2012 Coding Competition
 

I'm starting a new thread, but there was already discussion about this year's coding competition in the last few pages of the thread for last year's competition.

It seems that Nokia has a supply of N9s and supports the explicit inclusion of Qt in this year's coding competition.

So I'm throwing it open. Who is still around and what are your thoughts about repeating the competition. Specifically, is there anything we want to do differently this year (other than having voting ready to go)?

There is a wiki page here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo.org_coding_competition_2012

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

@SD69,

Just a wild idea. What about making the competition all about the N900? There may be cool (and very difficult) projects that might be worth giving prizes for: Upstream kernel? a pure open source version of Maemo? a working Firefox? a working kexec? a reworked /sbin/preinit with recovery console and multi-boot-on-steroids? oFono? Calligra for the N900? QT5? etc. etc.

Heck, even whatsapp! lol

There's (still) a lot to do about the N900!

Perhaps with enough incentive ($$$) some hackers-with-time-on-their-hands will be able to work on those projects.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I didn't mean to imply that N900 was excluded from the competition. Nor is N8x0. N9s would be prizes.

I think it is a good idea to add a category for platform-related packages, and not just have app submissions. Perhaps for CSSU?

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Hi,

from the experience of the last year's competition I would suggest to start the competition once everything is ready (including the voting process! ;) )

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I think that focusing in this years competition on the N900 could be a chance for our aging hardwer to gains some momentum thanks to new software :)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Well, count me in! :)

Also, I don't mind to support both Fremantle & Harmattan with my applications.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Eligible softwares for Maemo 4, Maemo 5 and MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. Not only complete end-user softwares (with icon), but also packages, libraries, projects (CSSU, Overclocking, Easy Debian, etc). Anything useful for the community.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

My time is currently very limited, but I'm still around here. :)

So count me in. I have already a new project somewhere in my mind but have not even a name for it. So a new competition could be a good motivation to begin the hard stuff. I sadly don't know when, but I hope we will have a long enought competition period. (not only 4 weeks)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Someone who accomplishes these two goals deserves far better than only getting an N9 (no disrespect for the N9 intended)!

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

IIRC it was proposed that the prices for the competition are not n9s but n950s so I'd say that's a worthy trophy.

Anyway I'd prefer to see actual coding contest and leave things like compiling kernels or doing platform configurations out of the scope. People actively doing those things can be recognized (and given a device) without the contest through the proposed device seeding program.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Last year we extended the competition over the summer months to allow students to write in their time off, so why not just run it over that timeframe this year?

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I read somewhere a mail by Quim about the device seeding program that no previous N950 receivers should get a additional device. And since I received last year a N950 I'm not sure if I could get eligible to receive a price just in case I could win something... but a N9 would be also great! :) But I'm also not sure about this.

I think we should clarify this before since many members who were eligible to receive a N950 last year are participating in developing competitions around maemo and MeeGo.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Voting has been the sticky point in the first two coding competitions so you're definitely correct to highlight that. The good thing is that we've been through the process now, there won't be the same delay as last time. We should also reach out to Zehjotkah to see if he's happy again to accept donations to his paypal for collecting a community bounty. And arranging some prizes in general. Those 3 things in place - voting, paypal, prizes - the rest of the competition will fit into place.

Oh and someone to do the driving - a focal point for questions, getting threads created, keeping everyone updated, etc etc .. i did the first one, Zehjotkah drove the second one.. he might like to do it again, he did a great job.. is there anyone else who'd like a go at that? :)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

The prizes can default to N950 exchangeable by a N9.

Another possible prize could be an invitation to Nokia World or Qt Dev Days, but I would need to ask. Not for all winners, maybe as an extra fior the top 1-3?

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

And what about for other people that are involved or want a device such as beta testers? Are they ineligible to receive an N950 because they aren't competing in the coding competition?

