Call for Open Source Software Competition

The open-source software competition is a relatively recent and highly successful addition to the ACM Multimedia program. 2007 will be our fourth year in running the competition.

The competition celebrates the invaluable contribution of researchers who advance the field by providing the community with implementations of codecs, middleware, frameworks, toolkits, libraries, and other multimedia software.

To qualify, software must be provided with source code and licensed in such a manner that it can be used free of charge in academic and research settings. For the competition, the software will be built from the sources. Submissions should be made in the form of a compressed zip or tar archive file and must include the following:

• A text file named README.txt which summarizes the purpose of the software and its overall design and use.
• A text file named INSTALL.txt which includes any and all instructions on building and installing the software and any system requirements. The judging committee will make a reasonable effort to build any submitted software. However, if we are unable to make the software run given a reasonable effort, we must unfortunately exclude it from the competition. Therefore, complete and clear build and install instructions are a crucial component of any submission.

Additionally, authors are highly encouraged to provide as much documentation as possible, including examples of how the provided software might be used. Entries may be made available to the research community via the ACM Multimedia SIG website and the judging committee may employ feedback from the community at large to help determine the winning entry. In order to encourage participation, non-winning entries are encouraged to submit again in the future. Student-led efforts are particularly encouraged. Authors of the winning entry will be recognized formally at ACM Multimedia 2007, awarded a prize (to be announced), and invited to demonstrate their software as part of the conference demonstration program.

All short Open Source Software submissions must be submitted through EDAS. Follow the link, create either a new user account or use your existing EDAS account and submit your code and description.

Important Dates

Submission Instructions

People interested in submitting an entry to the open source software competition should submit 1-2 pages containing the following information via the online submission system.

• Title of submission
• Names and affiliations of authors (indicate students)
• Brief overview of submission (i.e., purpose, intended audience, main features, etc.)
• Public URL for project page where software, documentation, and license can be found
• Compressed tar or zip archive file with all source code, documentation, and licenses

Please note: If the archive file is more than 5MB in size, please place the file in a web accessible location and send a URL for that location instead.

If you have questions about what can or should be submitted, please feel free to address these questions to the competition chair Apostol (Paul) Natsev. We are excited to be organizing this innovative and creative addition to the ACM Multimedia program. Please help us make this venture a continuing success by submitting your entry to the competition. We look forward to your participation.

Questions?

For any questions regarding the open source competition please email the chair:

• Apostol (Paul) Natsev (IBM Research)