The polls are closed and the results are in. We had a record number of votes cast for the eighth straight year. Congratulations should go to each and every nominee. We once again had some extremely close races and a couple multi-year winners were unseated. The official results:

Desktop Distribution of the Year - Ubuntu (35.36%)
Server Distribution of the Year - Debian (25.55%)
Live Distribution of the Year - Ubuntu Live (23.43%)
Database of the Year - MySQL (58.10%)
Office Suite of the Year - OpenOffice.org (93.03%)
Browser of the Year - Firefox (75.89%)
Desktop Environment of the Year - KDE (43.57%)
Window Manager of the Year - Compiz (31.56%)
Messaging App of the Year - Pidgin (53.40%)
Mail Client of the Year - Thunderbird (51.43%)
Virtualization Product of the Year - VirtualBox (61.10%)
Audio Media Player Application of the Year - Amarok (48.80%)
Audio Authoring Application of the Year - Audacity (70.45%)
Video Media Player Application of the Year - mplayer (38.31%)
Video Authoring Application of the Year - Avidemux (19.59%)
Multimedia Utility of the Year - K3b (46.77%)
Graphics Application of the Year - GIMP (70.41%)
Network Security Application of the Year - nmap (28.96%)
Host Security Application of the Year - SELinux (42.86%)
Monitoring Application of the Year - Nagios (39.74%)
Windows on Linux App of the Year - Wine (85.21%)
IDE/Web Development Editor of the Year - Eclipse (24.25%)
Text Editor of the Year - vi/vim (39.76%)
File Manager of the Year - Nautilus (25.54%)
Open Source Game of the Year - Battle for Wesnoth (17.31%)
Programming Language of the Year - Python (26.25%)
Backup Application of the Year - rsync (40.10%)

Winners should expect an email, including a nice winners badge ASAP. If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can improve the MCA's next year, do let me know. Visit http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ice-awards-83/ for the full poll results.

--jeremy

And I thought Herrie was a shoe-in for Media player of the year...

I don't know how hard this would be or if it would even be possible, but I have a suggestion for next year. At least something to think about ... That would be after the polls close, if each poll would reorder itself such that it displayed in the order of how many votes each entry got.

I don't know if it is irrelevant, but maybe something like a poll of web content platforms - Wordpress, Drupal, Plone etc. - could be interesting for next year?

So... I was thinkin... Can we re-open the vote for desktop distro of the year after Lenny goes stable tommorrow? The results may change fast, methinks

Man I wish I would've joined this forum earlier. Maybe I could have boosted Audacity's percentage to 71% for Audio Authoring Application of the Year. I just started using it a few months ago. It's the bomb dig!

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http://cpuinc.com

I was disapointed at the confusion of what this poll is for. Most people responded with their "Favourite" application in each category instead of what they think was the application of the year.

Those two are quite different.

Can you imagine this in any other poll or contest or award?

Maybe the confusion comes from the award being "Member choice awards" but the actual poll being for "application" of the year.

Think about this: Who is your favourite singer vs. who do you think is the singer of the year.

Pretty Good point here.

But I would like to point out that climbing to the top is easier than having to be the top dog for years.

Therefore, quite possibly, the apps at the top have also constantly re-invent themselves to stay relevant.

Firefox for instant, fell in love with it when I was a college student using Mozilla. Been improving a lot since.

Ubuntu user here. Great OS there. If there is anything right now I want a Windows user to switch to, Ubuntu will be the best choice to start them going.

Yep,

Ubuntu is really a nice package. Right now I'm using 8.04, in dual boot mode on my lab Dell, but will want to try the latest version. Right now the weakness seems to be ability for wireless. I'm using a USB Linksys wireless connector. It works fine with Windows XP, but Ubuntu cannot "see" it and drivers for Linux are nowhere to be seen. I think the wireless problem exists with the other distributions also, I think it really is the device's makers who need to come up with drivers.

so no am I the only one not surprised by the results? ubuntu? come on

I thought Desktop distribution would be Fedora..
It would be nice if u involve some comments of voters about their choice

The best thing about this poll is it always seems to prod me into actually trying something new. Typically, just because I am comfortable with what I have been using, I tend to keep using it. This poll gives me that little push to try something that a bunch of other guys think is worth a look. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it does not, but at least I get some personal experience with something new. Thanks!

Not many surprises here... personally I think it's a pity that Opera is not more widely recognized - many (if not most) of the ideas for the most helpful and important firefox plugins come from Opera and have been present there years before any other browser...

One question - or more like its answer - I do find quite interesting:

"Windows on Linux App of the Year - Wine (85.21%)"

Hm... I dare say that beats the purpose of the question somehow... that's near to asking:
"Linux on Linux App of the Year - Linux" ;oP

I guess Ubuntu is the simple choice, expecially because of a number of people in education using it, I find Studio64 a much better option within the Debian family, for a desktop on x86, the multimedia is definitivelly better than on suse or RH/Fedora distributions.

For a business desktop, my number one preference is still Fedora because of type of applications available, and stability.

Anyhow, I use also Suse and Slackware, but so far, if I had only one machine, I would still stick with the dual boot Studio64(debian) for multimedia and Fedora for business.

It would also be interesting to have a poll for free CMS, ERP and all other applications in the various environments (I kind like tend to follow the LAMP/UAMP world, but other solutions could be ok too).