since a few years I’m using Gimp, RawTherapee, digiKam and Lumiance myself. For quite some questions I already checked out this forum and really found the answers I was looking for ;-). Now I want to give some input myself:
Did you already hear about http://www.osbar.it ? This is an Open Source Award for innovative ideas and projects - just like the ones named above and the others like darktable & co. I’m wondering if some of you aren’t willing to apply your projects for it?
I decided to post here in software as it really concerns to all sub-categories. So I hope the right people will read it ;-).
Their website is the sort of website which instantly makes me want to reach for ctrl+w. I spent 15 minutes reading their site and still know nothing.
Their website is only in German.
Who outside of Germany knows about OSBAR?
Who outside of Germany cares about OSBAR?
What is “the award”?
What can OSBAR do for me?
What have they actually accomplished so far?
thanks for taking your time at the website - I agree it could be better and in English, but as always it is a question of time and resources ;-).
To answer your questions:
OSBAR is a German thing - that’s why the website is German. It is hosted by the OSB Alliance, which is a German alliance too.
Together with other European Open Source Alliances it is planned to combine national awards (e.g. CH-Open award in Switzerland) to one bigger European award. But this is plans until now.
The award is glory and honor and one out of three presents given by sponsors (one will be a notebook, I assume …)
Your question “What can OSBAR do for me?” I would re-phrase to “What can OSBAR do?”
For you first of all it is an honor for your work. Persons behind OSBAR are working in Open Source companies, Open Source projects, at big customers (public + private sector) or in politics (see http://award.osb-alliance.de/#Jury). They know open source, but not all its flavours. OSBAR is a tool to make the whole variety of open source visible … Just think about photographers at youtube: They talk about Adobe, Adobe, Adobe and sometimes Adobe. Too many persons are not aware of the cool and helpful tools discussed there. OSBAR should help to change this.
Finally I do not want to push you to apply for it ;-). I really like the software discussed here a lot and appreciate all the work behind it. That’s why I added a hint to the award - in my eyes your work deserves recognition.
Being from Germany I never heard about that before either, so it’s not just you. Reading the requirements I am not sure if any of us is allowed to participate, it demands that
Sie muss mindestens eine Innovation für Unternehmen oder Institutionen der öffentlichen Hand enthalten.
which means that the software has to be an innovation for companies or public institutions. It sounds as if they are mostly after business solutions and not photography tools. Of course, you could trust your luck, still apply and maybe be allowed to put an award PNG on your website in the end. I personally wouldn’t spend the time writing a proposal PDF and write code instead.