Anything you can improve will be considered.

* New Game (Ported)
A port of an already existing game that does not exist yet for Pandora.

* New Game (Original)
A game written by yourself (or a small team). It has to be new.
 

Rules and guidelines:
1. It's totally fine if your entry has already been released for the system before December 1st, 2013, as long as your entry will be an improved version. (See dedicated category).

2. You can do public beta tests, if you like and get feedback to improve your entry until the deadline.
3. There's no need to include an annoying splash screen, but the competition logo (or simple textual mention of the competition name) has to be somewhere in the entry (corner of the title screen, credits screen, etc.). Note that this logo will have to be removed after the competition is over.
4. You are encouraged to release the sourcecode of your application/port/game if possible. In case you include your sourcecode and win a prize, you'll get a few bucks extra. (removed because of endless debates)
4. Selected members from the OpenPandora Boards will be judges for each entry in the category (in case of ties), and popular votes will be the key way to decide the winners. A judge (in case of ties) cannot be anyone participating in the competition (i.e. with an entry). 

5. IMPORTANT: All applications/projects considered should be tested to work for 1.55 SZ Firmware, default GPU driver (all models), as well as 4.03.00.02 driver (for 1Ghz models only). In case your application performs very differently on 1Ghz versus earlier models in terms of performance, please mention it so that we take it in account. 
6. It is totally fine to submit several entries in a single or multiple categories. There is no limit as to how many entries you can have in the competition. 

7. If your entry is in the "Significant Improvement" Category, you need to explain what changes/additions were made to your/the previous creation and clarify why you consider it to be significant. No need to write an essay, though. 

8. For entries in "New Pandora use" category, please ensure there is no equivalent PND/application already available for Pandora on the repo that does the exact same thing.

* Prizes

In EACH category the following prizes will be offered:

1st prize: Voucher of 200 EUR for the DragonBox Shop + a Japanese Edition box of the Pandora containing stuff from Japan!

2nd prize. Voucher of 100 EUR for the DragonBox Shop

3rd prize. Voucher of 50 EUR for the DragonBox Shop

4th to 8th prizes: A Free Pandora Carry Case and TV Out Cable

There will also be a community donation pot which will be shared the following:

1/4th of the total amount goes to each category, which will be split up the following (if the split makes sense, we don't want to end up splitting fractions of Euros :) ):

1st Prize: 50%

2nd Prize: 30%

3rd Prize: 20%

You can (and are encouraged to) donate here: 

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15633-donations-for-alive-kicking-competition/
 
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Cool! Another compo, and this one is not dedicated to crap ;)

Maybe I should have waited a bit longer before I released PIV, it could have been an entry in the "new Pandora use" category...

I'll probably participate in the "original game" category!

If people have suggestions for things I could improve in System Info, PIV, Microbes or NubNub so I can participate in the "Significant Improvement" category, I'm listening!
 
If anyone needs testing, a story for their game, or translation to Norwegian feel free to ask me. Can do some graphics or photographs too.
 
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christmas coding competitions always make up for the shitty weather i cant wait for the fruits this one!
 
You are encouraged to release the sourcecode of your application/port/game if possible. In case you include your sourcecode and win a prize, you'll get a few bucks extra.


This is not really fair. Why the competitition is more favorable for OSS than other software? eh
 
No, i mean - still. Encouraging is a different and giving more prize money for sourcecode is different thing, and really discouraging for everyone that creates closed source app / game for pandy. So, in my opinion bigger money shouldnt be given when source is released.

You clearly states that OSS is in a favour in this competition when you giving more money to winning app with source code. Its not encouraging for everyone that doing colsed source stuff for compo. 

If i would create compo with adnotation that closed source would get more money prize, i would be killed in op boards by gpl FOSS zealots right now. 

It shouldnt be this way..

or just rename compo with "Alive and Kicking OpenSource Coding Competition", and everything will be ok..
 
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commander-beef, you could create a closed-source competition, why not?

The person who's hosting the competition gets to make the rules.
 
commander-beef, you could create a closed-source competition, why not?


The person who's hosting the competition gets to make the rules.
But thats the point. Why OpenSource enthusiast like Ekianjo wouldnt create OpenSource Only Competition? Instead of that A+K Compo is open for all games+apps but with win prize favour for OpenSource stuff. It's not right.  

Rules like that just create more bias, and polarize everyone. [and thats why i write on topic]

EDIT:

Im calling only for being fair for all participants
 
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i thik your understanding is incorrect the applications will be judged on quality only and not on whether they are opensource otr not. open source entries will just get an additional bonus IF THEY WIN. And if your app is closed source nothing prevents you from selling it on the repo to make a bit of cash as well.


So in terms of who will win the prizes, the competition is fair. there is no advantage of opening your code. it will not make it more likely for you to win.
 
I agree, you don't have to give extra prizes to FOSS. Most of the FOSS people participate for fun and glory, not for the prizes. For example:

* Prizes

Prizes will be announced shortly. Good luck :)
I'll probably participate in the "original game" category!


If you want to encourage FOSS, it's better to make it a contest rule that it has to be FOSS; "a few bucks extra" is not going to convince any closed-source dev to go FOSS.

If you don't care about licensing and just want to get more software out of this contest, then it's more effective to not give a bigger prize to FOSS winners, because they probably don't need the extra monetary incentive anyway.

Two suggestions to improve the wording of the rules:

It would be better to not use the words "release the source code" but to say "release the software as FOSS" instead. It's perfectly possible to release the source code under a license that forbids anyone to do anything with it except look, and that's probably not what you want to encourage.

Also if you do want to allow non-FOSS entries, I think it makes a lot of sense to at least require that it gets released on the repo as gratis software (and not just for the duration of the compo either). At the moment there is no rule that prohibits non-gratis software from participating.
 
5. Selected members from the OpenPandora Boards will be judges for each entry in the category, and popular votes will be taken in account as well.

I would love to know who will be judging the games/apps [im looking towards -> judging whole community by poll, which is more fair than 2/3 people that might be driven towards OpenSource software ( since judge's opinion might be more or less subjective and driven towards OSS)] before i join the contest with fresh closed source game and app for OP.
 
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It would be better to not use the words "release the source code" but to say "release the software as FOSS" instead.
I disagree, FOSS excludes all non-commercial licenses that allow you to do anything with the source but selling it.
 
It's our favourite pastime, after all - Arguing about licenses :)
 
It would be better to not use the words "release the source code" but to say "release the software as FOSS" instead.
I disagree, FOSS excludes all non-commercial licenses that allow you to do anything with the source but selling it.
I meant a broad interpretation of FOSS, not just FSF-approved licenses (which does indeed exclude licenses that disallow commercial forks).

Maybe a better formulation (less open to interpretation) would be: "release the source code under a FSF-approved or OSI-approved license (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licenses for a list), a Creative Commons license (with the BY,SA and/or NC tag, but not the ND tag), or the MAME license".

Would that be an acceptable definition of what "Open Source" and "release the source code" means?
 
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