A couple of days ago I asked for suggestions for contests so that I could give away a bunch of extra Swiss Gear Alagad laptop backpacks that are taking up my precious garage space. I received a number of good suggestions and, for my first contest, I’m going to go with Kurt Wiersma’s suggestion: Best First Time Open Source Contribution! (Congrat’s Kurt – Send me your address and I’ll send you a backpack.)
The contest title is pretty self descriptive. I want to encourage those of you who haven’t contributed to an open source project in the past to contribute. So, go out, choose a project you deem worthy and contribute. It doesn’t matter how you contribute. Obviously you could contribute code or bug fixes. You could also write documentation. There are probably other things you could do as well. For example, maybe you could start a fundraising or publicity campaign for your designated project. The choice is yours – be creative!
As you make your contribution please put a summary into the comments on this blog entry. Be sure to make a good sales pitch on why your contribution should be the winner. When the contest ends I’ll post a survey and the community can choose which contribution is their favorite. The winner will get a really nice laptop backpack. Everyone else will get the glowing sense of well being and pride in knowing you’ve done a good deed.
The contest starts now and runs through the end of 2010.
I’ve given away several of these backpacks in the past, but, if you’ve never seen them in person, trust me, they’re very nice! I’ve been using mine for about two years and it still looks brand new. It’s very well constructed from very nice materials. It’s well padded and won’t hurt your shoulders, no matter what you load into it. There are about a bazillion pockets on this beast – more than enough to securely store and organize just about anything you might want to cary with you. Heck, it’s even gotventilationchannels to keep your back cool!
So, please, go do a good deed and help out an open source project and report back!
Update: I’ve added a side contest to this contest. More information can be found here. In short, all you need to do is tweet the following to enter:
Now I wish Id never contributed to open source! #AlagadBag http://bit.ly/eJvDfi
DougHughes.net 
Comments on: "Contest: Best First Time Open Source Contribution (Updated)" (6)
Great idea, Doug. Consider this an invitation for contributions to Mura CMS. Documentation is one area we can always use a hand with, but anything is welcome.
Also, I can attest to the niceness of the backpack. I’m still using the one I won at CFObjective 2 years ago and it’s holding up very well. I love it.
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Great idea!
Effective immediately I resign from the CFEclipse project and will be ‘contributing’ something there shortly as a ‘first timer’. Will forward you my mailing address for bag shipment.
If you don’t know where to look for projects needing help – visit RIAForge.org and pick one that looks interesting!
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[…] An Alagad Backpack! […]
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Those sound like they would make nice NCDevCon 2011 door prizes.
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@Roger – If someone comes and grabs one from me before I give them all away you’re welcome to one for NCDevCon.
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