Official Rules

(last updated October 14, 2009)

COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:

These are the official rules that govern how The Great PHP on Windows® Contest promotion will operate. The participation elements of the promotion will collectively be referred to throughout the rest of these rules as the “Promotion”.

In these rules, “MTA”, “we”, “our” and “us” refer to Marco Tabini & Associates, its assigns or successors, the sponsor of the Contest. “You” “yourself” “I” “me” and “my” refers to an eligible Promotion entrant. “Site” refers to the Promotion’s official website located at http://phparch.com/win

1. Promotion Description:

This Promotion consists of a “Challenge” to create and submit an application written in PHP and designed to run correctly under Windows® using the IIS platform (applications do not need to run exclusively on this platform, but they need to work correctly on it in order to be eligible). A Grand Prize will be awarded to one winner based on an application of the judging criteria described in the official rules by a panel of judges appointed by MTA and by the general public. Promotion prizes and their values are described below.

Over the course and following the Promotion Entry Period (described below), each Challenge Entry may be presented through the Site’s viewing and rating gallery.

2. What are the start and end dates?

This Promotion starts at 12:00 AM ET on October 19th, 2009 and ends at 11:59 PM ET on February 28th, 2010. This will generally be referred to as the “Promotion Entry Period” throughout the rest of these rules. A “Calendar Day” within the Entry Period starts at 12:00 AM ET and ends at 11:59 PM ET.

Upon the conclusion of the Entry Period, a Voting Period will begin and end on March 31st, 2009, at which point MTA will name the winners of the contest.

3. Can you enter the Promotion’s Challenges?

You are eligible to enter the Promotion’s Challenges if you meet the following requirements:

• You are a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia; and
• You are 18 years old (or 19, if your state of residence is Nebraska or Alabama).
• You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Promotion; and
• You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a MTA employee, an Applied Innovations employee, a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Promotion.

Employees and agents of MTA, Microsoft Corporation, Applied Innovations and their respective parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotional agencies, any other participating prize sponsor, and any entity involved with or otherwise providing services related to this Promotion, (all of the foregoing, together with Sponsor, collectively referred to as "Promotion Entities"), and the immediate family members and persons living in the same household as such individuals, whether related or not, are not eligible to participate or win.

This Promotion and the Challenge is void where prohibited by law.

4. How do you register for the Promotion?

Register for the Promotion by following the directions on the Site (phparch.com/win) and completing all mandatory registration requirements. In conjunction with your registration and potential entry in the Challenge, please consider reviewing these rules, including the judging criteria, and training materials available for viewing at the Site.

5. What constitutes an eligible Challenge Entry?

To be eligible for judging and public rating in a Promotion Challenge, a Challenge Entry must meet the following requirements and be:

• The participant’s original work (or an original contribution to an existing project)
• Distributed under the PHP License or a compatible open-source license other than the GNU Public License.
• Reasonably functional and bug free, and meet its stated design goals
• Written to work PHP 5.2 or above
• Designed to work specifically (but not necessarily exclusively) on Windows and IIS
• For bonus points, leverage Microsoft data storage technologies (i.e., SQL Server, Azure), and client technologies (i.e., Silverlight, Internet Explorer 8).
• Submitted using the sequential steps for the entered Challenge, as specified on the Site within the Promotion Entry Period.
• Made available under continuous hosting (either through the provided hosting service or an external, third-party service) throughout both the Promotion Entry and Voting Periods.
• Not contain/use any personally identifiable information other than a first name.
• Not contain any obscene, racial, defamatory, political or otherwise offensive material as determined by the organizers
• Not infringe on any other person’s or company’s copyright, intellectual or moral rights
• Not contain any personal information other than a first name
• Be based on software for which the participants has obtained any and all consents, approvals or licenses required for the submission
• Not otherwise violate the rights of any other person or other company by using their trademarks, music, logos, names or images without their express written consent

6. How will my Entry be potentially used?

By submitting your entry, you: are granting us an irrevocable, worldwide right and license to:

• reproduce or copy your entry with all known or later developed means in connection with the promotion of this Challenge; and
• distribute the code or files associated with the submitted entry in connection with the promotion of this Challenge; and
• use, review, assess, test and otherwise analyze your Challenge Entry and all its content in connection with this Promotion or the Challenge entered; and
• feature your Challenge Entry and all its content in connection with the judging, voting, communication and advertising of this Promotion in all media (now known or later developed); and
• feature your Challenge Entry and all its content in connection with the promotion of Microsoft Expressions Studio software, Silverlight, Visual Studio, and Windows Live Services in all media (now known or later developed) as appropriate; and
• agree to sign any necessary documentation that may be required for us and our designees to make use of the rights granted above; and
• You also understand that you will not receive any compensation or credit for use of your Challenge Entry, other than what is described in these rules.

Please note that your Challenge Entry may be posted on the Site or a website selected by us for viewing by visitors to the Site or that website. We are not responsible for any unauthorized use of your Challenge Entry. While we reserve these rights, we are not obligated to use your Challenge Entry for any purpose, even if it has been selected as a winning Challenge Entry.

If you not want to grant us these rights to your Challenge Entry, please do not enter this Promotion.

7. How do you submit a Challenge Entry?

After successfully registering, you may create and submit your Challenge entry during a Challenge Entry Period. Only one challenge is allowed for each account; the creation of multiple accounts in order to submit multiple Challenge Entries is strictly prohibited.

