Second Annual Winner of $10,000 Pizzigati Prize Announced by Tides Foundation

Open Source Activist Winner of Nation's Top Award for Public Interest Computing

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tides Foundation announces the winner of the second annual $10,000 Pizzigati Prize. Barry Warsaw, a software developer dedicated to identifying and solving the technological problems that confront social change movements, has won the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest.

Barry Warsaw is being recognized for his work as the lead developer of GNU Mailman, the open source application that hundreds of nonprofits around the world are now using to manage electronic mail discussions and e-newsletter lists.

The Pizzigati Prize -- an award program launched two years ago by Tides Foundation's Florence and Frances Family Fund -- aims to honor individuals who, in the spirit of open source computing, fashion outstanding applications that help nonprofits become more effective in their ongoing social change efforts.

"Barry Warsaw has displayed, over the years, a powerful personal commitment to the ideals behind the Pizzigati Prize," notes Jason Sanders, Tides Philanthropic Advisor who coordinates the prize competition. "His work has demonstrated vision and inspired innovation in public interest computing."

Warsaw's free Mailman application, the judges for this year's Pizzigati Prize observed, has built up a large, experienced base of users who have been more than willing to help new users make the best possible use of the software. And Mailman's design and development team actively listens to -- and interacts with -- everyday users.

These interactions reflect Warsaw's core software development values. "Software developers who believe in social change," he points out, "have a responsibility to work with groups 'on the ground' to assess their technological needs and create or adapt tools where existing offerings fall short."

Warsaw recently began grad study at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he's working with the Global Information Internship Program "to train the next generation of technology activists and place them in internships with social justice organizations around the world."

The Pizzigati Prize honors the brief life of Tony Pizzigati, an early advocate of open source computing who spent his college years at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, where he worked at the world-famous MIT Media Lab and later the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. Three years after his 1992 graduation, Pizzigati, then 24 and a software consultant, died in an auto accident on his way into Silicon Valley.

The four judges on the Pizzigati Prize judging panel (Allison Fine, George Hotelling, Joseph Mouzon, and Katrin Verclas) have each earned wide respect within the nonprofit computing world.

More information about the judges and the judging criteria appear on the Pizzigati Prize Web site at http://www.pizzigatiprize.org. Also available on the site: links to the work of this year's six prize finalists. This Year's Pizzigati Prize finalists, besides Barry Warsaw, included:

-- August Detlefsen, for the Open Architecture Network, the first open source community dedicated to improving living conditions for the world's poor through innovative and sustainable design.

-- Nate Aune, for Plone4Artists, a suite of products for Plone, an open source content management system.

-- Heather Cronk, for PledgeBank, a nonprofit Web site designed to get groups of people motivated to meet challenges they otherwise might not undertake.

-- Subramanya Sastry, for NewsRack, a Web application that helps researchers and nonprofits more precisely track the news that impacts their work.

-- T.J. Downes, for Kalender, an open source application that nonprofits can use for planning and scheduling a wide variety of events.

The deadline for the third annual Pizzigati Prize will be September 1, 2008. Application forms and background information will be available shortly on the Pizzigati Prize Web site.