Sun plans open source awards

Sun Microsystems on Friday announced a multi-year programme called the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program, which will foster innovation and recognise some of the most interesting initiatives within Sun-sponsored open source communities worldwide.

To participate in the programme's first year, Sun has selected six communities: GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenJDK, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and OpenSPARC. Prizes are expected to total at least $1 million a year.

Beginning in mid-January 2008, Sun and the six open source communities will announce details on how developers can participate in the individual programs. Each community will have its own contest rules and judging criteria. Prizewinners will be announced in August 2008.

"Developer communities are at the heart of tech industry innovation and are Sun's lifeblood," said Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems.

"Every software product at Sun "" literally billions of dollars in assets "" is going free and open source, and fuelling the communities and innovation around these technologies is our top priority. I can't wait to see the creativity, passion, and vibrancy of the programme's participants," he added.

Phipps further elaborated that the Indian open source coummunity is fast maturing and it will not be too long before this country takes the centre stage in this adoption.