Outside of that I am fully supportive of the prize to Nokia World for the top 3 winners of the coding competition.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

The coding competition is one of the 4 streams proposed for device seeding in the mailing list discussion. You are all welcome to propose ideas for any of these streams, or for new streams. They all need volunteers btw. Please follow up in the mailing list.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I'm back, *****es!

dang it!
And we thought SOPA/PIPA/whatever censorship would be bad...
;)

sooo, just wanted to say that I can do a little bit... What do you think about using our submission-platform again? (http://competition.meetmeego.org/)
PayPal: okay, but is a community fund necessary this time? I mean, we have 20 N950!!!!

voting: we could use the same thing as last year...

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Where did you get 20 N950's from, from what I've read there isn't anywhere that 20 was mentioned, but I could be wrong, please point me in the right direction if I am.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

sorry, I meant 25 devices.
Quoting Quim from the mailing list:
http://maemo.org/community/maemo-com...02fa4e21242124

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

That's what I thought, thank you for clarifying Cosimo.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Welcome back, *****! It's nice to see the world of ultrabooks hasn't kept you completely from us ;)

I'm not sure it's necessary but I think it could be nice to have it again, because it's another way for the community to be involved and show appreciation. If you remember back when the first competition was started I put $50 up as the prize, and quickly folks started pm'ing me as they wanted to contribute also. We started from a small weekend competition that snowballed into something a lot bigger! So I think there may be a willingness out there to have a bounty again. We could gauge the mood when the competition starts :)

But even if there wasn't, there are still ways for the community to participate in prizes. Last year i sponsored a programming book for a beginners prize, the year before we had the lazer cut stands and other bits and bobs. So it doesn't always have to be cash or paypal ;) It was just a matter of pm'ing the winners for a postal address and sending the packages out. :)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Thanks for your thought, kojacker, I haven't seen it that way, but you're right. We should give the community an opportunity to show that they appreciate the developers work.

Do we already have a timeframe?
if someone has a little bit spare time, a wiki page would be awesome.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Maybe I won't be able to participate, cause I've won a N9 on last competition.
But please, try to make it more organized.
You said that all shipment taxes has to be paid by winners
I've paid USD 300 for the N9, but nevermind, I love the phone
But I've donated the N900 that I won because I didn't have the money to pay taxes.
And after that, I've seen on last competition thread that nobody has paid for their N900.
I could have stayed with the N900, to sell it and get some money back from the N9 taxes.
Maybe those things should be clarified before the end of competition, and before another user rejects his prize because he doesn't have money to pay taxes.

Anyways, I'm really happy with my N9 and will keep working for it.

PS: my english sucks, sorry for that

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Hey CepiPerez, it sounds like you've been both lucky and unlucky with the competition. Congrats on being a winner, and it's great you love your N9! :) But rather than winning a free N9 you feel you have ended up with a discount because you had to pay shipping taxes on your prize, and I can understand why you'd feel bad about that :(

It's something we should keep in mind with the next competition, to be as clear as we can about shipping taxes etc. I remember from the competition thread that you did highlight your worry about taxes to us but it wasn't something that could be controlled when sending the package to you. Unfortunately, the truth is we won't know what these taxes would be until the package reaches you. As you know, custom fees is not something that's applied until the package reaches your country, and it's difficult to make these costs clear to entrants before the competition starts. Later, Zehjoktah reached out to Nokia for more information on shipping fees and offered some solution for the 3 entrants outside the EU, but it's not a perfect solution for everyone...

I know it's disappointing how the situation with the N900 worked out for you, but I hope it was still worthwhile for you to take part in the competition, CepiPerez :o

Having a community from all over the globe is one of the coolest things about talk.maemo.org, but it does make it trickier to send prizes to people! :p We don't want to exclude anyone from the competition ofcourse, just because of where they live, but it's really hard to know in advance how different countries will apply their own custom fees. It's also the same thing with paypal, in some countries it is not possible to use paypal. Zehjotkah had a problem with this before when paying out to Russian (I think it was Russia..) winners from the community bounty, and had to find a solution around it.

