The Award is split up into two main stages. Firstly, nominations will begin on August 3. This is your chance to put forward your favorite CMS in each category to go through to the final stage of voting, which will be announced towards the end of September; this is when the voting stage begins. Voting closes on October 30, with the winners announced in November.
August 3 | Nominations Open
You are invited to submit a nomination for an open source Content Management System to be put forward to the final voting stage in each category. You can view the different categories and then go on to submit your nomination here: www.PacktPub.com/Nominations.
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 CMSes. Alternatively you can visit www.CMSMatrix.org, which has a long list of open source Content Management Systems
September 11 | Nominations Close
September 21 | Voting Begins
Voting for the winners in each of the five categories opens.
October 30 | Voting Ends
November 9 | Winners Announced
The top three and overall winners in each of the categories is announced.
2009 Open Source CMS Award Rules
- Only nominations for open source Content Management Systems, available on an open source license, will be counted
- Only one nomination per person, per category will be counted
- The five open source Content Management Systems with the most nominations will go through to the final in each category, apart from the Hall of Fame category, which is open only to previous winners of the Overall Award.
- A CMS cannot win the Overall category and the Most Promising category. They must be won by different CMSes. 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.
- Previous winners of the Overall category are not eligible for the Overall category in 2009. Previous winners compete amongst one another in a separate Hall of Fame category designed specifically for them
- The most promising category is open for Open Source Content Management Systems whose first release was under two years ago as of August 3, 2009. CMSes that entered the 2008 Most Promising category, that are still eligible for 2009 are invited to enter.
- During the final voting stage, only one vote per person will be counted
- 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
- 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
- In the event of a tie, an extra independent judge will be brought in
- All judges are independent and their decision is final
- Details of Open Source MVPs will be released following permission and confirmation from the respective projects
- Packt Publishing has no influence, input or say in the finalists or winners of any Award category
- The winners of the 4GB Apple iPod Nano and 8GB Apple iPod Touch will be chosen at random and will be contacted directly by Packt
For more information: cmsaward@packtpub.com
