Announcing the fourth Development Contest - XPages meets IBM Connections

OpenNTF is happy to announce the fourth development contest on OpenNTF.Org sponsored by IBM Business Partner hedersoft. Contribute your open source project between now and December 2nd and have a chance to win one of five $1000 prizes.



With this contest OpenNTF and hedersoft want to further increase the number of XPages open source projects to help with the adoption of XPages.

Lars Buntrock, CEO of hedersoft, said:

"hedersoft is an IBM business partner in Germany that has been a strong supporter for open source ever since it's foundation.  We have contributed several projects to OpenNTF. As sponsor for the fourth OpenNTF development contest we are increasing the level of our involvement - with the goal of encouraging XPages experts to contribute even more open source controls and applications.

Personally I'm looking forward to the new "Connections" category and hope that we will see many exciting solutions in this space. I'm convinced that the development of social business solutions will soon be key for XPages developers. I'd like to thank OpenNTF and IBM for providing the pre-installed image making it easy for interested developers to start using IBM Connections."

Bruce Elgort, OpenNTF chairman, said:

"IBM Connections is now the platform of choice for companies embracing social business and I am extremely happy that this fourth development contest has a category specifically for it. I am eager to see what the awesome development community will development and submit to the contest."


As in the last contest there are two categories, but different ones:

1) Open Category

In this category all types of OpenNTF projects can be nominated that use XPages. These projects can either be re-usable controls, full applications or tools. They can be implemented using design elements in Notes databases and/or built using custom extension libraries packaged as OSGi bundles. There are many good examples on http://xpages.info/contest.

Re-usable controls can be custom controls or library/Java controls. Reusable controls typically have parameters to configure and use them in different contexts. The controls need to be documented to make them consumable by other developers. Custom controls particularly need to document which design elements to copy to use the controls in other NSFs.

Applications should contain or integrate all necessary functionality for users to fulfill certain tasks. Examples are the IBM templates, e.g. teamroom, or other examples listed on http://xpages.info/downloads. Applications also need to be reusable, e.g. by externalizing all custom specific configuration, providing customizability options, documentation, etc.

Implementation: Participants can choose how to implement their applications. There are no prerequisites to use certain technologies other than that the solutions need to work in/with XPages. All contributions need to work on Lotus Domino 8.5.3. They can also require Upgrade Pack 1 or the latest XPages Extension Library from OpenNTF.

Submission ideas: For controls you can check out the long list of controls developers submitted for the first three contests. There are also many Dojo widgets, jQuery plugins and jQuery Mobile controls that could nicely be wrapped up in reusable XPages controls. Stephan Wissel blogged about other ideas and some companies provide controls for other platforms, e.g. telerik and Devexpress. One control which is not covered in these references is a generic data synchronization control to replicate data from server side NSFs to smartphones and make it available to WebKit based apps.

Here is a list of potential submissions for applications:
- Stream of entries from various social networks (in difference to Wildfire web based)
- Notes chicklets for web as web based navigator to apps
- Analysis tool to track how many certain web pages have been visited
- Notification system if certain Notes documents have changed
- Personal document library federating docs from Dropbox, Drive, Connections, LotusLive etc.
- Personal bookmarks federating from Twitter, Connections, etc.
- Gamification system for XPages apps
- Simple project/team task management app with mobile interface


2) Connections Category

For the first time there is a new Connections category. In this category OpenNTF projects can be submitted that show how to use XPages in combination with IBM Connections. We're asking for either custom applications/controls that integrate/utilize Connections functionality or for extensions for IBM Connections built via XPages.

As reference there is a sample scenario available on OpenNTF showing how to extend Connections which could be used as starting point. Documentation of this sample can be found on Niklas Heidloff's blog. There is also an infrastructure called social enabler that makes it very easy to invoke REST APIs from Connections. The Extension Library book (chapter 13)  and a short video describe how the social enabler can be used.

In order to make it as simple as possible for XPages developers to get started with IBM Connections OpenNTF provides a shared image instance running in the IBM SmartCloud. This image runs Connections 3.0.1, Domino 8.5.3, the latest OpenNTF extension library, 80 test user accounts, single sign on configured and the sample from OpenNTF.

Developers who want to use this image should contact Niklas Heidloff (niklas_heidloff at de dot ibm dot com).

There is a video that describes how the image can be used. In addition to this OpenNTF has planned to host an emeeting at the end of August where the image will be demonstrated in more detail for interested developers.

Implementation: The projects need to utilize XPages and they need to work on IBM Lotus Domino 8.5.3 and IBM Connections 3.0.1. They can also require the latest XPages Extension Library from OpenNTF.


Awards and Recognition

All prizes will be cash prizes this time again. Winners can decide whether they want to receive Amazon vouchers or whether they want to get paid via PayPal.

1) Open Category
The three winners of this category will receive $1000 each.

2) Connections Category
The two winners of this category will receive $1000 each.

OpenNTF will also create videos and screenshots (if not done by contributors), blog about these controls and have them put on XPages.info as done for the first, second and third contest.

Criteria

We'll use the following criteria when judging the contributions:

1) Reusability, consumability and documentation
2) "Wow" factor and completeness of solution
3) Overall business value
4) Amount of work to build the submission(s)

The judging will be done by OpenNTF again but we invite people from the community to participate in the judging. In that case they obviously cannot participate themselves and cannot judge submissions from colleagues in the same company.

Eligibility

Everyone can participate and submit nominations, with the exception of the OpenNTF Board of Directors. While members of the Board may not personally submit a nomination, other employees of their respective companies may submit. A contribution can be submitted by more than one person but the award would have to be shared between the submitters. Winners should also be aware of any rules that their employer, state or local company has regarding participating in contests and winning prizes. A nomination can be done by more than one person but the award would have to be splitted.

Prerequisites for valid Submissions

Any open source project may be submitted for consideration for this contest that has been accepted for either the Apache or GPL catalog on OpenNTF. The following points describe in details these prerequisites.

1. Authors need to be approved OpenNTF contributors, e.g. they need to be covered by an ICLA or CCLA (details).
2. Submissions have to be posted under one of the four accepted OpenNTF licences. For example for Apache submissions the Apache license has to be applied correctly (details).
3. Submissions must have been cleared by the ip-manager at openntf dot org so that they can be added to either the Apache or GPL catalog. Contact the IP manager if you need to use third party code.
4. Submissions will be evaluated on Domino 8.5.3 with or without extension library and Connections 3.0.1. Non-working submissions or submissions that judges cannot get to work will not be considered. No other product versions will be used for evaluation.
5. Submissions will be evaluated on the most common browsers Firefox, IE, Chrome and Safari (latest releases). If you're aware of issues of your submission in certain browsers please let us know.
6. Submissions need at least to provide two or three paragraphs of documentation, some screenshots and in the optimal case a short demo video (all in English).
7. All new project releases are eligible that have been created after the third contest ended (06/03/2012). Existing releases can not be nominated but parts of existing projects can be reused and extended.

Submissions

You need to have the code on OpenNTF and send a mail to support at openntf dot org and ip-manager at openntf dot org (for IP clearance).

Schedule

December 2nd 2012: Deadline for submissions
One or two weeks later: Announcement of winners

Promotion

OpenNTF would appreciate if you could help us to promote this contest.

Please feel free to use the banner graphic above or the following sidebar graphic and link to http://contest.openntf.org.



Previous Development Contests

Screenshots and videos of the submitted controls of the first contest, the second contest and the third contest are available on xpages.info/contest.