Imagine a big aquarium and inside it computer programmers, challenges and prizes instead of fishes. This is how the FISL Programming Arena looks like.

The Arena main objective is promoting a meeting between members in technology community for a contest based in technical skills considering individuals and groups. Is occurs before in remote phases and during the FISL 9.0. The location is a aquarium-room with restricted access in the middle of event center. Free software projects are chosen and used as a case of study for Arena. Following requests and sugestions proposed by participants and the public, this year the contest will be composed in four steps:

1) Registration:

It is the participant's selection phase. From March/8th to April/16th (extended), the candidates will be able to submit solutions for three problems/bugs of GoboLinux distribution, as it was clearly explained here at FISL 9.0 website. The selection will be made by 45 people, being 9 reserves. In addiction, there will be 9 teams with 4 people (36 regular participants).

As it was mentioned about the team organisation, the first 9 in the classification phase will be considered coaches (a role in the extreme programming method). Teams will work in pairs (one of the usual practices in extreme programming method). That means that will have 2 computers for each team.

The selection will be made by creators and maintainers of GoboLinux, following simple criteria: who has submited the 3 resolutions qualified for commit in bugs reference. Eventual draws will be enlightened by the numbers of the problems successfully solved and by the order of submission.

GoboLinux project was born in Rio Grande do Sul, in 2002, being presented to the world by FISL in the same year. Its goal has a difference from others GNU/Linux distributions because of the directory hierarchy implemented that doesn't require package managers like RPM or APT. Despite of copying parts of programs to /usr/bin, /etc or /usr/share/somewhere, each program holds its own directory structure and isolated from others, allowing installed programs and their contents being verified in a simple and intuitive interaction.

2) Remote:

Canceled for extend registration

3) Qualifying:

The first stage in group presencial starts with 9 teams made by 4 people. Qualifying stage spends 24 hours countig from the first FISL day (April/17th). For the first stage, it will be presented to each participant one or more problems related to some free software project revealed just in time and also the evaluation criteria of solutions in order to propose their considerations.

4) Insanifying:

The 16 participants and their respective groups that were qualified in the previous phase dispute the final phase on FISL second day (April/18th). One more problem is proposed to the groups in Qualifying criteria. The team has one and a half day to develop their solutions. In addiction, each groups shall present and substantiate the solution found. It occurs during a session in the FISL official program. Presentations in English language have more preference.

*Awarding

In the last years the winners received notebooks, each member of the team got one. However, the award should not be the main motivation to get involved but the interest to colaborate on projects, learn how to participate and make more programmers excited joining to free initiatives, beyond the pleasure for challenges. Therefore, we won't publicize what kind of award is or even if really exists a real one. Take your chance and feel challenged. Our main objective is to turn Brazil not only a reference in events and free software deployment but also a great creator of it. Be part of this!