Within the overall objective of promoting Ubuntu as a target for app developers, this document outlines the rules for a competition event with the following goals:
- Raise awareness on Ubuntu as an app developer platform
- Increase the number of app submissions
- Be fun and inspiring to participants
- Highlight and exercise the Ubuntu app developer infrastructure, both from the developer and user point of view
- Promote integration of third party applications with the Ubuntu platform
Rules
Only entries that are submitted through MyApps and published to a PPA, and that abide by the rules outlined in this document, will be considered by the judges. Any apps that are not submitted in this way and/or do not meet the rules outlined in this document will not be considered as part of this competition.
Please note: the deadline is absolute and final; any submissions after the deadline will not be considered. It is the judges discretion if any exceptions are made late submissions up to a maximum of one day late…you should presume that late submissions will not be considered.
- Novelty: all submissions must be new open source applications, created either as an individual (the Participant) or in a team. The application must contain exclusively original code and the Participant must be the original author of the content.
- Toolkit: submissions can be created with any toolkit of choice and comply with the Publishing rules set out below. We do however recommend using Quickly and GTK.
- Ubuntu release: all entries must be submitted for the current stable release – Ubuntu 12.04
- Publishing: all valid entries must be packaged by the Participant in a Personal Package Archive (PPA) according to the contest deadlines and run out of /opt (Quickly installs your app to /opt for you when you run quickly submitubuntu
- Voting: at the end of the contest there will be a jury vote to decide the contest winners. After all applications are in the Software Centre there will be a community vote using the ratings and reviews system to decide the community winner
- Submissions: the Participant can submit more than one app, up to a maximum of 2. Participants can charge for applications in the Software Centre, but the code must be released under an Open Source license to make its review possible. Canonical employees can participate in the contest as long as they are not paid to create the submission.
- Review: zero-cost applications will be reviewed at the technical level and published by the Ubuntu App Review Board (ARB). They must comply with the ARB Guidelines. Paid-for applications will be reviewed and published by the Consumer Apps (CA) team at Canonical. They must comply with the guidelines outlined in the Commercial Software FAQs.
- Responsiveness: participants must be responsive to feedback requests from the ARB or the CA team. If the participant does not reply to a feedback request within 3 days, the application will be rejected.
- Support: support for any contest-related questions will be provided on a best-effort basis on the Ubuntu app developer communication channels
Prizes
- Gold prize: System76 Gazelle Professional laptop and Nokia N9 phone
- Silver prize: System76 Lemur Ultra laptop and Nokia N9 phone
- Bronze prize: Nokia N9 phone
- Community prize: a Nokia N9 phone for each one of the top 3 apps. Those apps which have already won the jury vote (Gold, Silver or Bronze) are not eligible for the community prize
- All participants with an approved application: Ubuntu T-shirt
Canonical and the Ubuntu App Showdown organizers will not be responsible or liable for the use or maintenance of these prizes.
Schedule
- Submissions: the participants will have 3 weeks since the announcement on the Contest start date to create and submit their applications.
- Entry processing: at the end of the contest, all applications will be reviewed and appropriate applications will be added to the Software Centre.
- Jury vote: judges will start reviewing apps at the end of the contest.
- Community vote: will follow the jury vote and start when all apps have been published in the Software Centre.
Dates:
- Contest start: 18th June 2012
- Contest end: 9th July 2012
- Jury vote: 10th – 13th July 2012
- Community vote: will start after the jury vote and as soon as all apps have been published in the Software Centre
Review process
Jury: the jury will be composed by a team of six judges:
- Jono Bacon (Community Team)
- David Planella (Community Team)
- Bhavani Shankar (App Review Board)
- Matthew Paul Thomas (Design Team)
- Jonathan Thomas (Openshot)
- Joey-Elijah Sneddon (OMG!Ubuntu)
Votes:
- Jury vote: will follow the Review Criteria
- Community vote: entries will be opened for public voting during a 1-week period. Voting will be done using the Software Centre review system and there will be only one round of voting.
Community vote counting: at the end of the voting week, votes will be counted using the public ratings API
- The application with the highest average rating and the highest rating total will win the community prize
- In case of a draw, the distribution of rating values in the histogram will be used to decide the winner
Review criteria
The jury will judge applications according to the following criteria:
- Appearance: has there been work put into the visual design and artwork? Is the design visually attractive?
- Stability: does the application run well and smoothly, with no crashers or obvious bugs?
- Platform integration: does the app integrates well with Unity and the rest of the platform? Does it use Quick lists, notifications, indicators, etc where needed?
- Innovation: does the app provide functionality not available in Ubuntu before? Does it provide something in a way that hasn’t been done before?
- Scratches an itch: is the application useful? Does it fulfill a need for something Ubuntu users had been missing until then?
The winners will receive the Prizes set out above. Prizes will be delivered to the Participant following the judging. Canonical may publicise the entries and winner and by entering this competition, you are agreeing to Canonical using your name, application name and image in that promotion.
The terms and conditions can change at any time without notice.
Promoter, Canonical Ltd, One Circular Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 1SB (“Canonical”, us or we). This competition is governed by the laws of England.