Sun Microsystems on Wednesday will release details of a new award program meant to spur growth and activity within the company's open-source efforts, according to a post by Sun's open-source officer, Simon Phipps, on his corporate blog.

Following on from the success of the inaugural Open Source Content Management System Award, UK publisher Packt is pleased to announce details of its follow up. With new categories and an increase in prize money, the 2007 Open Source CMS Award will launch on July 16 and is expected to appeal to a broader range of projects.

I have a degree in Economics, however, I have never actually worked as an Economist. I am still interested though, and religiously read all the reports on the Fed, the business section of the newspaper, and once a year, the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

The Torvalds-Simpsons Prize is an experiment to see if the Open-Source community can influence mainstream media to give our hero, the one and only Linus Torvalds, a cameo appearance on a regular episode of The Simpsons.

Packt Publishing has announced the overall winner of their 2007 Open Source CMS Award and it's Drupal! This first place award comes with a cash prize of $5,000, the highest of the cash prizes offered, which will be used by the Drupal Association to help the Drupal project flourish.

I woke up on the morning of October 9th to find that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. As I read his acceptance speech, I thought about Free and Open Source Software, and applied parts of his speech to my favorite subject.

A group of Australian Linux enthusiasts are using freely available software and hardware designs to engineer a space craft that could one day land on the moon and reap millions of dollars in prize money from Google. The Lunar Numbat project was started by a team of Australians and New Zealanders who have partnered with the Google Lunar X-Prize team White Label Space.

Lawrence Lessig, professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society, was awarded the prize for his efforts to bridge the gap between outmoded copyright laws and new technology, and for his tireless yet peaceful questioning of the ownership of content.

Have you tried Vista and wound up with one of the many horror stories? Tech website DVICE wants to hear your story. They're even willing to put up a prize for the best Vista horror tale: a new 2 GB Toshiba Gigabeat MP3 player. Just head over to DVICE.com and post your story in their comments section by 5pm Friday. The best story wins the prize.