Award Timeline

The Award is split up into two main stages. Firstly, nominations will begin on July 16. This is your chance to put forward your favourite CMS in each category to through to the final stage of voting, which will be announced at the beginning of September; this is when the voting stage begins. Voting closes on October 26, with the winners announced later that month and throughout the beginning of November.

To view a comprehensive list of open source Content Management Systems, including working demos that allow you to be the administrator of any of the systems, please visit www.opensourceCMS.com, which highlights PHP and MySQL CMSs. Alternatively you can visit www.CMSMatrix.org, which has a long list of open source Content Management Systems.  

August 25 | Nominations Close

September 1 | Voting Begins
Voting for the winners in each of the five categories opens.  

October 20 | Voting Ends

October 27 | Open Source MVPs Announced
Nominated MVPs from Open Source Content Management Systems will be announced on the first results day.

October 28 | Best Other Open Source CMS Announced
The top three and overall winner in the best other Open Source CMS is announced.  

October 29 | Best PHP Open Source CMS Announced
The top three and overall winner in the best PHP Open Source CMS is announced.  

October 30 | Most Promising Open Source CMS Announced
The top three and overall winner in the most promising Open Source CMS is announced.

October 31 | Overall Winner Announced
The top three and overall winner in the 2008 Open Source CMS Award is announced.

The overall winner is the main category for the Awards, which is why it has been allocated half of the prize fund. We want to show our support for the less mature CMS’s in the most promising category by offering more prize money to the first and second runners up. We want to be able to provide them with the recognition, support and funds to progress. A change for 2008 will see the first and second runners up in the Best PHP and Best Other categories receiving $500. All prize money is donated by Packt Publishing.

1. Only nominations for open source Content Management Systems, available on an open source licence, will be counted
2. Only one nomination per person, per category will be counted
   
3. The five open source Content Management Systems with the most nominations will go through to the final in each category
4. A CMS cannot win the Overall category and the Most Promising category. They must be won by different CMS’s. However, the same CMS can win the Overall and Best PHP/Other Award, for example. The judges for each category are different, which means results for the same CMS could be different across categories.
5. The most promising category is open for Open Source Content Management Systems whose first release was under two years ago as of July 14, 2008. CMSs that entered the 2007 Most Promising category, that are still eligible for 2008 are invited to enter.
   
6. During the final voting stage, only one vote per person will be counted
7. The top three will be voted for by a panel of judges. A final vote will come from the results of a public vote on www.PacktPub.com
8. All judges are independent and their decision is final
9. Category Award winners will be decided on a points basis. The CMS that the judges and public have voted as the number one will be awarded three points. The second placed CMS will receive two points and the third placed CMS will receive one point. The CMS with the highest number of points overall will be declared the winner
10. In the event of a tie, an extra independent judge will be brought in
11. Details of Open Source MVPs will be released following permission and confirmation from the respective projects
    
12. Packt Publishing has no influence, input or say in the finalists or winners of any Award category
13. The winners of the 4gb Apple iPod Nano will be chosen at random and will be contacted directly by Packt