Sun Microsystems has a new idea for how to encourage Free Software development: Offer cash.

Major players in the open source enterprise market like Novell and Red Hat have long supported the development of open source software by allocating staff resources to open source development, but Sun is offering a new take on the idea: offering cash prizes direct to the developers of popular open source applications. The program will offer at least $1 million per year in prize money for developers of projects including OpenOffice and OpenSolaris.

According to Sun's FOSS marketing manager, the program is way for Sun to "bring access to technology and information to as many individuals across the world as possible."

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