I'm not sure why it is so hard to get GUI authors to sign-up their GUIs, they put so much time into them and don't want to be recongnized? Anyhow, this year I opened sign-ups so that fans could sign up GUIs for the author and that got the total of 3 GUIs(with downloads) to a total of 5. This year I am writing this article so that the GUIs that are entered don't just get hidden on a shelf, they can actually be used and you can learn a little about them.
DREAM16 Download
A new GUI by Bongomeno released just before the end of sign-ups, early in development and making a lot of progress fast, I would bet on it being one of the highlights of next years GUI Awards.
Geode
Geode was supposed to be entered by Jason (Horatio), and even was signed up, but unfortunately the download wasn't up at the time of the sign-up thread being locked. Jason got fifth last year and is a commoner on the Blog. Geode is going to be a scripter something we didn't have many of this year, this is definately the biggest disappiontment of GA2009.
Costa 0.9.8 Download
Costa was started in 2004 by Jacob Palm, his web-site and forum ended up inspiring many GUI developers, including myself. Costa was made for and tested on real 386-486 generation computers which meant that if nothing else Costa would have some short of real world application. In GA2005 Costa got 3rd place, due mostly to the fact that Jacob himself was a judge and refused to rank his own GUI. Then Jacob and Costa disappeared until earlier this year. It was a huge surprise to see a Costa release and to see how solid and professional it was. It serves well as a Desktop for DOS apps, and doesn't really include many "fluff" applications.
Fun500 5.1.1 "Gold" Download
Fun500 is my GUI, I started developing it in late 2004 or 2005 and realeased the first version in 2005. It has been through many releases,BETAs and cores, but the name has remained the same since 2005. It's done pretty well in GUI Awards over the years, second in GA2005, first and second in GA2007, and second in GA2008. This year with Fun500 5, I set out to make a professional, stable GUI with a repository. Likely the best looking and fastest in the 5 series is 5.1.1 and the "Gold" edition comes with everything from the repository installed out of the box.
Spark 1 Download
Spark is a GUI by Aguma (Andrew), he as been a commoner on the GUI Blog since it switched to Joomla! and has been working on various GUIs, like FAR OS and Spark. This year Spark is looking better than ever, but lacks polish and was rushed due to the holidays.
Asgard Download
Last year, "the new guy", Trolly won GUI Awards with his GUI Q-Step. Asgard is the sequel to Q-Step although it is very different. It became the first GUI to be released with a working Package Manager, although technically it can't uninstall applications (Mine can :P). There is a decent selection of programs, but none as noteworthy as the QML Browser, the first in any BASIC GUI and it renders pretty well.
3.Fun500 5.1.1 "Gold"
Congradulations. I'll be seeing you next year ;P