SourceForge — the online development center and revision control system popular with open source projects — has opened a new marketplace aimed at providing user support for open source projects direct from the project developers.

The marketplace, which has been in testing since May 2007, will allow projects to offer service and support for their software to users via tight-integration into the SourceForge website. Projects will be able to offer varying levels of service, as well as specify the forms of payment they will accept for service packages.

While larger open source providers like Novell, Red Hat, and Ubuntu-parent company Cannonical have long offered commercial support for their open source offerings, the new marketplace is being hailed as a major step in allowing smaller projects to provide paid support to users.

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