"I'm Linux" ad competition launched

If you've always wanted to stage your own TV advert, the Linux Foundation wants to hear from you.

Sick of the airtime that Microsoft and Apple are getting with their competing ranges of "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" adverts, the Foundation has announced a competition to create their own, open-source adverts to increase awareness of just what it means to say "I'm Linux."

Officially opening on the 26th of January and running until the 15th of March 2009, the competition is looking for people to produce 60-second video shorts showcasing exactly what it means to be a Linux user. Realising that the first bundle of entries are likely to be parodies or rebuttals to the adverts created by Apple and starring, in the UK at least, comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb the Foundation explains that "it's not a requirement to parody or make reference to [Apple's adverts]." We all know that's exactly what the bulk of entries will be, mind.

If you're a budding advert auteur looking to get your creative schwerve on, you've got a corker of a prize waiting for you: the Foundation is funding a flight to Narita in Japan from the airport closest to your home plus three nights at a hotel in order for the winner to attend the Linux Foundation Japan's symposium in October next year.

Although the Foundation is open to collaborative efforts – after all, they wouldn't be a very good example of the open source ethos if they weren't – there can be, as they say, only one winner, so if you've got a team together it might be a good idea to draw straws now to save arguments later.

Once the competition is live, the Foundation's website will be hosting all the entries for people to comment and vote on – but the final decision rests with a panel of judges appointed by the Foundation. If you're hoping that your entry will be the one, it's probably a good idea to make yourself familiar with the Foundation's terms of service before heading on over to the upload page.

Fancy yourself as an open-source advertiser, or is a community-sourced advert for Linux a recipe for disaster? Share your thoughts over in the forums.