Sun dangles carrot at OSS developers

Source : TechCentral

KUALA LUMPUR: In a bid to encourage more development of open-source software, network computing infrastructure vendor Sun Microsystems has kicked off a rewards programme for developers of such programs.

The company is offering US$1mil (RM3.5mil) in prize money to software developers at six open-source technology communities worldwide — GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenJDK, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and OpenSPARC.

No details were released on how the software developers would collect the reward and representatives of Sun Microsystems said more announcements on the programme would be made next year.

Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer at Sun Microsystems, announced the rewards programme during the Malaysian Government Open Source Software Conference 2007 in Kuala Lumpur recently. He repeated the announcement at another event in Bangalore, India, later.

Phipps said the programme aims to encourage the software developers to produce new solutions using open-source technology, which will help Malaysia grow its technology industry.

“Every time you invest in open-source software (here in Malaysia), you will be investing in local knowledge and skills,” he said in his keynote address at the conference. Also, when Malaysians employ locally-developed open-source software, the cost savings generated means money stays in the country, he said, which helps the country's economy.