Contest Rules and Overview

The contest will take place in two stages: First, one hundred finalists will be selected from proposals submitted on or before January 5, 2001. Their names and the titles of their projects will be announced on February 1, 2001. Each finalist will receive an embedded Linux board as a prize.

On August 1, 2001, entries will be due from finalists. Final entries are to be in the form of a web site for your project, including relevant plans, a bill of materials, photos, documentation and source code. Description and documentation of your project count!

By entering this contest, you agree to allow the contest sponsors to copy and redistribute any of the materials you submit, except your address and phone number, in any medium. We will also keep your e-mail address confidential, if you wish.

At our discretion, we will mail additional hardware and/or software to the finalists if it becomes available to us. We will not spam you, but we will provide e-mail and web forums for discussing the contest.

All software developed for the contest must be released under a free license. For purposes of this contest, a "free license" is one that is listed in BOTH "OSI Approved Licenses" at http://opensource.org/licenses/ AND ALSO in the Free Software Foundation's "GPL-Compatible, Free Software Licenses" at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

Employees of SSC, Tri-M Engineeering, M-Systems, and ZF Linux, and their families, are not eligible to participate, but that won't stop them from trying to mooch a board anyway.

Stage One: Initial Entry and Selection of Finalists

To enter, please send us mail answering the following questions:

1. What is the working title for your project?
2. What need or desire will your embedded Linux project satisfy?
3. What are your qualifications for carrying out an embedded Linux project, including programming and hardware experience? You may include URLs of related work, either hobby or professional.
4. What additional hardware are you considering using? (you are not required to use it in your final project)
5. What software do you plan to develop? What tools and libraries do you plan to use?
6. Do you plan to use an embedded Linux distribution? If so, which one?
7. What sources of information and support will you consult while carrying out your project?

Also, please include the following information:

1. Your full name as you would like it to appear in Linux Journal
2. Your shipping address and phone number(confidential)
3. What to link your name to on the web site if you are a finalist

Criteria for selecting finalists will be:

1. Will the project either satisfy a real need, or have aesthetic, entertainment or scientific value?
2. Does the person or team have skills and/or motivation appropriate to carrying out the project?
3. Is the project different from other, previously constructed embedded Linux project?

Stage Two: Selection of Final Winners

Judges will select final winners based on the following criteria:

1. How well does your project fill the need stated in your original proposal?
2. Does your project make efficient use of the components selected?
3. Is your project constructed in a craftspersonlike, high-quality and robust manner? (both hardware and software)
4. Is your software easily understood by potential users and contributors?
5. How well does your project web site explain your project for users and for people who want to build something similar?

A winner will be chosen in each of five categories.

All winning projects, and selected other projects, will appear in Linux Journal.

1. Most likely to succeed as a commercial product
2. Best tool for facilitating human communication
3. Most fun
4. Best learning project to help others understand embedded Linux development
5. Most creatively useless