Oh, just because you're a winner last time doesn't mean you can't enter this time - in fact, I think it means you should return to defend your champion status! ;) But this time we know about Argentina shipping taxes, so if you're lucky to win again we can work out some solution in advance :)

P.S. your English is fine, CepiPerez, it doesn't suck at all :cool:

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Greetings, can i enter into competition with huge update to existing application with was submitted by another maintainer last year? app was requested at community ideas section. some changes already done and released as night builds. uploading to extras-devel is in progress due to some tech problems.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Hey Custodian - the rules for the 2012 competition haven't been set yet but we did allow significant updates to existing applications to be entered in the previous two competitions. A significant update would be something like a new feature or functionality, rather than minor tweaks. Specifically, the competition rule for entries last year was:

If you'd like to take a look at last year's competition wiki, it will give you a feel of what to expect this time around.

http://wiki.maemo.org/MeeGo_Coding_Competition_2011

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

@kojacker:
Thanks for your reply
I'm not complaining about the competition. Zehjoktah did everything he could to help me and I understand it's not a community problem.
But as I can see, Nokia has covered all shipping costs for N900 and doesn't did the same for N9. That's all.

About new competition: can I participate?
I've made huge changes in flowplayer for N9 and I've made a last.fm radio, but I've already posted those apps. I have more things in mind. Should I wait for the competition opening to release something more?

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Thank you for reply, I have already studied the wiki of last year' competition

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Hmm.. the two prizes might have been sourced differently, maybe someone who was involved with arranging the prizes with Nokia can confirm why there was a difference in shipping tax being paid/refunded. But in any case, you make a good point CepiPerez that we should do our best to know these things before packages are sent to winners so that nobody gets an unexpected bill on their doorstep!

Gosh yes!

Hmm.. the original idea of the competition was to get everyone making and releasing more new stuff, so I suspect already completed code may not count again this year. It all depends what the rules will be for 2012 - it's too early to say for sure! But dont hold back on anything you can release because who knows when the competition will start. And now we know you have new stuff to release we become greedy and want it all now! hehe :D

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I wasn't involved in last year's competition and I don't know the details right now. However, this year it will be sourced through the Nokia Developer infrastructure, and there it is usually Nokia who covers all the shipment costs. I have managed many device programs and I'm not aware of any participant involved that had to pay him/herself.

Conclusion: assume no shipping / tax costs for winners.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

The N9s last year came from Nokia Germany, the N900s from the Qt Project.
Nokia Germany thought that this was a german coding competition (even after I told them that it's international again and again). I think that's the reason why they weren't prepared to send the devices internationally.

Thanks Quim for claryfying that this year there won't be any shipping or tax costs for the winners.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

is there official webpage? one i saw has maemo stuff as well and it's not sorted, i think it should be per year separete pages

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I'm not aware of a wiki page for the 2012 competition yet. There are a lot of details to be confirmed but, if you'd like to get it started, feel free to go ahead and help set one up! :)

The original competition was all maemo entries, the second was broader and open to Maemo and MeeGo entries.

I definitely agree, a seperate wiki page for each year's competition is the best way and that's what we do :) That way we can keep all of the entries, results, donations, etc etc in one place without it getting too large.

The 'skeleton' of the competition will remain basically the same from the previous two competitions, here's links to their wiki pages for some inspiration:

The original Maemo Coding Competition (2010)

The second MeeGo Coding Competition (2011)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

i was refering for http://competition.meetmeego.org/, but i can try to help with wiki, but doesn't competitors need to enter the apps?
I think there should be one wiki page for rules and everything about competition not related to wich one, and in top the list for each ear apps and votes. like one for global info and for each competition page with minimal info but most important (apps, donors and votes)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Oh I see, you mean the submission website. i'm not sure if it's happening again this year, and I think that still has to be confirmed. Actually Zehjotkah asked about it earlier in this thread

How about you guys that entered, any feedback on using the submission site? Do you think we should use it again for 2012? Anything we could do differently to make things better?

