It's Been Eighty Four Years...
For the first time in four years, Ubuntu Studio is opening up a wallpaper competition! While the default wallpaper will, once again, be designed by Ubuntu Studio art lead @eylul but we need your help to fill create a truly wonderful collection of unique wallpapers!
In the past, we’ve only posted and advertised this to the Ubuntu Studio community, but this time we’d like to give an opportunity to the Ubuntu community at-large to come up with some amazing wallpapers. As we have already seen from the Ubuntu Noble Numbat 24.04 Wallpaper Competition, this community has some talent!
Now for the rules:
After the submission window closes, we will be be accepting the top five submissions as determined by the Ubuntu Studio Project Leader (@eeickmeyer) and Ubuntu Studio Art Leader (@eylul). We will not be opening this up to a community vote simply due to time constraints.
Also note: we will not be including any wallpaper winners that win in the Ubuntu Noble Numbat 24.04 Wallpaper Competition.
The AI Question
We’ve made the decision to disallow the entry of AI generated artwork for this competition. Here’s a few reasons why we’ve made that choice:
- Many popular AI art generation tools use a license that does not align with those that we have chosen for our competition.
- There are active legal debates on the ownership of AI generated artwork and whether it can or can’t be copyrighted.
- Many popular AI models have been shown to include artwork from artists without their consent. We do not believe this aligns with our community’s values and stated mission.
If your submission displays hallmarks of AI generation, you may be asked to provide proof of human creation, which may include a request for source project files.
Competition Rules
If you’d like to join in the wallpaper fun, there are a few other important rules that you need to follow:
- You must own the rights to the image you are submitting, it should be your original work of art.
- The full quality image must be 3840x2160px. PNG and WebP formats are preferable.
- Please ensure you create a high quality image. Avoid image compression artifacts, pixelation, chromatic aberration and noise. Please do not add any watermarks, names or logos. See also these helpful guidelines from GNOME on screen backgrounds.
- The Ubuntu Discourse will automatically compress all posted images. A full resolution submission will be requested of the chosen winners at the conclusion of the competition.
- When posting your image, please include a note that you are licensing the image as CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY 4.0 . If you do not specify a license we will assume CC BY-SA 4.0 . By entering the competition you are agreeing to these license terms.
Important Dates
Make sure you put the following dates into your calendar:
February 16, 2024 (UTC) - Submission Window opens.
March 11, 2024 (UTC) - Submission Window closes and Judging Period begins.
March 15, 2024 (UTC) - Judging Period closes and the winners are announced!
Previous Competition
Not sure where to start? Check out the results from the previous wallpaper competition!
Go out on a limb—that’s where the fruit is
Participating in the Wallpaper Competition is a fun and easy way to contribute to Ubuntu! You don’t need to be an expert artist of a professional photographer. As a great artist one said, "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do.”
To learn more ways that you can get involved, check out ubuntu.com/community .
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