A few weeks ago Microsoft sent me 3 MSDN Premium Subscriptions with Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite to give away to members of the community. I thought long and hard, and the best way I could come up with who to give them to is to hold a coding contest. So I'm happy to announce the Community Coding Contest! I don't have the website up yet, but I'll get it up as soon as I can. The website is now Live!

What are the Rules?

Here are the basic rules for the contest. Once the website is launched, I will post a more complete listing of rules there.

  1. All Code Submissions need to be licensed with some sort of Open Source or Shared Source license that allows it to be distributed (including source code) from the contest website and looked at/compiled/executed by any community member.
  2. All Code Submissions need to be created using one or more of the following tools: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express/Standard/Professional, SQL Server 2005/2008 Express/Standard/etc.
  3. All Code Submissions must run on the Windows platform and can be Web or Desktop/Windows applications; that means Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and/or IIS.
  4. You are inelligible to win if you are an active Microsoft MVP.
  5. You must provide us with a United States shipping address upon submitting your code entry, that we can ship your prizes to if you win. **The United States shipping address is required, since the MSDN Subscriptions are region locked to the United States only.**
  6. These rules are subject to change any time during the duration of the contest, with or without notice, and such changes will be posted on the official contest website.

What is the Contest Duration?

Contest submissions will be accepted from July 1st, 2008 through Sept. 30th, 2008. All contest submissions will be made available for download and voting from the website on Oct. 1st, 2008. Voting will be open from Oct. 1st 2008 through Oct. 15th 2008.

How are the Winners Decided?

The community will decide the winners. Once the submission deadline (Sept. 30th 2008) is reached, all submissions will be made available on the website for the community to download and check out. Then all community members (anyone) will be able to vote for the submission(s) they like the most. The submissions with the most votes, will win prizes. The voting will run from Oct. 1st 2008 through Oct. 15th 2008.

What are the Prizes?

Currently the prizes I have to give away are:

1st Place - 1 MSDN Premium Subscription with Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite

2nd Place - 1 MSDN Premium Subscription with Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite

3rd Place - 1 MSDN Premium Subscription with Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite

4th Place - Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 Professional

I am also looking for sponsors to donate additional prizes to give away.

Sponsorship Opportunities

I am currently looking for sponsors to donate in the following ways:

  • Prizes
  • Graphic Design for the contest website

If you are intested in sponsoring the contest by donating prizes to give away, or by donating graphic design work for the contest website, please Contact Me so we can discuss things in further detail.

More information about the contest will be **is **posted at the official contest website when it is launched within the next few days, that was launched on June 29th.

Official Community Coding Contest Website: http://communitycodingcontest.org