The Open Source Awards is an annual online event held by Packt Publishing to distinguish excellence among Open Source projects. This is your chance to put forward your favorite Open Source project in each category to go through to the final stage of voting. The top five projects with the most nominations in each category will go through to the final stage of voting. The nominations will end on September 17.

Now in its fifth year, the Award, formerly known as the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award, is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward not only CMSes but a wider range of Open Source projects. Last year Wordpress won the prize, but you'll have to take into account, that since 2008 previous winners were not allowed to join the competition for the Overall Open Source CMS award. That was probably done, because otherwise we would always have the same winners. You know who... Previous winners compete amongst one another in the separate Hall of Fame CMS category designed specifically for them.

When the contest started in 2006, Joomla! was the winner and Drupal second. In 2007 it was the other way around. Since 2008 Drupal and Joomla! compete for the Hall of Fame CMS award. In those two years Drupal ended as number one and Joomla! was on the second place. It is your vote that makes the difference. There are 6 categories. For Joomla! it is mainly the Hall of Fame category where you can show your enthusiasm.

You will also be pleased to hear that by nominating or voting for your favorite Open Source project, you will have chances to win a fantastic Amazon Kindle! This is an opportunity for you to download all your favorite Packt eBooks and read them from one handy device. During each stage, a randomly chosen nominator or voter will be drawn out of the hat. To ensure you have a chance of winning, nominate from August 9 and vote from September 27.

You can vote twice: in the first round, that ends on September 17, you can nominate your favorite Open Source project in each category to go through to the final stage of voting. The top five projects with the most  nominations in each category will go through to that second round. The final voting will begin on September 27. Voting will close on November 5, with the winners announced the week commencing November 15.

The 2010 Award will feature a prize fund of $24,000 with several new categories introduced. While the Open Source CMS Award category will continue to recognize the best content management system, Packt is introducing categories for the Most Promising Open Source Project, Open Source E-Commerce Applications, Open Source JavaScript Libraries and Open Source Graphics Software. CMSes that won the Overall CMS Award in previous years will continue to compete against one another in the Hall of Fame CMS category.

These new categories will ensure that the Open Source Awards is the ultimate platform to recognise excellence within the community while supporting projects both new and old. “We believe that the adaption of the Award and the new categories will provide a new level of accessibility, with the Award recognizing a wider range of Open Source projects; both previous winners while at the same time, encouraging new projects” said Julian Copes, organizer of this year’s Awards.

You are invited to submit a nomination for an Open Source Project to be put forward to the final voting stage in each category. The following categories make up the 2010 Open Source Awards.

Categories:

1. Open Source CMS Award

2. Hall of Fame CMS

3. Most Promising Open Source Project

4. Open Source E-Commerce Applications

5. Open Source JavaScript Libraries

6. Open Source Graphics Software

Timelines:

August  9 | Nominations Open

September 17 | Nominations Close

September  27 | Voting Begins

November 5 | Voting Ends

November 15 | Winners Announced

Nominate here now!