The NZ Open Source Awards 2010 were handed out at an event at Wellington's Intercontinental hotel last night, with Mark Cubey, producer of Saturday Morning with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand, as MC. Open source software - typically free - i
The NZ Open Source Awards 2010 were handed out at an event at Wellington's Intercontinental hotel last night, with Mark Cubey, producer of Saturday Morning with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand, as MC.
Open source software - typically free - is collectively developed. Companies that promote it, such as Wellington's Catalyst (one of the prime movers behind the awards) usually make their money from selling services.
Everybody's doing it
Judge 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.
Open source had moved beyond the world of software geeks and was now being put in the hands of school children, taxpayers, crafters and historians.
“The diversity of the awards and winners show that New Zealand is holding its own with international trends," said Mr Torkington.
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.”
Microsoft recently released an attack ad (see video below) that attempts to undermine one of the most famous pieces of open source software OpenOffice.org (whose corporate donors include Google and IBM) - alleging the free office suite does "cost" more all up once user training and IT support costs are thrown in.
For some, the very fact Microsoft would flatter OpenOffice with such attention shows open source software is heading towards the mainstream.
Others see it already there.
One of Mr Torkington's fellow NZ Open Source Awards judges, Kiwiblog creator David Farrar, 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.”
Auckland Uni honours Mozilla contributor
The University of Auckland’s Department of Computer Science Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems, worth $10,000, was also announced at the awards. The honour went to Rob O'Callahan for his significant contributions to
Mozilla Firefox and open web standards.
Lifetime achievement
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’.
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.
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 – 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 website content management system 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 (read: Academic unfazed by rock star status)
