What is a hackathon

[Brian Callahan]

On 1/29/2014 11:20 PM, Mark Saad wrote:
> All
>   I know this may sound like a silly question but I wanted to get a broad opinion on this.
> My "friends" job announced then would be having a company hackathon, where groups would be
> formed and each group would be given 16 hrs to design and build a project to do stuff.
> There would be winners and looser and prizes given out.  Is this a hackathon or
> something else ?
>

Slightly off-topic history lesson: OpenBSD held the first ever hackathon 
and invented the term.
http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html

>
> His initial reaction when he was told about this was; "This isn't a hackathon, I am not sure what this is ?"
> The organizer said "what do you think a hackathon is?"  He said ... its a collaborative effort, with a common goal
> designed quickly help a project as needed; usually short and rapidly paced.
>
>
> So anyway what do you all think, is this a hackathon or something else.
>
> --
> Mark Saad
> mark.saad at ymail.com