Troph⟩es du Libre: International Free Software Awards

The Troph⟩es du Libre is an international free software awards event that has been rewarding innovative free software since 2003 in six different categories: security, scientific software, company management software, educational, public sector software, games and multimedia. The contest provides its winners with financial support as well as wide international media coverage. This year, the prestigious international jury of this event is composed by famous French entrepreneurs in Free Software like Stefane Fermigier (CPS/Nuxeo) and Alexandre Zapolsky, as well as core developers of major free projects like the Hungarian Alex Beregzs➡ Mplayer/FFMPEG), the Australian Gavin Sherry (PostgreSQL) or the French Samuel Hocevar (VLC), who has recently been elected as Debian Project Leader.

The contest is organized by Cetril with the support of public and private sponsors, including IBM. IBM's support for Les Troph⟩es du Libre is a part of its strategy in which interoperability has been a key element for several years. For IBM, interoperability rests on three cornerstones: open standards (Java, XML, ODF...), open architecture and Open Source. That's why IBM supports the Open Source ecosystem by joining different Boards (Apache, Eclipse, Globus project...) and dedicating human and financial resources to different projects. For IBM, Open Source is an undoubted source of innovation, a priority with open communities. Every time a piece of technology becomes a commodity, IBM makes it available to the Open source community so that it gets developed and enriched collectively. The contest provides a rare opportunity for free software projects to get publicity outside the usual free software audience and receive more than 30,000 ⟩ in prizes. This year, the finalists will be announced on the 1st of November 2007.