OStatic

Let's face it: developing open source software is a thankless and usually profit-free endeavor. While self-congratulatory award shows for actors and TV programs aren't that big a deal to most people, open source award programs are often all the recognition some community members get.

On the heels of the recently concluded SourceForge Community Choice Awards comes the announcement of the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards sponsored by technology book publisher Packt Publishing. Winners and runners-up from each of the five categories will win from $500 - $4,000 and take home a share of prize money totaling $24,000. Six 8 GB iPods will also be awarded at random to individuals who have visited the Packt's Web site to nominate their favorite projects.

SourceForge combed through more than 47,000 nominations to announce which of the open source projects it hosts are finalists in the Fourth Annual Community Choice Awards. Eighty-five projects in 12 categories are in the running and the winners will be announced on July 23, 2009 at OSCON.

Categories run the gamut from technical (Best Tool or Utility for SysAdmins) and entertaining (Best Project for Gamers) to life-changing (Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything). Nominated projects are equally wide-ranging and, while there are a number of familiar names like KeePass Password Safe and Audacity, quite a few lesser known projects are being given the opportunity to shine. Avogadro, a cross platform, 3-dimensional molecular editor, is up for Best Project for Academia and microblogging client Choqok has been nominated for Best New Project.

What do Pamela Jones, Chris Messina, Doc Searls, and Angela Byron all have in common? Aside from being very cool people, they?re also all past winners of a Google-O?Reilly Open Source Award.

The honor is bestowed on people in the FOSS community? who have ?demonstrated exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of open source software. The 2009 award winner will be announced at this? year?s O?Reilly Open Source Convention 2009 (OSCON) later this summer so if you know someone who you?d like to see win, there are still a few weeks left to nominate your favorite geek.