A wise man once said that graphics are just bloat anyway. A real man can survive quickly and efficiently using nothing but a VT100 terminal. And why not? With applications like Pine, Lynx, Mutt, Emacs, and Midnight Commander to choose from, its a wonder someone even bothered inventing X. Vote for the best.

So I admit it, I'm a perl junkie. This wonderful little scripting language is the duct tape of the Internet. So the question is which module can you not live without? The leaders are DBI, CGI, CPAN, and LWP. But in the end there can be only one!

A good desktop has a voice too these days. This is the software that makes your desktop sound good. Your nominations revealed the following contenders: XMMS, mpg123, ALSA, and EsounD. Discuss the nominees and vote.

Theming was where I got started. Of course back then you didn't have nearly the flexibility that todays modern window managers allow. You had to edit dotfiles, or even hack the code itself to make it look 'just right'. But these days themes like BlueSteel, Blueheart, AbsoluteE, BrushedMetal and Cyrus each help to make your desktop a cause of significant drool from our coworkers. Which one is the best?.

In all honesty I just thought it would be cool to have a category that had no real point except to give some money away. Of course the most popular entry in this category was 'Me'. Apparently everyone seems to think that they were the most deserving... but a few wise guys took it seriously and nominated Alan Cox, Debian, Linus Torvalds and LiViD. Who deserves $2k?.

So I'm kinda filling in for Hemos here since I've only read like 6 books in the last few years. Strangely enough tho I've read each of the following: Open Sources, Programming Perl, The Perl Cookbook, and The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Which is The best?

Like the kernel, Apache has a powerful core, but its really the modules that extend its functionality so much that we can't live without it. The nominees for the Best Apache Module are mod_perl, mod_php, mod_ssl, and mod_rewrite. Pick your favorite.

Few programs arouse the advocacy that the simple texteditor can. Its the software that we run all the time, and it needs to fit us like a glove. Except when you take off the glove and slap the crap out of someone using an inferior text editor. This category really exists just because we like flamewars. The nominees are of course Vim, Emacs, XEmacs, Pico and Joe. Fight it out for the winner and Vote for the one the deserves it.

Face it, if our desktops were ugly, our retinas would melt and then what would we have? Buckets and buckets of melted retinas. That would be disgusting. So this award is for the the part of your desktop that just makes it look pretty. vote at will... the nominees are Enlightenment, Propaganda, XScreeSaver, GNOME and KDE.

The nominees are in for Part II of the 'Why The Hell Not' awards. The nominees for 'Best Slashdot Comment Poster' are Anonymous Coward, Tom Christiansen, Bruce Perens, John Carmack and BOredAtWork. The nominees for 'Favorite Slashdot Author' are CmdrTaco, roblimo, Jon Katz and Hemos. The nominees for 'Best Slashdot Story of 1999' are the Hellmouth series, Suckdot and Quickies. In a surprise announcement, the sole nominee for the 'Hemos' award is none other than... Hemos. Go vote for your favorites now!

The nominees are in for Part One of the 'Why The Hell Not' section of categories. For 'Best Dressed,' the nominees are Rasterman, Tux, RMS, Larry Wall and Alan Cox. For 'Big Dumb Patent Bully,' the nominees are Amazon.com and Unisys. For 'Big Dumb Domain Bully,' the nominees are Etoys, Network Solutions, Microsoft and Archie Comics. For the 'Cluestick Award for FUD in Journalism,' the nominees are ZDNet, Jesse Berst, John Dvorak, Bob Metcalfe and Microsoft. Go vote now to determine who will win a Slashdot 2000 beanie and a hug from CowboyNeal.

We've had a fair amount of nominations for the Slashdot 2000 Beanie Awards, but we'd love to get more, so head over to the nomination booth. For those who missed our initial release, Andover and Slashdot will be giving away $100,000 to deserving Open Source people and projects at LinuxWorld. Nominations end this Friday, with voting starting on Monday. Check out initial story for more details, or the discussion boards for the conversation.

So to kick off the new year, Andover.Net decided that we ought to give away a lot of money. We're excited to announce the 2000 Slashdot Beanie Awards. No, we're not giving away 2000 beanies, but we are giving away prizes ranging from $30k for Most Improved Open Source Project to $10k awards for things like Unsung Hero and Best Community Advocate. You can read the awards index, where you can also discuss the categories as well as place your nominations. Or you can read on to see a list of awards and a description of the nomination and voting process.

The grand prize Slashdot 2000 Beanie Award is Most Improved Open Source Project. Nominations are open for 2 weeks, and you're welcome to talk about your choices. Good luck.

So often the kernel gets all the credit. We decided to be a little pickier and have people vote for the most improved module in the Linux kernel. A driver you really like? Support for that really cool piece of hardware? Or maybe you just really think that bob.o has just some of the prettiest hacks your eyes have seen in it. Regardless, vote away.

Is it some guy on IRC? Maybe some guy who answers the easy questions on a website somewhere. Regardless, being a newbie helper is a tough task. Lord knows I don't have the patience to do it, but someone does. Who is it? Nominate them!

This one is a bit easier... there really aren't very many charities in the Open Source and Free Software world, but this category is for them. You just have to be a non-profit organization that has contributed to the Open Source (or in this case perhaps Free Software ;) movement.

A few names always tend to crop up in a discussion of this nature. The advocates are the people who spread the message of Open Source outside of just the guys who read Slashdot and freshmeat obsessively. Who does it the best? Nominate the person you feel deserves it most.

As we all know, there are certain people who have achieved a lot of fame in the Open Source world. This award isn't for them. This award is designed to put ten grand into the pocket of someone who has contributed to the open source movement in a significant way but has never gotten the spotlight that they deserve. Talk about it. And Nominate the person who deserves it most.

What is on your desktop that soothes your tired eyes? A background image? A really pretty skinned application? A webcam of some girl that you obsessively reload every 60 seconds from the moment you sit at your desk until the moment you pass out? (If it's the last one, you might consider taking some sort of medication before she gets a restraining order against you.) If it's something else, why not try nominating them for their own Beanie Award?