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Linux Finds Its Face

Apr 09, 2009  By Justin Ryan

Way back in January, the Linux Foundation launched a search — a global search — to find something that was sorely missing. No, not Linus's car keys: the face of Linux. Just three months later, they have.

Sure, one could argue that Linux has a face, either in the person of developer-in-chief Linus Torvalds or, perhaps more recognizably, in Tux, the instantly recognizable Linux mascot. However, what Linux really needed was a face to face the stereotypes in the advertising put out by the "other OSes," and that's just what they went looking for. In late January, the foundation launched the "We're Linux" video contest to find a user-created video that "showcases just what Linux means to those who use it, and hopefully inspires many to try it."

Entry was open until March 15, when the contest's judges went to work narrowing down more than ninety submissions to a list of finalists and, of course, the winner — with the community's help, naturally. Earlier this week, five finalists were announced:

  • The Future is Open by Elías Poveda Sirvent
  • The Origin by Agustin Eguia
  • Linux AD - What does it mean to be free? by Amitay Tweeto
  • Challenges at the Office by Waseem Daher
  • Linux Pub by Sebastien Massé

All five finalist videos, along with all the submissions, can be viewed on the Linux Foundation's video site.

So, who won? The LF kept that bit of information to themselves, holding out to make the grand announcement in San Francisco at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. Until yesterday, that is, when the winner was revealed:

Amitay, who hails from Bet Shemesh, Israel, won free hotel/airfare/registration for the Linux Foundation Japan Symposium, to be held in October in Tokyo. First runner up went to The Origin by Agustin Eguia, and second runner up to Linux Pub by Sebastien Massé.

The panel of judges responsible for selecting these five, and ultimately, deciding who would be taking that free trip to Tokyo, were:

  • Matt Asay of CNET and Alfresco, Inc.
  • LF Board member Larry Augustin formerly of VA Software.
  • Jono Bacon of Ubuntu.
  • Joe Brockmeier of openSUSE.
  • Melinda Mettler of the School of Advertising at the Academy of Art University.
  • Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media.
______________________

Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

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Spam

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 03:28.

What the fuck? Where are you captcha?

mediocre. feels like running gnome

Ed Giacomin's picture
Submitted by Ed Giacomin (not verified) on Sat, 04/11/2009 - 20:26.

sorry, i wanted to like it but was underwhelmed.
I had seen one with the flying penguins a while back which looked interesting but the best of group was rather... mediocre.
i didnt hate the winner, interesting clean graphics, music was fine like the dream sequence of Risky Business, good rhythm, nice accent but a touch to heavy (luckily i could read the word option because I had no idea what he was saying). it was nice. that's it. unmemorable. forgettable. mediocre.

I wont blame the lack of quality on the community so Ill lay it on the douchey bunch of judges (except ol Larry). Id rather think there were better ones but that they didnt pick them

The video is working great

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 17:13.

The video is working great now..

It's actually quite nice. I don't know what the other submissions looked like, but very cool.

It's so easy to think of "commercials" for linux systems because by the way of embedded devices they impact almost every profession in every industry in one way or another -- and most people don't even realize it. From medical devices that save lives to the data centers enabling the internet and corporations to personal devices such as telephones; linux is all around us...and in many ways a part of all of us and our daily activities -- even those unsuspecting "OtherOS" fan-boys are a part of the linux community (without even knowing it).

It's funny how a linux commercial almost sounds like what a PC commercial would (if some entity could actually make a corporation un-attached PC commercial -- I guess linux has the same problem, doesn't it?), even though linux isn't tied to specific hardware (though in many ways, neither is PC).

Fixed

Justin Ryan's picture
Submitted by Justin Ryan on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 14:16.

Looks like the LF's site is having issues with embedding - I've switched it to embed the YouTube video directly.

Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

Face of linux..

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 13:39.

I got the same thing...

same black screen...

same 0:Error #2048

what gives....

face of linux..

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 11:56.

when I tried to play the video, I got, on a black screen:

0: Error #2048

I thought the face of linux would look...um.. BETTER than a blue face of death...

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