Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase

The Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is an opportunity to show off high quality free culture content in Ubuntu. At the heart of Ubuntu's ethos is a belief in showcasing free software and free culture, and with each development cycle we open the opportunity for any artist to put their work in front of millions of Ubuntu users around the world.

What is Free Culture?

The free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content. Our aim is to promote a culture of creativity and sharing which is embodied by Ubuntu and the open source software available for it.

Taking part

The Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase will include photographic wallpapers, illustrative wallpapers, music and video contributions. The creative brief is open but all submissions must follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct (That means no nudity, swearing or anything that would upset your Mum!).

Wallpaper

We're looking for photographic wallpapers: lovely backgrounds that greet the user on Ubuntu's welcome screen and at login, and provide a main color for the Unity Dash! We're also looking for an illustrative wallpaper that plays off the theme of the current development release (for 18.04, that's Bionic Beaver).

Images shouldn’t be too busy and filled with too many shapes and colors, a similar tone throughout is a good rule of thumb.

A single point of focus, a single area that draws the eye into the image, can also help you avoid something too cluttered.

Photos should not include watermarks or logos.

The left and top edges are home to Ubuntu’s Launcher and Panel so be careful to consider how your images look in place so as not to clash with the user interface. Try them out on your own desktop; see how they feel.

Try your image at different aspect ratios to make sure something important isn’t cropped out on smaller/ larger screens at different resolutions.

Take a look at the wallpapers guidance on the Ubuntu Wiki regarding the size of images. Our target resolution is 3840 x 2400.

Above all, be creative!

Submission Requirements

Submissions should have a human-language title and the description should give the artist's name if not entered as a display name on Flickr.

The submission must be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike or Creative Commons Attribution license, and this should be stated in the image description, as Flickr uses the 3.0 licenses.

As an exception, we will consider images licensed as "Public Domain" that are submitted to this contest as being under the Creative Commons Zero waiver.

The submission must be submitted by the author of the work.

All submissions must follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

No more than two submissions in each category.

Video

Budding directors, animators and performers can make video submissions. We're looking for short, simple videos that relate to the theme of "ubuntu".

Around 30 seconds is a good length.

The video should be at least 1280x720.

An end credits card with attribution for the video and audio with the license is okay, but the video should not be watermarked.

The final file should be playable on a new Ubuntu install and no larger than 10 MB.

Submission Requirements

Submissions should have a human-language title and the artist's name.

The submission must be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike or Creative Commons Attribution license, and this should be stated on the hosting page and in the Ubuntu Community Hub post.

If you prefer your work to be in the public domain, please use the Creative Commons Zero waiver.

The submission must be submitted by the author of the work.

All submissions must follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

Audio

Want to make beautiful music together?

We're looking for a 2-5 minute song.

Keep your FLAC files handy, because the final result on the disc will be in Ogg Vorbis format.

Submission Requirements

Submissions should have a human-language title and the description should give the artist's name.

The submission must be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike or Creative Commons Attribution license, and this should be stated on the hosting page and in the Ubuntu Community Hub post.

If you prefer your work to be in the public domain, please use the Creative Commons Zero waiver.

The submission must be submitted by the author of the work.

All submissions must follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

A list of some of the free software / open-source tools that you can use to create your own submissions to the Free Culture Showcase.

Submissions

Submissions for each cycle.

18.10

Wallpaper

Submissions can be made directly on Flickr at the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase 18.10 group.

Thank you!

A HUGE thank you to all those who've contributed in the past and in particular to our previous winners who've contributed. We have a list of winners and links to their contributions on the page linked below.

Previous Winners