Last year, ImpressCMS was a finalist in the SourceForge Community Choice Awards in the Best New Project category. We didn't make the cutoff to be in the new project category again this year, but we appealed to the community for nominations in Best Project and any others you felt we earned. The finalists were announced today at SourceForge and ImpressCMS was not among them. There are many other high-profile open source projects that did not place among the finalists either and only one content management system is a finalist (Typo 3).

We would like to recognize the positive contributions each of these projects has made in the open source arena and we are committed to being among them in future competitions.

Best Project

The winner of this category is the best open source application in the world

This year's finalists: XAMPP, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, TortoiseSVN, Audacity, Firebird, FreeNAS, symfony, ReactOS, KeePass Password Safe, an dXMBC Media Center.

Previous winners: OpenOffice.org (2008), 7-Zip (2007), Azureus (2006)

Best Project for the Enterprise

Your boss loves you, you earned a greedy bonus last quarter, and your staff isn’t trying to kill you anymore. All because you decided to deploy this winning application. Good job!

2009 finalists: Typo3, vtiger CRM, TWiki, OpenNMS, Sphinx, OrangeHRM, symfony, Elastix, Popfax Printer, Firebird

Previous winners: OpenOffice.org (2008), Firebird (2007), Zimbra (2006)

Best Project for Gamers

This project is guaranteed to prevent you from doing the productive things you usually do. It’s good to have fun sometimes…now get back to work!

Simutrans, AssaultCube, DeSmuME, EQDKP Plus, Rigs of Rods, Nexuiz, Construct, Privateer Gemini Gold, ScummVM, Mumble

Previous winners: XBMC (2008), ScummVM (2007), XBMC (2006)

Best Project for Multimedia

Remember when “multimedia” just meant that your computer came with a CD-ROM drive and a pair of crappy speakers? Well, things have changed. The winning project in this category makes your pictures look sharper, your audio files sound crisper, and your videos play smoother.

rtmpdump, SFML (Simple and Fast Multimedia Library), LiVES, XBMC Media Center, MediaCoder, Subsonic Media Streamer, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, Kaltura - open source video, MediaPortal, Audacity

Previous winners: VLC (2008), Audacity (2007), XBMC (2006)

Best New Project

SourceForge registers over 100 new open source projects every day, and not every one of them is going to be good. The winner in this category, however, has the potential to be something important. In order to be finalists in this category, projects need to be less than a year old.

eViacam, FLOW3, Cyn.in, eeebuntu, RippleSearch, C++dbc, GoldenDict, Kusaba X, luckyBackup, Choqok

Previous winners: Magento (2008), Launchy (2007)

Best Tool or Utility for SysAdmins

Managing systems is a twenty-four hour job. The winner of this category keeps your pager as quiet as possible.

phpMyAdmin, ISPConfig Hosting Control Panel, Webmin, XAMPP, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, Nagios, Clam AntiVirus, Sphinx, Open Computers and Software Inventory, KeePass Password Safe

Previous winners: phpMyAdmin (2008, 2007, 2006)

Best Tool or Utility for Developers

The winner of this category helps you code faster, do more, and appease your corporate overlords, who don’t seem to understand that writing good code takes time.

Notepad++, ZK - Simply Ajax and Mobile, XAMPP, phpMyAdmin, WinMerge, Lazarus, Joomla Security Scanner, symfony, TortoiseSVN, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB

Previous winners: Notepad++ (2008), TortoiseSVN (2007), Pidgin/Gaim (2006)

Best Commercial Open Source Project ^NEW

Open source and money aren’t mutually exclusive. This category recognizes the best company-managed open source project with commercial intent.

ProcessMaker Open Source, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, Dolphin - Smart Community Builder, Funambol, MindTouch Deki (wiki): Collaboration, KnowledgeTree Document Management, TurboCASH Accounting, Pentaho - Business Intelligence, Cyn.in, XMind

Best Project for Academia ^NEW

The winning project in this category helps you hit the books, analyze global trends, or just understand the world a little bit better than you did before.

GeoGebra, EQAlign, Kile KDE LaTeX Editor, Avogadro, MARSYAS, InrecoLAN FuzzyMath, matplotlib, XMind, GoldenDict, FOG - A Free Cloning Solution

Best Project for Government ^NEW

This is the project most likely to get a mouthful of sweet, juicy bailout money.

AgepaBase, CSI TriSano, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, Beehive Forum, XMind, Medical, OpenOffice.org, ReactOS, Firebird, Sahana disaster management system

Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything ^NEW

Every year, we try to have a category that’s a little more open-ended than the rest…this is the one! The winner of this category will make you rethink your approach to technology, change the way you interact with society, or cause you to rediscover your brain.

Lancelot, KeePass Password Safe, ReactOS, FreeMind, Org-Mode, FreeNAS, RepRap, XBMC Media Center, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, winPenPack

Best Visual Design ^NEW

Also known as the “Swimsuit Competition,” this one’s for the open source project with the best user interface. Good visual design is open source’s new frontier, and the winner of this category excels by lookin’ sharp.

Beehive Forum, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, ProcessMaker Open Source, XBMC Media Center, Lancelot, qooxdoo, XMind, Mac4Lin, ZK - Simply Ajax and Mobile, Cyn.in

Congratulations to all the finalists - please show your support for your favorites and for open source by voting today!