SourceForge’s Marketplace enables registered open-source projects to offer paid services and support through the site. It will compete against Red Hat Exchange and Novell’s Market Start service programs.

An excerpt from InternetNews:

According to Mike Rudolph, vice president for SourceForge and SourceForge.net Marketplace, the SourceForge.net Marketplace is a long-term strategic imperative for his company.

“Ultimately, our role is to ensure success for the open source community,” Rudolph said. “We’ve done this previously by providing a development, hosting and distribution environment. The Marketplace is a logical extension that now allows the community to generate income; either to build a business or just to augment existing income from their full-time work.”

With more than 1,00,000 projects and a million-plus registered users, SourceForge.net is the world’s largest Web site for open-source development and distribution. Also, the company has been witnessing good revenue growth for the last two years.

Listings will be free, but SourceForge will take a commission on the sales. Payments can be made through PayPal, check, or credit cards.