BTW thanks for offering to help with the wiki ZogG.. hehe.. caught! ;)

Ok I see what you're getting at, that could work well. All ideas are welcome, especially fresh ones :)

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

It would easier to add next year meego/tizen/meltme or what ever competition.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

I'm sick at home and therefore bored... ;)

What do you think about:
- only allow new applications/games/whatever as submissions? No frickelyfrick-updatety-thingy this time...
- only target maemo and meego-harmattan OSes (Nokia 770, N800, N810, N900, N950 and N9)

Regarding the competition.meetmeego.org page:
If we want to use the system again, of course we would set up a new instance, replacing the old one (maybe backing up the old one in an archive).
Also I will ask if we'd manage it to set up an own voting process in time, to not have to use the maemo council election system again (and thus not restricting the voting to some higher karma maemo.org members...).

edit:
name proposals:
maemo.org Coding Competition 2012 <---- my favourite
MaeGo Coding Competition 2012
Anti Elops Evil Windows Phone Plan Coding Competition
https://p.twimg.com/Am1F2zyCEAMbnMy.jpg:large

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Great for us, sad for you. ;) I hope you'll get well soon. :)

Yes, it is unfair to compare a totally new developed application with something which is already in development for years. While voting the most people doesn't consider the difference.

But personally I wouldn't exclude a port of a application to a new target including a new UI. At example a port of a application from N900 to Nokia N9 (forced to add a new qml gui at example).

How many categories have we this time?

Perhaps we could make a seperate categorie for updated applications. A category for contributors which are "only making" updates to existing applications.

But I wouldn't exclude ports of applications which are not aviliable at the N9 from the "common" categories. :)

I found the MeeGo Tablet, Handset, x86 / ARM stuff very confusing because we had this in every category. And during the voting they were not seperated handled as in the beginning discussed.

We have currently no MeeGo Tablet confusion. But those apps are perhaps still important for some people in the maemo world.
What about adding a seperate category for Tablets which have official support for Qt. (Cordia, mer or the Blackberry Playbook)

Yes, archive is needed. Very important! :)
Simply deleting is in my opinion always not a good idea.

I would vote for exactly the same voting process as last time. This way nobody has to register especially for the voting at a different site, we know this time how it works and thanks to the needed higher karma we have a hopefully working weapon against unfair fake users.


[+1] maemo.org Coding Competition 2012
The name MeeGo is simply outdated. In my opinion it would have been better for Nokia to say it is running maemo on the N9 instead of MeeGo-Harmattan to stop all the confusions.

Whereby I must say, the last one is waking up some kind of motivating Qt emotions... :D

So, now I need simply a good and well doable idea... :rolleyes: (oh, and more time!) :D

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

get well soon...we need you ;)

I think that we should leave also the updating thingy, or perhaps as helex says, create a new category for the updating (and maybe one for the porting) would be fine enough

As for the target, for my point of view, I would like to see only 'mobile' device target (no x86).

IMHO Using the maemo voting process is a good idea, as for the last competition, but make it up in time this time :)

maemo.org Coding Competition 2012 sounds good, also something more generic like 'Open Mobile Competition' would be cool, no? :)

p.s.: nice photo! :D


Best Regards,
Daniele Maio.

Re: 2012 Coding Competition
 

Just a few quick points.

maemo.org Coding Competition 2012 is my favoured option.

As far as voting goes, would it be simpler to create a poll/thread for each category here in TMO, with all votes visible (this makes it possible to view any voting irregularities eg. someone creating loads of profiles to vote up their submission)? This would keep it all in-house here at tmo, but lessen our reliance on Niemens.

+1 on the limiting it to new apps, it can get confusing to voters how much work has been done for the competition and is unfair on new submissions when competing against something that is much more polished.

Lastly, perhaps we could invite the Vivaldi team to sponsor a category for their tablet. This would help build ties between the communities.