Penguicon's 2012 Hack of Honor, Open Soda, could be thought of as “The Hack that Penguicon built.”

It all began at a Penguicon long, long ago; in a hotel far, far away…..

Speaking of metaphors that help to explain how the free and open source development model works: Penguicon’s former Guest of Honor Cory Doctorow and Nifty Guest Karl Schroeder used to be involved with a company named OpenCola. In addition to creating open source software, they sold a soft drink with a public recipe that anyone could use or modify to brew up the black waters of corporate imperialism in their own kitchen.

Well, as a Penguicon heavy crowd of folks gathered interest in this open source liquid adventure, they did just that. They made a Penguicon build of the OpenCola recipe and served it in our hospitality suite. Never fear, the bathtub was still full of ice and complimentary cans of Coke and Pepsi for all Penguicon attendees. But thanks to the expertise and craftsmanship of our food chemistry team, there was just as much demand for Open Cola as name-brand cola.

From that meager beginning, The project grew and morphed. In subsequent years the dedicated team expanded their line to original non-cola flavors and became the OpenSoda project. For years Open Soda could be found in Penguicon's ConSuite, but then…it was gone. Life, time and many things kept Open Soda away from Penguicon and for 2 years, we the attendees wondered, would it make a return?

Spring of 2012, Penguicon's Head of Hospitality reached out to The Open Soda Project, hoping against hope. Hospitality soon found out, not only was there new life in the Open Soda Team, but newest member, Anthony Distel and long time Open Soda expert Bill Putt, armed with the knowledge and history of the sodas that have slurped before, created a special, secret flavor of Open Soda. A Flavor to be revealed at Open Soda's triumphant return to the Penguicon, and the 2012 ConSuite!

Now the Penguicon 2012 ConSuite and ConCom, proudly announce the return of and designation of Penguicon's 2012 Hack of Honor to be Open Soda. Our Open Soda Wranglers are Anthony Distel & Bill Putt.

From it's humble beginnings to it's triumphant return, we honor all the names and faces of Penguicon who've helped to bring this incredible Hack to fruition:

• Cory Doctorow
• Karl Schroeder
• Bill Putt
• Anthony Distel
• Chuck Child
• Matt Arnold
• Aaron Thul
• Mark Szlaga
• Shar Nimms
• Steve DeHart
• and each and every Penguicon Attendee who dared to try creating Open Soda or tried it on a dare

The Penguicon 2012 Hack of Honor logo says it all: “OpenSoda.org - Make it your own!” ← and we damn sure did!