Chef Blogs

Opscode’s First Chef Cookbook Contest!

Barry Steinglass | Posted on | community | cookbooks

Announcing the first official Chef cookbook contest! There are a ton of great cookbooks on the Opscode Community Site, but we know there are more out there in various states of completion. If you’ve got a cookbook you’ve been thinking of writing, or one that’s already close to done, now’s your chance to submit it and earn the gratitude of the rest of the Chef community. Plus we’ve got prizes!

Details

Any cookbook that isn’t already on the Community Site is eligible to win. Additionally, a nice improvement to one that’s already published also qualifies. If you’ve got a great cookbook for Windows-based systems, a big improvement to an existing cookbook, or a cookbook for a technology that hasn’t received any attention yet, all of these are fair game. Perhaps you’ve got one that shows off the awesome new Chef 10 features, like encrypted data bag items. I also know lots of people who’d like to see additional monitoring cookbooks. There are lots of great ideas floating around the Chef community, and we want those ideas to be given the spotlight. So to encourage you to submit your cookbook in this contest, we’ll be giving away an Apple iPad to each of the 2 grand prize winners, and up to 5 runners-up will get $200 gift cards to newegg.com. All winners also will get an Opscode t-shirt and stickers.

Rules and Submissions

In order to submit your cookbook, it must be open source and shared on community.opscode.com before the end of September. The cookbook must be compatible with Chef 10. Once you’ve published your cookbook, send an email to us at cookbook-contest@opscode.com with:

  • the cookbook’s name.
  • your real full name.
  • your user name on community.opscode.com.
  • (optional) a suggestion for the theme of the next cookbook contest. What would you like to see new cookbooks for?

Multiple entries are allowed, but you can’t submit a cookbook that was published on the site prior to the publication of this blog post, unless you’re making significant updates to it. Employees of Opscode are disqualified from winning.

If you want clarification of the rules, just email cookbook-contest@opscode.com.

Winners

Opscode’s judges will select the winners based on a subjective mix of the following factors:

  • quality and elegance of the cookbook’s implementation.
  • how well the cookbook uses and showcases the awesomeness of Chef.
  • importance of the technology being automated.

The winners will be publicly announced in mid-October on this blog, and contacted by email to claim their prizes.

Cookbook Development Resources

If you’re just getting started with Chef, or just haven’t written a cookbook before, here’s some information that will help:

General information on Chef cookbooks
Instructions on how to write a new cookbook
Examples of Opscode cookbooks
The cookbooks section on the Community Site

Have fun!