Once submitted, eligible Challenge Entries will be reviewed and initially screened and accepted and may, without limitation to other uses and rights stated in these rules, be posted to the Site’s viewing gallery.

We are not responsible for Challenge Entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for tendered information or content that we receive but are not decipherable for any reason.

We will disqualify:

• Any incomplete or illegible Challenge Entry; and
• Any Challenge Entries that we receive from you that we reasonably suspect or believe are out of compliance with the Challenge Entry requirements described in these rules, including containing obscene language or other material.

8. How will Challenge Entries for each of the four Challenges be judged?

A qualified judge or panel of judges engaged by MTA will review all Challenge Entries in the Promotion based upon the following criteria and rank the entrants according to the average number of points achieved:

• Uniqueness/Originality (40 maximum points): is the application unique? How does it differentiate from other applications of the same kind?
• Functionality/Technical Quality (40 maximum points): How well does the application work? Does it follow industry-standard best practices? How well does it take advantage of the Windows technologies?
• Aesthetics and Presentation (20 maximum points): How visually appealing is the application? How well designed is the user interface, if any?
• Bonus points for using Microsoft data storage technologies (SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 Express, Azure Blog Storage, Azure SQL Storage) (10 maximum points, only assignable by the expert panel)
• Bonus points for using Microsoft client technologies (Silverlight, IE8 WebSlices, Accelerators and/or Search Providers) (10 maximum points, only assignable by the expert panel)
• The decisions of these judges are final and binding. In the event of a tie between any eligible Challenge Entries, the tie will be broken by an additional judge who will then judge the tied Entries based on the judging criteria in the order listed above and determine rank order.

9. How will public rating for the Challenge Entries occur?

Throughout the Voting Period, registered visitors (including entrants) to the Site will have the opportunity to visit the Site’s public viewing and rating gallery and rate Challenge Entries as specified on the Site’s gallery. A visitor may only rate a particular Challenge Entry posted and available for viewing and rating through the Site’s gallery one (1) time during the Voting Period (but a visitor may view and rate as many different Challenge Entries as are available).

Any suspected use of robotic, automatic, macro, programmed or like or alias methods to participate or impact the integrity of the rating process in the Promotion, are ineligible and will result in suspension or disqualification from participation in the Promotion, the voiding of suspect ratings and/or other remedial actions or consequences, at Sponsor’s sole discretion. Only ratings received on the Site during an applicable Challenge’s Entry Period will be counted for purposes of the people’s choice format of a Challenge.

All public votes will be averaged and the entries ranked according to their score.

10. What are Grand Prizes for the Promotion?

The contestant whose entry has the highest score averaged between public and panel voting will win a grand prize consisting of:

• A “Dream AV” package, including:
• One Samsung 52” 1080p LCD HDTV (model LN52B540)
• One Samsung Digital 5.1 home theatre system (model TZ322T)
• One XBOX 360 Ultimate
• One trip (airfare, hotel Tuesday-Friday, admission ticket) to php|tek 2010 from anywhere in the continental US
• One speaking opportunity to present the winning application at php|tek 2010

The next two top scoring entries (2–3) will win a runner-up prize consisting of one XBOX 360 Ultimate

The next seven top scoring entries (4–10) will receive a consolation prize consisting of:

• A free one-year subscription to php|architect
• Access to all the PDF issues of php|architect and all PDF books published by MTA
• 50% discount on a php|tek 2010 ticket

Additionally, one hundred individuals will be chosen at random among the participants in the public voting and be awarded a one-year subscription to php|architect magazine.

Total ARV of all Promotion Challenge prizes is US $12,000.

If for any reason the advertised award/prize is unavailable, we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value. If you are selected as a potential winner in this Promotion:

You may not exchange your award for cash or any other merchandise or services;

You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, we reserve the right to award it to an alternate potential winner.

If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize.

11. How will you know if you’re a winner?

Within approximately 14 Calendar Days from the end of a Challenge’s Voting Period, we, or a company acting under our authorization, will complete judging, public voting tabulations and final winner determination and upon verification, will announce a Challenge’s winners on the Site (and potentially elsewhere).

If you are a potential winner, we may require you to sign an affidavit of eligibility, liability/publicity release and/or appropriate tax reporting form. If you do not sign and return these required forms within the time period listed on the winner notification message, we may disqualify you and select an alternate.

12. What other conditions are you are agreeing to by entering this Promotion?

By entering this Promotion and its Challenges you both understand the following and agree:

• To abide by these rules;
• To the extent allowed by law, to release and hold harmless MTA, Microsoft Corporation, any prize providers and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Promotion or any prize won;
• That MTA’s decisions will be final and binding on all matters related to this Promotion; and
• This Promotion will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, United States of America, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of Washington courts (state and federal) for any disputes arising out of this Promotion.

13. What if something unexpected happens and the Promotion can’t run as planned?

If someone cheats, or a virus, bug, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled, (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and / or integrity of this Promotion, we reserve the right to cancel, change or suspend this Promotion, or any element thereof. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Promotion, we reserve the right to select winners from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Promotion.

Computer “hacking” is a crime. If you attempt to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Promotion by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in ANY way, we may seek damages from you to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, we may ban you from participating in any of our future Promotion, so please play fairly.

14. Who is sponsoring and administering this Promotion?

MTA is the sponsor of this Promotion:

Marco Tabini & Associates, Inc.
28 Bombay Ave.
Toronto, ON M3H 1B7
Canada
 
Please forward all contest inquiries to win@phparch.com.