Sun Offers Reward Program to Boost Open Source Effort

e5rebel writes to tell us that Sun Microsystems has announced they they will be creating a reward program in order to compensate open source programmers for their work in a hope to boost open source efforts. The program will involve communities like OpenSolaris, GlassFish, OpenJDK, OpenSPARC, NetBeans, and OpenOffice.org according to Simon Phipps, Sun's open source officer. "Phipps' post comes some months after Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software, voiced skepticism over the open-source status quo, where developers who contribute to various efforts go uncompensated while corporations are enriched. 'It really is a worrisome social artifact,' Green said at the time. 'I think in the long term that this is a worrisome scenario [and] not sustainable. We are looking very closely at compensating people for the work that they do.'"

Most open source will come from India???

[bn0p]

On reading the article the main thing that jumped out at me was the assumption that Sun, or at least Simon Phipps, believes that most open source programming will be done in India.

Why would we outsource open source software? Is there really that little interest in FOSS in the US, EU, etc.?


Never let reality temper imagination

Compensating People....

[Anonymous Coward]

for the work that they do at a rate way, way below a Western engineer's salary.

On the one hand, it's the right thing to do. On the other, I will be shocked if it is a living wage for a developer living in the EU/US.

good pr

[mytrip]

I think this is a good idea. Google has done well in becoming a favorite with web developers because it helped them make money off their websites. IBM increased revenues by supporting open source because they can sell their stuff as being oss friendly. People are going to be more likely to make their software sun/solaris/java friendly.

This is a sharp turnaround from when all unix variants competed with each other.

Re:Please don't

[ByOhTek]

I'm not sure if I'd call it poison. Those projects look like things which help with the livelyhood and profitability of Sun Microsystems.

If Sun wants to give some compensation to the developers that have helped them make money, and the developers don't mind accepting, what's wrong with it? It is certainly fair.

Re:Taking into account human nature

[JohnFluxx]

That happened in Debian when they tried to pay some people in an effort to try to get Debian into a state good enough for release. It made other jealous and they slowed down.

Re:Please don't

[russ1337]

I got an e-mail from Sun the other day offering to send me Solaris on DVD, and if I activate it within 45 days, they'll also send me some gift certificates for various restaurants. I think it's funny that they're kind of bribing people into trying Solaris.

I got the same thing yesterday. They noted that i'd downloaded part of the install, and didnt complete it... (it was over a Gig). Anyway, they promised $50 in restaurant vouchers if I completed the download and did the install. I finished the download overnight (downloading their smaller .exe self extracting file (still over 1GB). TOday I get an e-mail offering $100 in vouchers (in $25 increments)...

I'm still wondering what the catch is..

I note that you have to register (didn't see any cost associated), and you're supposed to put a service tag on your machine (download and print yourself), and I'm just wondering if a bill for an OS is going to turn up one day, so I'm treading very carefully. ("if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is")

anyone?

I'm in.

[TheDarkener]

Even though I am a technical support/consulting micro-business (READ: one man), I am incredibly motivated by the nature of open source. I'm motivated enough to make it my #1 priority for my business, to bring it to more and more people.

I'm currently undergoing a major project (for me, anyway) involving LTSP in education, and I would *gladly* give some of my profit back, especially for bug fixing specific issues that I run into, as well as general profit-sharing with the people who work on LTSP. I am making money off of open source, and I feel it only honest and right to share it with those who have worked so hard to make it what it is today.

Sun FTW!

Re:Already done. Re:Monetization of labor

[civilizedINTENSITY]

If you go back before 1983 you'll see source used to be open by default. The GNU was originally more a *reactionary* movement (to source closing), not so much a *revolutionary* movement. Lets go back to the days where all commercial software was delivered as source code to be compiled at the machine it is delivered to! Hehehe. No, seriously. At least make the code available.