Hackathon

A hackathon is a gathering where programmers collaboratively code in an extreme manner over a short period of time. Hackathons are at least a few days - or over a weekend - and generally no longer than a week. While working on a particular project, the idea is for each developer to have the ability and freedom to work on whatever he/she wants. A hackathon is also known as a hackfest or hack day. The roots of hackathons are with open source projects and especially noted in the context of OpenBSD development. Recently, a number of companies adopted the hackathon concept - a subject of much debate. Some view a hackathon as a way to allow development teams to work on chosen projects.