Introducing the ownCloud Contribution Spotlight

If you’ve ever answered someone’s question on the forum, written a tutorial, fixed a confusing line in our docs, or built something on top of oCIS, we appreciate you – and that’s cool, but we also wanted a way to thank you. We’re starting a new way to say thank you, properly, and we want to tell you how it works.

The short version

The ownCloud Contribution Spotlight is a recognition program for the people actually building this community. Every month, starting in January 2027, the community team will pick one contribution (code, documentation, content, or community help) and put it in the spotlight, with a prize to go with it. Not a raffle, not a random draw: we read what you did and pick the one that shows the most genuine effort and impact.

Before that monthly rhythm kicks in, we’re opening with something bigger. We’re calling it the Launch Edition, and it’s a one-time way to get the whole community moving together, with a trip to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2027 in Barcelona on the line.

Why we’re doing this

Open source runs on more than commits. It runs on the person who spent twenty minutes helping a stranger debug their oCIS install, the one who finally rewrote that confusing paragraph in the docs nobody wanted to touch, the one who made a tutorial that got three other people unstuck. That work rarely gets a spotlight of its own, it just gets folded into „the community helped.“ We want to change that, and this program is a first, honest attempt at it (we’ll adjust as we learn what actually works, more on that below).
We want real feedback, so if it is something you want us to improve, please also consider opening a feature request or bug report, or give us feedback in our feedback form.

The Launch Edition: what it is and how to join

The Launch Edition runs from October 7th (kicking off at Open Source Summit Europe in Prague) through December 1st, 2026.
What you need to do is:

Part one: Join the community and let us know what you think

1. Sign up for the community newsletter,
2. Star us on GitHub,
3. Follow ownCloud on social media,
4. Demo oCIS and use Collabora to try it out *
5. Give us honest feedback*

* Proof  for step 4 & 5:

• Create any type of document
• Give honest feedback about a feature of ownCloud and one feature of Collabora in that document
• Take a screenshot
• Add it to a social media post, tagging #ownCloud

Part two: Contribute
Alongside the tasks, we’re asking entrants to make an actual contribution to the project, in whichever of these forms fits what you do best.
One thing worth noting: you don’t need one big, flashy contribution to qualify.
If you answered several forum questions this month, mentored someone new, or made a handful of smaller docs fixes, you can bundle multiple contributions into a single entry.
We care about genuine, cumulative effort, not whoever produces the single most impressive-looking thing.
Some examples of contributions:

• Web extensions
  Something that works and is documented. (An example that would not qualify is a  renamed fork of someone else’s extension with hardly anything changed.)
• A documentation contribution.
  A real fix to a confusing section, new screenshots or diagrams, a bundle of related corrections. A single typo fix is lovely, but it’s not what we’re spotlighting here.
• Video or written content
  A tutorial or walkthrough that actually teaches something, not a low-effort reupload.
• Community or forum help
  Answering questions, helping out (new) members, and especially when that means it solves someone’s actual problem, or sustained helpfulness over time. Again, we appreciate the effort, so even if you
• Bug fixes, Bug reports, Feature Requests, etc.
  As long as they are genuine and, as everything else here, yours and explainable.
  Remember to bundle your contributions!

How to actually enter

Open a GitHub Discussion in owncloud/community, under the „Spotlight: Launch Edition„ category, using the entry template we’ll publish there. Use it to show both your tasks and your contribution, and keep adding to the post as you go. You don’t need to have everything finished on day one; you can build it out right up until December 1st, just make sure each update you add is clearly dated so we can tell what happened during the window.

Once your post is up, fill out this short contact form with your name, email, and a link to your Discussion post, so we know how to reach you if you win. That’s all the form is for, your actual entry lives in the Discussion post itself.

How the winner gets chosen

The community team reads every entry and picks the one that shows the most meaningful, genuine impact, by internal vote. We want to be upfront about this: it’s not a lucky draw. A quick, box-checked submission won’t beat someone who actually engaged with the product and contributed something real, and we think that’s exactly as it should be.

The Launch Edition winner will be announced live at our December 18th OSPO Community Review, and they’ll receive a ticket to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2027 in Barcelona (or a prize of equivalent value, if travel isn’t possible for them). This is a one-time prize tied to this one-time launch, it won’t repeat every month.

What happens after December 1st

Starting in January 2027, the Spotlight becomes a regular monthly thing. Every month, contribute in any of the formats above (the lightweight launch tasks are specific to this round and won’t carry forward), and the community team picks that month’s most meaningful entry. The prize settles into something smaller and more sustainable, a voucher worth around €100, with the exact form still being finalized.

If you enter the monthly Spotlight and don’t win in a given month, don’t worry, your Discussion post stays open. Keep adding to it, and you’re still in the running the following month. Once someone wins, though, their post closes out: that recognized work has had its moment, and the next round starts fresh for everyone else.

This is a first version, and we mean that

We’re genuinely treating this as a v1. We’ll be opening a thread on ownCloud Central specifically to hear how this feels from your side, what’s working, what’s confusing, what we got wrong, and we expect to make changes based on that. If something about this program doesn’t sit right with you, we actually want to hear it.

Thanks for being part of this community, in whatever form that takes for you. We’re looking forward to seeing what you share.

Questions about the program? Drop them in the owncloud/community discussions or reach out to the OSPO team.