White Camel Awards to be Presented at O'Reilly's Perl Conference 3.0

June 28, 1999

Coming soon -- our nomination form for the first White Camel Awards. Let us know who you think has made outstanding contributions to Perl Advocacy, Perl User Groups, and the Perl Community. The White Camel awards will be presented at Perl Conference 3.0 on August 24, 1999, during the Town Meeting.

SEBASTOPOL, CA--The rare white camel, prized by desert-dwellers, is the inspiration for a new award recognizing the Perl community's "unsung heroes"--those who have devoted extraordinary creativity, energy, and time to the non-technical work that supports Perl's active and loyal user community. The White Camel awards will be presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Perl Advocacy, Perl User Groups, and the Perl Community at O'Reilly's Perl Conference 3.0 on August 24, 1999. The camel has come to symbolize Perl since it first appeared on the cover of O'Reilly & Associates' classic "Programming Perl" in 1991.

Perl Mongers (http://www.pm.org), a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to establish Perl user groups, conceived of and will administer the White Camel awards. Perl users will be able to nominate people for the awards at http://www.perl.com/whitecamel after July 8. The awards are sponsored by Perl Mongers, O'Reilly & Associates, and sourceXchange (http://www.sourceXchange.com), a web-based marketplace for Open Source development.

"Perl's user community has had a huge role in its adoption and ongoing development," said Madeline Schnapp, O'Reilly's Perl Product Manager. "With a marketing budget of zero, the community has championed a technology that has greater market share than its well-funded proprietary competitors. We're delighted that the Perl Mongers initiated the White Camel awards, and we're proud to sponsor them."

CONTACT: Sara Winge, O'Reilly & Associates, 707/829-0515x285, sara@oreilly.com, http://www.oreilly.com