After the very successful ReBirth compo in early 2012, and the DragonBox compo in early 2013, it makes sense to continue the "tradition".
EvilDragon has said that he wants to have a kind of "running competition" with regular deadlines, maybe every 4 months. This seems to be a very good idea to me.
I'm starting this thread to collect some ideas on compo rules etc.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Prizes are not that important, the goal of the compo is not to bankrupt ED or extract money from the community, but to have a friendly community competition that gives devs a goal to work towards and everybody a bunch of new releases to look forwards to. It's more about the community recognition and "glory" than about providing financial incentives for devs. So I wouldn't mind at all if future contests would have no prizes or only small symbolic ones.
2. There should be plenty of time for everyone to try everything. It should be encouraged that as many people as possible participate in the contest, not just devs, but also people who take the time to vote, write reviews, etc. Community feedback is a very good motivator for devs. Maybe there should be prize for the best reviewer.
3. It makes sense to have separate categories, especially to distinguish original stuff from ports. The 4 categories of the previous compo are a bit too much though. I would propose just two categories: "port" and "original".
4. The mix of community votes and jury is a good idea, I think we should keep that.
5. There was some discussion about the licensing requirements last time. I would still prefer an open-source-only compo, but I know that not everyone agrees with that. Still, I think open source should be promoted, and I don't think a prize bonus is the best way (cf. point 1 above). Here's a proposal: if there are going to be regular competitions, we can make some of them open-source-only, and some of them any-license (even commercial if you want). For example:
EvilDragon has said that he wants to have a kind of "running competition" with regular deadlines, maybe every 4 months. This seems to be a very good idea to me.
I'm starting this thread to collect some ideas on compo rules etc.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Prizes are not that important, the goal of the compo is not to bankrupt ED or extract money from the community, but to have a friendly community competition that gives devs a goal to work towards and everybody a bunch of new releases to look forwards to. It's more about the community recognition and "glory" than about providing financial incentives for devs. So I wouldn't mind at all if future contests would have no prizes or only small symbolic ones.
2. There should be plenty of time for everyone to try everything. It should be encouraged that as many people as possible participate in the contest, not just devs, but also people who take the time to vote, write reviews, etc. Community feedback is a very good motivator for devs. Maybe there should be prize for the best reviewer.
3. It makes sense to have separate categories, especially to distinguish original stuff from ports. The 4 categories of the previous compo are a bit too much though. I would propose just two categories: "port" and "original".
4. The mix of community votes and jury is a good idea, I think we should keep that.
5. There was some discussion about the licensing requirements last time. I would still prefer an open-source-only compo, but I know that not everyone agrees with that. Still, I think open source should be promoted, and I don't think a prize bonus is the best way (cf. point 1 above). Here's a proposal: if there are going to be regular competitions, we can make some of them open-source-only, and some of them any-license (even commercial if you want). For example:
- July 2013: open-source only
- November 2013: open or closed source, but free (gratis) download
- March 2014: anything goes (even paid stuff, but the jury members have to get a free copy)
- July 2014: open-source only again
- and so on