It all started with a happy accident

I have a confession to make. This contest, which is directly fueling the largest expansion of the TurnKey library since the project started, is a happy accident. It wasn't something we planned. It wasn't on our summer todo list. It was just one of those unexpected, spontaneous ideas that light up the inside of your brain like a flash bulb, and demand you take action. Or else! (you won't get any sleep)

Back in June we had just launched the TurnKey Hub and were getting ready to focus all our energies on releasing TKLBAM. I logged into PayPal and noticed our donated beer budget had a sad little beer belly. It was just sitting there, giving me an accusing look. I felt guilty. Surely all those people who donated expected we would put these funds to better use. That's when it hit me. It was too much to buy beer, but not so much that we couldn't risk it all on a fun experiment...

I talked it over with Alon and on an impulse we decided to do a contest, but not just any contest. A wild and wet summer open source bonanza! With ponies!

What happened next took us both by surprise.

Over the last few months donations have been trickling in and gradually piling up. Since there's a limit to how much beer we can reasonably drink we've been brainstorming ideas for using that money to help the project.

Well, it took a little longer than expected, but we are pleased to announce that TurnKey Core - the common base for all appliances, has been released based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx).

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be supported for five years.

This is a beta release, so take it for a spin, let us know what you think. If you come across any issues, please report them. If you have ideas on how to make it better, let us know.

We've just pushed out a maintenance release for the 2009.10 appliance batch featuring:

• Bugfixes for all outstanding issues (we're out of beta baby!)
• Security updates
• Simplified free subscription to Amazon EC2 AMIs
• New and improved Amazon EC2 AMIs