In case you need an excuse to NOT participate...

Published 23 April 08 10:04 AM | reedme 

Not everybody likes contests apparently... (Foex, I have yet to win anything in the game alpha testing contest that I love playing these days. *pout*) But Dan seems to have taken an irrational dislike to YOUR contest...

I'm starting a crusade at Microsoft to lower the number of contests we run a year. I know I'll be successful if the number of contests a year goes down. I fear I won't be. First, let me explain by showing how bad the problem is. Dan Fernandez's Blog : Microsoft the Contest Machine

I'm not sure what we did to make his List™, even though we've done our best to make sure that the contest entries in question are True Open Source™ (via Ms-PL) and to encourage both quality and longevity in the projects that get created... among other complaints that he has about contests generally. Hrm. Did he even read the Official Contest Rules™?

For the Record™, the entries we want are cool stuff that will long outlive this contest!

Maybe he's just mad that I didn't send him a T-shirt yet? Heh.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

# Microsoft news and tips » In case you need an excuse to NOT participate… said on April 23, 2008 2:05 PM:

PingBack from http://microsoftnews.askpcdoc.com/?p=4045

# danielfe said on April 23, 2008 3:08 PM:

To be clear, I'm not trying to single out any contest, just to prove the point that we run *so* many contests, especially for developers, that it simply becomes noise. The SQL Heroes contest is, effectively competing with developers time with the 20 other Microsoft simultaneous contests.

Contests are for competition, not for collaboration which is what open source (the movement, not the license) is all about. I think we absolutely could do better in terms of sponsoring collaborative open source projects and we don't, instead we fall back on contests.

Perhaps your contest will be different, and, if you're willing to, I'd be happy to post the results (# of applications submitted, # of download of applications, etc) of SQL Heroes in my blog as an exception to the rule and of course apologize :)

Cheers,

danielfe

Anonymous comments are disabled

Search

This Blog

Syndication

Prove that you've got what it takes. Build the next generation of community applications on SQL Server 2008 in CodePlex: websites, enterprise suites, samples, gadget, tools, guidance, etc.

See the Official Contest Rules for details.

This blog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of all materials herein, including code samples, are subject to the terms specified on the Official Copyright Page®.
Page view tracker