Seems a good idea. I've some doubts about the involvement.
My experience says that when people are called to do something in the name of FOSS there are few replies to the call, so some kind of award is mandatory to obtain an involvment.
The only question I place: is it appropriate using a reward for people doing something which helps other people?

Is it in the Fedora moral?

I think the award is OK. I don't think it's compulsory to get people to write these essays, I think it more as an incentive. I mean, if you just randomly ask people "why dont you write a post on the foss philosophy?", why would they do it? I haven't done it myself - philosophy is a very personal thing, and I wouldn't expect people to just go around writing about their beliefs unless there's a proper reason to do so. The competition serves to provide this reason.

Think of it like this - "we'd love to hear your views on Fedora and FOSS - we want people both in and out of the community to know that FOSS is important to us, and these essays will help consolidate that, and because this will take some time from your busy schedule, we'd like to reward you for your effort.." (something on these lines?)

This would fit well as part of the higher level University involvement objective[0]. An essay contest on FLOSS, intellectual property issues, permissive licensing, or even online privacy would be apropos for both Fedora and a modern college campus. (A broad scope here - multiple categories might be needed)

Such a contest could capture the interest of students that might not normally take an interest in using Linux, or take an interest in the social issues - think psychology, literature, or political science majors. Educating tomorrow's politicians, in any case, seems like a good idea :)

[0] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Objectives/University_Involvement_Initiative

Very Interesting :)

If this does get approval, I would be willing to sit on the Judges panel.
If this does get approval, I would be willing to help draft an announcement post for http://Opensource.com and http://FedoraMagazine.org (assuming these websites would be interested in participating.)

'''Some thoughts:'''
- Having a few essays/stories as examples when we announce the contest will likely help improve the number and quality of submissions.

• We hop on the #hashtag bandwagon, and run a social media campaign to help promote the contest (#WhyFOSS, #WhyIFOSS, #WhyWeFOSS, #ChooseFOSS, #FreeAsInFreedom, #etc)

• Keeping the requirements as simple as possible will keep the barrier to entry lower, and encourage more participants. I think asking one simple question ("Why do you contribute?"), giving a deadline (1 month before the next FLOCK/FUDCon?) and maybe a wordcount limit (maybe) would suffice.

• Co-promotion with other communities could also help. Some natural allies would be folks like http://CreativeCommons.org and http://Wikipedia.org for starters. There are many others I could imagine being interested too (http://Mozilla.com, http://LibreOffice.org, etc...)

• As far as prizes, I can imagine there being Fedora Badges for those involved in the contest (both participants and organizers alike. This may or may not fly, as Fedora Badges are usually for Fedora-Specific activity, and this contest may have a slightly broader scope.) I think a good tangible prize would be a 3D printed badge/plaque with the winners' name/nick/handle inscribed within it, and a FedoraMagazine/Opensource.com/Community Blog post announcing the winners.

• The contest submission process should definitely include FOSS tools and workflows:

  • Entries must be Licensed under FSF/OSI Approved Licenses
  • Entries must be in submitted in Free/Open Formats
  • Entries must be made web-accessible

'''Wild decause Ideas:'''
- We include a Multi-media category to encourage designers, artists, and even developers to create submissions that are more than text. I can imagine people creating videos, animations, images, art installations, games, interactive media/websites, audio, translations, 3D printed models, or other kinds of submissions that are non-textual.
- We also include a "People's Choice" award for each category, and allow the community to pick a winner too.
- Entries must Reuse, Remix, or Repurpose some type of content within their own work?
- Participants enter the contest by forking/cloning a repo, and submit their entries via patch/pull request?
- As submissions come in, we broadcast them via FedMsg (which can then be syndicated to many other channels.)
- Have a specific "Wallpaper" category and tie this into the ongoing efforts there. Tools like nuancier could prove useful: https://github.com/fedora-infra/nuancier

This is me, thinking off the top of my head and coming up with some ideas. I am absolutely open to suggestions, and look forward to more discussion here. I've already created a wiki page if that proves a more useful way to collaborate on this topic: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Join_SIG/WhyWeFOSS

Looking Forward,
--RemyD.

After five years some question come to my mind

Is these still valid in 2021?
Are we still have the same perceptions?
Are we continue thinking quantity against quality?

After allí this periodo the join team work harder to try to understand
To newcomets the FOS philosophy, that why newcomers workflow comes.

Is this still valid, is something that we can do for ourselves,. Is something to coordinate with FCAIC...

Regards.,

I think our new welcome to Fedora process does cover the general philosophy of FOSS, so let's close this here.