June 18th is the official launch date of the Open Source Zone. Unofficially, you can check it out here. We've already published some great OSS content, but we'd like to invite all of our contributors to share their own thoughts on this topic.

Oh, and if you do, you'll be rewarded! Get ready for the Open-Source Showdown.

How to Enter

We're trying a new format for this contest, one that relies on audience feedback to pick the winners. How open-source is that? :)

Here's the contest process:

From now until 11:59pm EST on Thursday, June 14th, the DZone Editorial Team will be accepting original articles on open-source topics. To have yours considered, make a note of that on the first line of your submission before sending it to moderation. On Friday, June 15th, the DZone Editorial Team will select the top 32 original open-source articles from all submissions. These posts will be part of the Open-Source Showdown. If your article is selected, we'll email you to let you know. On Monday, June 18th, the day of the Open Source Zone launch, audience voting will begin! Audience Likes will determine the contest winners.

The Voting

Many of our United States-based readers are familiar with the NCAA March Madness tournament and "bracketology." The Open-Source Showdown takes inspiration from this single-elimination method of selecting a winner.

Here's how it works. The contest starts with 32 articles. Each article will be matched up against an opponent, creating 16 "showdowns." By the end of the first round of voting, the 16 articles that received more Likes than their opponents will move on to the next round of the tournament. The other 16 are out.

In Round 2, the 16 articles will again be matched up. At the end of Round 2 of voting, only 8 winning articles will remain.

This goes on until a single article is declared the Grand Champion!

The Prizes

Here's the good news: Anyone who has an article selected for the showdown will receive a prize! Even if you lose in the first round of voting, you'll receive a $20 digital gift card to Apple Music.

PLEASE NOTE: Prizes do not "accumulate." You'll receive the prize for the last round you reach. For example, if you lose in Round 3, you won't receive the prizes for Rounds 1, 2, and 3. You'll just receive the prize for Round 3.

Each round of voting takes 24 hours. Below is the prize breakdown:

Round 1 (June 18th, 12pm EST - June 19th, 11:55am EST): 32 articles battle it out! At the end of the voting period, 16 remain and 16 are out. The authors of the 16 articles that lose in the first round receive $20 Apple Music e-gift cards.

Round 2 (June 19th, 12pm EST - June 20th, 11:55am EST): 16 articles fight to the death! At the end of the round, 8 remain and 8 are out. The authors of the 8 losing articles still receive a 3-month Spotify Premium membership.

Round 3 (June 20th, 12pm EST - June 21st, 11:55am EST): 8 articles go to the mat! When the voting is all over, 4 remain and 4 are out. The authors of the 4 losing articles receive a 3-month membership to Audible.

Round 4 (June 21st, 12pm EST - June 22nd, 11:55am EST) : The Final Four meet head-on! Two winners and two losers remain when the polls close. The authors of the losing articles each receive $100 toward the Udemy course(s) of their choice.

Round 5 (June 22nd, 12pm EST - June 25th, 11:55am EST): The championship match! When the dust settles, the author of the runner-up article will earn a 1-year Audible subscription + $50 toward GitHub membership. The Grand Champ will receive a 1-year Audible subscription + $100 toward GitHub membership!

A more visual version:

Lose in Round 1 (16) $20 Apple Music Gift Card Lose in Round 2 (8) 3-month Spotify Premium membership Lose in Round 3 (4) 3-month Audible membership Lose in Round 4 (2) $100 toward Udemy course(s) Lose in Round 5 (1) 1-year Audible membership + $50 toward GitHub membership WIN in Round 5 (1) 1-year Audible membership + $100 toward GitHub membership



The Rules

No plagiarism! Just don't do it.

The contest will run from Monday, June 18th at 12:00pm EST to Monday, June 25th at 11:55am EST. The winners of each round will be announced ASAP after the voting for that round is over. The Grand Prize winner will be announced on Monday, June 25th at 3pm EST.

All contestants must be registered as DZone members and have a complete profile. By "complete profile," we mean it must have the following: username, an email address, and a photo attached to your account.

Only articles that are "DZone Originals" will be considered for inclusion in the showdown. That means that syndicated content does NOT count. That also means that posts copied directly from your blog or website and then submitted to DZone do NOT count.

All articles MUST be submitted by the author—no exceptions!

Only content published during the contest timeframe will count.

Submissions must follow the updated DZone Article Submission Guidelines, particularly regarding proper English grammar and spelling.

At the end of the contest, before issuing prizes, all finalists will be reviewed for eligibility, including a review for pageview gaming and unauthorized content re-syndication.

All prizes will be issued at the END of the contest.

What Should I Write About?

Anything about OSS is fair game! If you're feeling stuck, we have a few suggestions for inspiration.

The DZone Bounty Board: Currently, we've got seven open-source bounties listed on the board. The nice thing about these prompts is that if your article is selected for publication, you'll get the bounty prize, too!

The Open Source Zone: We've already published some awesome articles here. Check out the latest and most popular posts to get your creative juices flowing.

The DZone Guide to Open Source: We just published this Guide last week and it's already gotten an impressive response. Give it a read and see what article ideas come to mind.

Audience Suggestions: A survey of our readers revealed that the following topics are of particular interest to the DZone audience. Open-source tools How to contribute to open source Open source as a business Licensing and legal aspects pertaining to open-source software Open-source firmware and hardware Building your personal framework Monetizing open-source projects Designing for an OSS product/project



Ready to Get Started?

To post your original open-source article, head on over to the DZone Article Editor and begin writing! Remember to let us know this is a showdown post with a brief note on the first line of your article.

If you have any questions or concerns, email me at kristenp@dzone.com or leave a comment. Good luck, and may the best writers win!