Open Source Idol

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif—August 11, 2008—GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (www.groundworkopensource.com), announced today Mozilla’s Firefox was successful in beating out the other three contestants, reigning champion “Tux” the Linux kernel penguin, “Beastie” the BSD demon and the GNU “Gnu” to become the world’s favorite Open Source Idol.

During the first ever “Who’s the Next Open Source Idol?” contest held at LinuxWorld 2008 last week, Firefox proved he was the only mascot capable of bringing down the reigning champion – “Tux” the Linux penguin. After a three day neck and neck race of crazy dancing, bull riding, singing, rapping and polling LinuxWorld attendees, Firefox left third place “Tux” out in the cold, winning with 48.5 percent of the final vote. In the end, it came down to the votes of more than 1100 open source fans to decide who would be the next Open Source Idol.

Poll Results

• Tux the Linux Penguin – 6.6%
• The Mozilla Firefox – 48.5%
• Beastie the BSD Demon – 31.6%
• The GNU Gnu – 2.3%

“I was impressed by all the dedicated open source fans out there willing to support their favorite open source mascot,” said Tara Spalding, VP of marketing for GroundWork Open Source. “From dancing the cabbage patch to IT guys doing the worm, the LinuxWorld Idol craze hit the showroom floor.”

“They always say song choice is so important in the final rounds,” said a weary Tux. “I was told to be “current”. Instead of that “Move It, Move It” product placement song, I really should have gone with “Ice Ice Baby”.”

Videos from the showroom floor:

• Trailer Video: Who's the Next Open Source Idol?
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntYQw09umnM)
• Day 1: So You Think Open Source Idols Can Dance
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLjbjMj0Xw)
• Day 2: Dance Off: Tux and GNU vs. Beastie and Firefox
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePYCm3VcB20&feature;=related)
• Day 3: The Open Source Idol Finale!
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seNzv69IpJQ)

“Who’s the Next Open Source Idol” official results:

http://www.groundworkopensource.com/community/survey.html?poll_id=5&novote;=1

About Groundwork

San Francisco-based GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (http://www.groundworkopensource.com) is the market leader in commercial open source network and systems management software, delivering enterprise-class network, system and application management solutions at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions.