White Camel Awards for 2018
Mon, 15-Apr-2019 by
Jim Brandt
edit post
< recognize outstanding, non-technical achievement in Perl. Started in 1999 by [Perl mongers](https://www.pm.org) and later merged with [The Perl Foundation](https://www.perlfoundation.org), the awards committee selects three names from a long list of worthy Perl volunteers to recognize hard work in Perl Community, Perl Advocacy, and Perl User Groups. These awards have been managed by [The Perl Review](https://www.theperlreview.com) in conjunction with the [The Perl Foundation](https://www.perlfoundation.org).
For 2018, the White Camels recognize the efforts of these people whose hard work has made Perl and the Perl community a better place:
* Perl Community - Todd Rinaldo, all sorts of things.
Todd Rinaldo has done plenty of technical work for Perl (you can blame him for taking . out of @INC), but's he's done quite a bit of non-technical work for the community as well. He's helped to organize Perl conferences and hackathons and provided other support through one of Perl's largest financial contributors, cPanel.
* Perl Advocacy - David Farrell, for Perltricks and [Perl.com](https://www.perl.com)
David Farrell started the PerlTricks.com site in 2013, then ressurrected Perl.com in 2017 (merging PerlTricks into it at the same time). He moved Perl.com to a GitHub repository that anyone can send pull requests to. Now it's easier than ever to not only create new content but update existing articles. He's also one of the co-organizers of the New York Perl mongers.
* Perl User Groups - Max Maischein
Frankfurt.pm hosts the German and the Frankfurt Perl-Workshops and other special events (including YAPC::EU 2012). Max Maischein has been its treasurer since 2011, handling the accounting, reporting, and contracting, as well as coordinating work with other local organizations. Without that important work nothing could get done. He's part of the backbone of the German Perl community.
Congratulations to the 2018 winners!
Contributions to open source are largely in the form of code, as evidenced by the huge number of repos on github and distributions on CPAN. As we develop in public, users can see and recognize authors as they use the code. Community contributions can be less evident, and the White Camels were born as a way to recognize people who do non-technical work that can sometimes be less obvious and go unseen.
This year during the nomination process, there was some discussion about the focus of the White Camel and who is considered elegible. There was some confusion about technical vs. non-technical contributions of nominees with some feeling technical contributions should also be recognized in some form. There was also discussion about Perl 5 vs. Perl 6 contributions and whether that should be a consideration.
As with all things open source, the White Camels came from the community, and these are good discussions to continue as our community continues to evolve. Right now it's unclear what form the White Camels might take next year. The Perl Foundation will continue to support awards of some sort as a way to recognize contributors, typically through funding any costs associated with awards. Other leaders in the community will help determine what the awards might focus on, who we should recognize, and how. If you have new ideas for future awards or support continuing the White Camels as they are, we invite you to keep the discussion going.
]]>
Comments (0)
