In an interesting development Sourceforge.net has released a service for the open-source community whereby open-source projects can now commercialize their services via Sourceforge (read here). This is interesting because it will allow small open source projects listed on Sourceforge to sell services which was previously not possible. As one blogger points out, such initiative will allow smaller open-source projects to build businesses around their projects.

“It’s one thing for a venture-backed open-source startup to develop new channels. It’s quite another for a one or two-person open-source project to do so. Suddenly, however, these small projects have an outlet to the market. A global market.” – (read the entire post here.)

I have been contributer to an open source project once and I can tell you from experience, managing or contributing to a project online is no trivial matter. It takes lot of time and effort to do so. I have great appreciation for these guys who work for free, open-source projects and who get almost nothing in return. Sourceforge’s direction in this regard is a welcome initiative indeed.