What
More often than not, when people talk about Open Source, the words free or cheap comes into mind. So, where is the money in Open Source?  Commercial open source software and specialized services maybe the answers, but how else do we monetize?

The cloud technology opens up a new spectrum of opportunities in “commercializing” Open Source. The elasticity and on-demand characteristics of the cloud, where cost overheads are proportionate to the actual consumption of the IT resources, makes it easy for organizations or even individuals to actually start an online service using Open Source application on the cloud.  Now, the big question is, what service?

That is the question that we wish to challenge the Open Source enthusiasts in this competition.  We want you, to take any PHP-based Open Source application from any repositories, put it on the cloud, offer it as a service and whomever that comes up with the best business concept with the best business potential will win.  Who knows, maybe you will create the next facebook, eBay, Elance.com, or maybe a completely new business concept.  We won’t judge you, but your peers will (although we maintain our rights to manage the polls in order to maintain fairness in the competition)

Don’t know enough about the cloud?  Not sure how to get it working?  Don’t worry, we even provide all the workshops and clinics to teach you how.

How
Here’s how it works.  Register yourselves in the competition on this site.  If you’re also interested in the workshops, register yourselves for that too.  The workshop will take you through the how-tos, and you will get hands on experience by using the Microsoft Azure tokens provided to you to access the cloud.

When the competition begins, you will be given a 30 day access to the cloud.  Put on your thinking caps, and bring out the best business acumens you’ve got.  Think of a business concept.  At this juncture, you may want to do some research on what cloud service is sell-able.   Select any PHP-based OSS applications from any repositories that run on the Windows platform (You are not limited to the Windows platform only, but it will make your life easier when you port it to the Microsoft Azure Cloud later) Put it on the cloud, and start tweaking it to the business concept you’ve devised.   The URLs of your application will be posted on this site.   In the middle of the competition period, we will open the polls facility, which will allow the public to vote on your applications, which accounts to 70% of the weightage.  30% weightage will be votes by the judging panel. Results will be announced on the second day of MOSC2010, i.e. June 30, 2010.  On the same day, winners will be handed their prizes.

Who
This competition is organized and managed by the OSS community, through a committee selected by OSDC.my.  MDeC, Microsoft and ZendPHP will be our collaborators, sponsors and technical advisors.